In Memoriam: James Earl Jones (1931-2024), Part 3

 

[When I received the regular e-mail from American Theatre, it included a link to an article by Phylicia Rashad.  It was a memoir about her work with James Earl Jones on the Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in which she played Big Mama to his Big Daddy. 

[This was in the evening of the day that I posted “In Memoriam: James Earl Jones (1931-2024), Part 2.”  I immediately decided to add a third installment to the brief series so I could republish Rashad’s interesting memory piece.  Because the memoir is fairly short, I decided to accompany it with a few other pieces I though would be interesting and informative: two reviews of the production and a New York Times article from 1974 which was quoted in Part 1.

[The details of the 2008 revival of Cat, which premièred on Broadway in 1955, are laid out in Part 2 of “In Memoriam,” posted on 25 September (Part 1 was posted on 22 September), so I won’t repeat them here.  Many of Jones’s plays, films, and TV shows mentioned in the articles below are also detailed in Parts 1 or 2 for your reference.] 

Me and Mr. Jones
by Phylicia Rashad 

[Rashad’s memoir was posted on the American Theatre magazine site (AMERICAN THEATRE | Me and Mr. Jones) on 23 September 2024.]

A longtime admirer and colleague remembers the man and the questions that drove his work. 

James Earl Jones, the acclaimed actor who made his name onstage in The Great White Hope, Boesman and Lena, Fences, and countless other plays, including Othello, died on Sept. 9. He was 93.

[The U.S. premiere of Boesman and Lena by Athol Fugard (South African; b. 1932) opened Off-Broadway at Circle in the Square Downtown in Greenwich Village on 22 June 1970 and ran until 24 January 1971 for 205 performances. Jones, as Boesman, starred opposite Ruby Dee (1922-2014) as Lena under the direction of John Berry. The production won Obie Awards for Best Foreign Play, Distinguished Direction, and Best Performance by an Actress.]

It was in the spring of my sophomore year at Howard University [historically black private university in Washington, D.C., chartered in 1867; Rashad is a magna cum laude alumna of the class of 1970]. As I was leaving class, I heard a group of female students in a flutter. “He’s here!” “Did you see him? I’d heard that he was coming, but I didn’t think it was today!” “Well, it is today! He is here and he is magnificent!”

I had no idea of who had caused such commotion, but as I approached the exit, peering through the glass doors, I saw him: Mr. James Earl Jones.

The Great White Hope was in its pre-Broadway performance run at Arena Stage [1967-68]. He had taken time out of his theatre schedule to visit this historic institution of higher learning; and yes, he was magnificent! Statuesque, handsome, and strong, with an air of gentleness about him.

Fast forward to post-graduation, living in New York City. A friend had tickets to see the Broadway production of Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs [Broadway’s Longacre Theatre, 1970]. Following the performance, we were allowed to visit Mr. Jones in his dressing room. He was very kind to receive us. My friend asked all the questions. He noted that, and with a smile turned to me and said, “You don’t speak much.” “Well,” I said, “my mother taught me that there were two times when one should be silent: When you have nothing to say, and when it’s not your turn.” He laughed at that.

More than 30 years would pass before we would perform in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Playing Big Mama opposite his Big Daddy, under the direction of my sister, Debbie Allen Nixon, had been beyond my dreams. But there we were in the rehearsal space, working it out together.

When I am asked, “How was working with James Earl Jones? What was his process? What was he like?” I pause before answering. My first observation was his interest in the “sinews” of thought. Pondering and probing the complexity of human behavior, asking questions of himself that few artists would consider, he’d come to one thought or question that he deemed most important in understanding who the person/character was; he would pursue that thought or question throughout rehearsals and performances. He had to be in the heart of the character. I would learn more about this later when we would speak about August Wilson and his portrayal of Troy Maxson in Fences [46th Street Theatre on Broadway, 1987-88].

His focus was relaxed, his level of concentration was astounding. Of everyone involved in the production (Tony, Golden Globe, and Emmy winners and an Oscar nominee among them), Mr. Jones was clearly the most seasoned and the most gracious. This was Debbie’s Broadway directorial debut. He adored her, and listened with rapt attention to everything that she had to say, eager to explore her suggestions while offering his own. Debbie enjoyed improvisation as a means of discovering “what lies beneath the written page.” Mr. Jones said, “I don’t know. I don’t do well with improvisation. I’ve never been good at it, but okay, I’ll try it!” He tried it and he liked it.

Mr. Jones was a “living legend,” and we all knew it. But this iconic status—well deserved by virtue of decades of sustained excellence in performance onstage, in film, and on television—did not preclude normal interactions with people. Being with Mr. Jones was easy because of his genuine interest in each person that he met. He was present, kind, and accessible.

During the time of our work together, through casual conversations, James Earl (as I had come to call him) would share life experience and reflections: the trauma of separation from his parents at the age of 5 years old, which resulted in stuttering; the embarrassment and anguish at being mocked that was the reason for several years of self-imposed silence; the study of poetry that led to discovery of his capacity for clear, unobstructed speech [see “Stage Unites Two Jones Generations” by C. Gerald Fraser, below].

His high school English teacher gave an assignment for students to write a poem. James Earl wrote “Ode to a Grapefruit.” Students were required to read their poems aloud to the full class. The inevitability of being mocked for stuttering was terrifying; but there was no way out. He stood before the class to read his poem, knowing that it would be a disaster; but to his surprise, there was no stutter. His speech was free! Speaking the written word aloud became a pathway forward.

We spoke about many things. Our conversations were always interesting. One centered around Troy Maxson in August Wilson’s Fences. We spoke about the language of the play; how Wilson had captured rhythmic speech. James Earl said that in his early years as an actor, it was his father, the actor Robert Earl Jones, who told him to remember his Southern roots, because “the time will come when people forget this way of speaking and you won’t be able to teach them.” When I asked about his approach to developing the character, he simply shared this reflection, “Lord, forgive me for wanting so much; but I am so wanting.” He continued by saying that the most important thing for him to know about Troy was if he was really capable of killing his son. He never answered that question—not to me, at least. If Troy Maxson had been capable of murdering his own son, it would have been completely antithetical to James Earl’s thinking and way of life.

What mattered most in life to James Earl Jones was his family. He treasured his wife, Cecilia, and his son, Flynn Earl. He was passionate about his work, relished the creative process, and valued his friends and professional associates. He was compassionate, non-judgmental, knowledgeable about many subjects, well-versed in literature, critically acclaimed as an artist, revered as a human being.

[Phylicia Rashad is an Emmy- and Tony-winning actor and director.  Like my experience with Jones, I saw Rashad on stage twice, both as replacements for the originating actresses: in April 1988, as the Witch in Into the Woods at the Martin Beck Theatre (now the Al Hirschfeld) and in June 2009 as Violet Weston in August: Osage County at the Music Box.]   

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“BLACK CAST SIZZLES ON B’WAY IN ‘CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF’”
by Linda Armstrong

[I chose two reviews of the 2008 revival of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to post with Phylicia Rashad’s memory article.  This one’s from the New York Amsterdam News of 6 March 2008.  I thought it would be good to spotlight the notice in New York City’s premier African-American weekly considering the historic nature of the production.]

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” sizzles with sexuality, frustration, guilt and anger. This historical production—which, for the first time on Broadway, is being performed by an all-Black cast—features powerhouse performances by Anika Noni Rose, James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Terrence Howard, Giancarlo Esposito and Lisa Arrindell Anderson.

It also has the innovative direction of Debbie Alien, who saw fit to have each scene of the three-act production introduced by a saxophone player belting out the blues.

From the time that the production starts, the audience is taken on an emotional rollercoaster. Emotions are vividly expressed by Maggie (Rose), as she speaks to her husband Brick (Howard). Maggie is an attractive woman, who has to endure being married to a man who will not touch her, a man who is disgusted to look at her because of a single act of betrayal she committed. The act she committed was so heinous that it also contributed to Brick beginning to drink alcohol. His alcoholism is so extreme that he has to drink until he hears a click in his head—a signal that his body has enough alcohol in it to escape from the problems in his life.

Maggie does most of the talking as the production begins, and she talks fast. She has to keep talking since Brick tends to give short responses. Maggie is a character who one feels a great deal of sympathy for because all the cards are stacked against her. She is a victim on so many levels. Her husband will not touch her. She is childless and the butt of cruel words by the family.

When most people think of the character of Maggie, they probably think of the movie version of “Cat on a hot Tin Roof” that starred Elizabeth Taylor in the role [MGM, 1958]. But, as you sit in the Broadhurst Theatre on W 44th Street, you won’t have time to reflect on Taylor’s performance, because Rose makes that character her own from the time that she takes the stage. She has such an energy, frustration and desperation about her that she clearly and brilliantly makes sure that the audience experiences everything that this character is going through.

In the opening scene, as I mentioned, she does a lot of talking and has opinions to share on everything from her brother[-in-law (he’s Brick’s brother)] and sister-in-law, to their five “no-neck children.”

There is simply not enough that one can say about Rose’s riveting and captivating performance in this role. An actress who most people associate with musical roles, such as her performing in “Caroline, Or Change” [2004; Rose won the 2004 Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and the Theatre World Award], and in the movie version of “Dreamgirls” [DreamWorks/Paramount, 2006], Rose has without a doubt, proven that her training as a dramatic actress has not been wasted.

What just makes this production so wonderful is that you have a cast of Black all-stars who just click on stage. Each person holds their own with their character. Tony Award-winner James Earl Jones is absolutely hilarious at times and a bit shocking, as he does more than dabble in the expletives as his character of Big Daddy lets everyone know how he feels. Big Daddy is insulting and mean to everyone, except for Brick. He is horribly cruel to Big Mama (Rashad)—a woman he admits to disliking for 40 years.

As always, Phylicia Rashad, also a Tony Award-winning actor [2004, Best Actress in a Play for A Raisin in the Sun; 2022, Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play for Skeleton Crew], plays her character of Big Mama to perfection. She is clearly hurt by the cruel things that Big Daddy says and is very vulnerable to his verbal attacks. She is also someone who loves him despite of how he treats her.

Terrence Howard couldn’t have picked a better vehicle in which to make his Broadway debut. He handles the character of Brick very well. He plays the character pretty low-key and is only upset when anyone brings up his friend Skipper, who committed suicide. Howard’s delivery of the character is very smooth and he seems to have a good time on stage.

Giancarlo Esposito (Gooper) and Lisa Arrindell Anderson (Mae) are absolutely perfect in their roles as the money-grubbing son of Big Daddy and his money-hungry wife. Mae shoots pure venom whenever she speaks about Maggie being childless or Brick’s alcoholism and Gooper does not care if Big Daddy is dying, he just wants to make arrangements so he can get the 28,000 acres of rich land that Big Daddy has amassed in Mississippi.

Supporting cast members who give brief, but memorable performances include Lou Myers and Count Stovall, who play Reverend Tooker and Doctor Baugh, respectively.

There are many powerful emotions expressed throughout this play and one emotion that Alien makes sure to interject, just at the right moment, is humor. Just about each time there is a very tense moment, Alien allows a character to be comic relief and break the tension. She does a masterful job directing this production, which can be emotionally draining for an audience.

I’m not going into a lot of detail about the story line. This family’s problems are something you need to experience for yourself. Due to a lot of cursing however, this production would be inappropriate for viewing by someone younger than a teenager.

[Review-writer Linda Winer of Long Island’s Newsday reported: “For the record, those naughty words were the ones Williams wanted but couldn’t use in the ’50s” (“It's good to cross black 'Cat's' path,” 7 Mar. 2005).  That would have applied to Elia Kazan’s 1955 stage production and Richard Brooks’s 1958 film version. (Kazan also famously made Williams change the ending.)]

What kept going through my mind sitting in the audience this weekend, was that this production is brilliantly performed and such a pleasure to experience. It is just so important to show that our people can bring these classic works to life as vividly as any other actors can. I am so glad that producer Stephan Byrd pursued getting the rights for this play for 14 years. “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” is a masterpiece by Tennessee Williams that needed to be presented with our spin. It opens tonight [6 March 2008]!!! For tickets call (212) 239-6200.

[Linda Armstrong has been a theater reviewer for over 36 years, writing for New York Amsterdam News, Harlem News (A&E Editor), Headliner Magazine, Playbill Online, Theatre Week Magazine, Show Business Weekly Newspaper, Network Journal Magazine, Our Time Press (Column: “From The Aisle”), Neworldreview.net—Theatre Editor, and Broadwaysbestshows.com.] 

*  *  *  *
“‘CAT,’ FRESHLY SKINNED”
Terry Teachout 

[The second review I selected was from the Wall Street Journal of 7 March 2008.  The late Terry Teachout, the Journal’s chief theater reviewer, was considered a “conservative” critic.]

If you want to behold a great actor giving of his very best, the show to see is “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” James Earl Jones has turned his back on Broadway in recent years—his last appearance there since the 1987 premiere of “Fences” [1987] was in a short-lived 2005 revival of “On Golden Pond,” a synthetic weeper that was unworthy of his towering talent [Pond was a limited run that was further shortened when Jones, 74 at the time, contracted pneumonia]—and so it is a pleasure to welcome him back to town in a role that puts him to the test. Needless to say, Mr. Jones plays Big Daddy, the cancer-ridden plantation owner whose greedy children can barely wait to gobble up his estate, and watching him tear through that giant-sized part is like standing in the path of a cannonball. Alas, you’ll have to pay a high price for the privilege of seeing Mr. Jones strut his stuff, because much of the rest of this unfortunate production borders at times on the downright amateurish.

The amateur-in-chief is Terrence Howard, the erstwhile star of “Hustle & Flow” [2005, Paramount Classics] who is making his stage debut—not his Broadway debut, mind you, but his stage debut—in the role of Brick, Big Daddy’s favorite son. Mr. Howard is the latest in a long line of inexperienced innocents from Hollywood who have been offered up as burnt sacrifices to the gods of the box office, and the best I can say about his vain attempt to make an impression is that he must have had a lot of nerve to think that he could get away with sharing a curtain call with Mr. Jones. His performance is slack, flat and underprojected, and it leaves a yawning hole at the center of Tennessee Williams’s play that nothing could possibly fill.

So far as I know, this is the first all-black professional production of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” and it’s easy to imagine how well such a concept might have worked had it been executed by a first-rate director. Instead we get Debbie Allen, whose experience at the helm of various sitcoms and musical comedies did not prepare her for the challenge of making sense out of a grossly overwritten melodrama whose verbal extravagance approaches the operatic. Ms. Allen’s way of putting a black spin on “Cat” runs more to such condescendingly on-the-nose directorial details as having a saxophonist wander across the stage at the start of each act, playing hot licks in order to reassure the audience that this production will be racially correct.

Not only is Ms. Allen’s staging ludicrously broad, but I assume that she is at least partly to blame for the caricature-ridden acting of Anika Noni Rose as Maggie and Lisa Arrindell Anderson as Mae, both of whom made me cringe. (Not so the always satisfying Phylicia Rashad, whose Big Mama is a bit overdrawn but still affecting.) As for Ray Klausen’s dull set and William H. Grant III’s crass lighting, both are more like what you might expect to see at a second-tier regional theater rather than in a high-profile Broadway show.

Even so, you’ve got to catch this “Cat,” for Mr. Jones’s colossal performance is the stuff of stage legend. No sooner does the second act get under way than he strides into Brick’s bedroom, puffing on a 50-buck cigar and ogling Maggie from eyebrows to toenails, and from there to the end of the act you won’t want to waste a second looking at or listening to anyone else. Mr. Jones gets Big Daddy—the pride, the contempt, the half-concealed terror—and lines that in anyone else’s mouth might sound stilted come rolling out of him like lava from a volcano. As long as I live, I’ll never forget the way that Mr. Jones spit out his shocking condemnation of Big Mama: “I haven’t been able to stand the sight, sound, or smell of that woman for forty years now!—even when I laid her!—regular as a piston.

What to do? You might want to consider skipping the hour-long first act and showing up at intermission, just in time to see Mr. Jones make his entrance. You’ll still get your money’s worth.

[Terry Teachout (1956-2022), the Wall Street Journal’s drama critic from 2003 until his death, blogged about theater and the other arts.] 

*  *  *  *
“STAGE UNITES TWO JONES GENERATIONS”
by C. Gerald Fraser 

[This article, which, among other topics, touches on the estrangement and reconnection of James Earl Jones and Robert Earl Jones, his father.  It ran in the New York Times of 11 February 1974.]

Nineteen years ago, James Earl Jones, then a 24‐year‐old fledgling actor, came to New York from Michigan and watched his father, Robert Earl Jones [1910-2006], play the role of Joe Mott — a secondary character in “The Iceman Cometh.” He had come seeking two goals. One was work in the theater, the other was to get to know his father, from whom he had been separated since birth.

[The production of Eugene O’Neill’s Iceman in which Robert Earl Jones played Joe Mott was staged by José Quintero (Panamanian-born; 1924-1999) at the Off-Broadway Circle in the Square Theatre Downtown (in Greenwich Village) from May to December 1956 (256 performances). Jason Robards played Hickey, the role James Earl Jones played in 1973.

[The production of Iceman in which James Earl Jones performed was staged at Circle’s theater district house from 13 December 1973-24 February 1974 (14 previews and 85 performances). It was directed by Theodore Mann (1924-2012), co-founder of Circle in the Square, with a scenic design by Clarke Dunham, costume design by Carrie F. Robbins, and lighting design by Jules Fisher. Mott was played by Arthur French and Hugo Kalmar was played by David Margulies—one of my acting teachers at the time.]

Today, James Earl Jones is playing Hickey—the lead—in “Iceman,” and there has been an interweaving of the goals in James Earl Jones's life. He found his father through the theater and found the theater through his father.

Robert Earl Jones, who turned 64 a week ago yesterday (“I was horn in 1910, the year Jack Johnson [1878-1946; the real-life boxer on whom was based James Earl Jones’s character in The Great White Hope] won the title”) begins the story of the father‐son relationship in late 1930 or early 1931 in Mississippi. His wife was then pregnant with James, and Robert Earl Jones left his family to go north—to Memphis.

He worked in Memphis for the railroad until the Depression [1929-41] cut out his job and he moved to Chicago “to seek my fortune as a prize fighter.”

In Chicago, he said, “I paid $50—it was a lot of money in that period—to Evangeline Adams [1868-1932], who was on the radio as an astrologist. I believe in astrology. And she said ‘you'll find it better before the masses.’ She said ‘you have something, and I don't know what it is, and you'll do it before the masses.’”

After Chicago, Robert Earl Jones moved to New York, where in the early thirties he got a job with the Federal Works Progress Administration working with youths in recreation.

The poet‐playwright Langston Hughes [1901-67; part of the Harlem Renaissance (1920s-1930s)] asked to use the group to put on a one‐act play. After three months' rehearsals, the protagonist got a job, Mr. Jones said, and he was asked to take over the role. “It was kind of natural. Langston Hughes's aunt, Mrs. Toy Harper, taught me how to read my first poem: ‘I am a Negro black as the night is black/Black like the depth of my Africa’ and several other poems. It was poetic drama, put together by several of his poems.

“We linked them together by a narrative and I was that narrator.” From that start he began a theatrical career that has kept him active on stage and in television and the movies. (He can currently be seen in two new pictures “The Sting” [1973, Universal Pictures] and “Willie Dynamite” [1974, Universal Pictures].)

James Earl Jones, meanwhile, left Mississippi as a child and went to live in Michigan with his maternal grandmother, who raised all of her three daughters' children. He had not ever seen his father.

“I knew of him as an actor,” he said. “But, you see, being told about dad being an actor is one thing, but being in the high school library one day and opening up and seeing it right there in print had a big impact on me. He was in the production of “Strange Fruit” by Lillian Smith, with Mel Ferrer and Jane Wyman [Broadway; 29 November 1945-19 January 1946; credited as Earl Jones]. That impressed me.”

Sitting in his subterranean dressing room at the Circle in the Square Theater he sipped tea and talked about how he got into acting.

“There are two things, I'll say aside from the old legendary thing of following in the father's footsteps. One is that from the age of 8 to 14, I guess, I was practically incommunicado, literally, because of being a stammerer. Once I got to high school and through reading poetry, starting with my own poetry, which I realized I didn't stutter or stammer at, and my professor, Donald Crouch [1891-1982], would encourage me to read poetry, just discovering the joy of communicating set it up for me, I think. In a very personal way, once I found out I could communicate verbally, again, it became a very important thing for me, like making up for lost time, making up for the years that I didn't speak.”

James Earl Jones continued: “Being a country boy, it wasn't easy for me to think about making a living in the world of business. It was very difficult to think about making a living in the world of science, as I sort of entertained when I wanted to he a doctor. None of that was easy.

“But the idea of making one's way as an artist did make some sense to me. I remember enjoying—aside from writing poetry—reading poetry. I enjoyed drawing, painting, that sort of thing.

And so it was that after graduating from the University of Michigan, and serving as an Army officer he came to New York to work and to get to know his father.

[Jones matriculated at UM in 1949, but in 1953, he left school without getting a degree. He’d joined the university’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and left to join the army, where he remained for two years, reaching the rank of first lieutenant. In 1955, he returned to UM, finished his degree, and graduated. At that point, he went to New York City, where he reconnected with his father and started a career as a professional actor.]

Since then the two have gotten to know each other and have performed in the same production three times: in “Moon on a Rainbow Shawl,” “Infidel Caesar,” and “Of Mice and Men.”

[Moon on a Rainbow Shawl by Errol John (born in Trinidad and Tobago; 1924-88) opened on 15 January 1962 at the East 11th Street Theatre in the East Village; James Earl won an Obie for his performance. Gene Wesson’s (1921-75) Infidel Caesar closed at the Music Box Theatre after one preview on 28 May 1962; it never officially opened. In 1967 Jones père et fils performed together in Of Mice and Men, adapted from his own novel by John Steinbeck (1902-68), at Purdue University's Experimental Theatre in West Lafayette, Indiana. James Earl later played Lennie in a production of Of Mice and Men (18 December 1974-9 February 1975) at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre (now the Lena Horne).]

Looking back over the years, James Earl Jones wondered, “What's the legend?” (thinking about the story of Telemachus's search for his father [Odysseus] in “The Odyssey.”) “It's probably a basic human need . . . to follow in the footsteps especially when one doesn't have a clear identity of one's own.

[C. Gerald Fraser (1925-2015) was a reporter for the New York Times for 24 years, one of only two black reporters on the staff at that time he was hired.  He left the Times in 1991 and joined Earth Times.  At the start of his journalistic career, Fraser reported for the New York Amsterdam News from 1952 until 1956, then edited a hotel workers union newspaper and covered the United Nations for West Indian periodicals before being hired by the New York Daily News.]