"I HAVE never been in a Brian Friel play and I would love to be in one. It is hard to believe that, back in 1988, the actress Catherine Byrne said these very words to The Irish Times. Tomorrow evening, in New York's off-Broadway Roundabout Theatre, she opens in the title role of Friel's most recent play, Molly Sweeney.
Since her unsuccessful audition for a part in Friel's Living Quarters at the Abbey 12 years ago, Catherine Byrne (41) has come a long way. Her father, the actor Eddie Byrne, who appeared in many films including Mutiny on the Bounty, never wanted his daughter on the stage in the first place. She began her working life as a designer for store window displays.
She finally got her first part in a Friel play less than six years ago - as Claire in the Gate production of Aristocrats - and she has now appeared in five of Friel's plays. She is recognised as a consistently favoured candidate for Friel's leading female roles.
When Molly Sweeney - a three-hander - was first performed at the Gate Theatre in 1994, Catherine's fellow actors were T.P. McKenna and Mark Lambert, both Irish. Tomorrow evening, however, she will be the only Irish cast member in the play. Intimidatingly enough, she is performing alongside one of America's most popular actors, Jason Robards (who is playing the eye surgeon, Mr Rice). The LA-based British actor, Alfred Molina, takes Mark Lambert's part as Molly's husband.
Nevertheless, since the play began previewing on December 26th, the talk has all been about Catherine. "Is she Ireland's greatest actress?" asked John Simon in last month's issue of Vogue, while Randall Short in the New York Magazine compared her relationship with Friel to that of Mrs Patrick Campbell and George Bernard Shaw.
Catherine is remembered in New York for her part (as Chrissie) in the phenomenally successful Dancing at Lughnasa, which took New York by storm in 1991 and won three Tony Awards (for best play; best director - Patrick Mason; and best supporting actress - Brid Brennan).
But however rosy her memories are of the long Lughnasa run, she will not associate New York with adulation alone. She was also one of the cast (as Angela) in Friel's next, more complex and ritualistic play, wonderful Tennessee. which was withdrawn from the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway alter only nine performances.
Yet, in spite of mixed reviews and poor box office returns, aspects of the play were praised, as were some of the performances. Catherine was singled out for praise by the New York Magazine as an utter dream
Friel was philosophical about the whole thing: "Sure, I've had more flops on Broadway than I've had hot dinners. I'm immune. Well, I'm not quite immune, but you just have to get on with it." While Lughnasa and Philadelphia, Here I Come! have been Broadway hits, the more serious and static plays, Freedom of the City and Faith Healer, have not. The most recent performance of a Friel play in the US was Noel Pearson's American production of Translations last Spring, which received rave reviews in Boston but was not so favourably mentioned when it came to the Plymouth in New York.
So how will Molly Sweeney fare, given that it is, in structure, quite similar to Faith Healer, and explores the serious issue of the psychological response to blindness? Michael Colgan, artistic director of the Gate Theatre, says wryly: "I'm asking myself, is a play that consists of 38 monologues right for New York?" Ultimately he believes the answer is "yes": "In America, women go to the theatre and men are brought, so a play about a woman is bound to do well. Plus, the Americans love a story about the heroism of someone trying to overcome a disability."
It must also he a relief to those involved with the production of Molly Sweeny that the Roundabout Theatre is off-Broadway, and is therefore not reliant on the whims of the typical song-and-dance-act loving Broadway audience. Also, the Roundabout has a loyal subscription audience and a smaller auditorium than the Plymouth.
The impact of the play rests to a large degree on the actor playing Molly. Even when she is not speaking, Molly dominates the scene she is the foundation on which are built the schemes and fantasies of her two satellite men: her husband and her eye surgeon. Thus, Catherine's performance is crucial to the success of the play. Michael Colgan says that the preview audiences in New York have been delighted with her: "They are really taking to her in New York. Catherine has a huge, passionate personality. She can get into people. She also has a lovely voice. That's a lethal combination."
Back in 1994, when the play premiered in Dublin, Catherine received praise from the British press for her "unsentimental but limpid loveliness" as Molly, and for her deep and musical voice, The then drama critic of The New York Times, David Richards, concluded: "Her face followed me all the way home".
What the American press is most anxious to know now is whether Catherine is Brian Friel's "muse". She resists this reductive definition of her friendship with Friel: "It would be very flattering to be someone's muse, but I don't think Brian Friel needs one."
Michael Colgan adds: "Brian met her first when she was in Aristocrats, and was impressed with her performance. He may have had her in mind for Molly Sweeney, but he never said, when we were discussing casting, that Catherine had to be Molly. He asked me to suggest people for the part."
Colgan also points out that Friel has built up a loyal and committed working relationship with several Irish actors, including Donal McCann, John Kavanagh and Stephen Rea, all of whom have performed in many of his plays.
Brid Ni Neachtain, who played the youngest sister, Rose, in Dancing at Lughnasa, explains: "In the theatre, we tend to establish close relationships. With Lughnasa, Brian was close to all of us. There were presents for all of us from Brian on opening nights, birthdays and Christmas. He gets very involved with first-time performances of his plays, and rightly so."
Anita Reeves worked with Catherine in their early acting days as members of The Irish Theatre Company (ITC) in the 1970s. She was in the first run of Lughnasa with Catherine, playing her older sister Maggie and also played Jinnie Gogan to Catherine's Nora Clitheroe in Joe Dowling's popular production of The Plough and the Stars (in the Gaiety in Dublin in 1989 and again in London's West End last year). She says of Catherine's relationship with Friel: "They are good friends. Because she's close to him, spiritually - if that's not too highfilutin' a word to use - she is tuned in to his work."
GARRY Hynes, consultant artistic director of Druid Theatre Company, has directed Catherine in several plays, including Frank McGuinness's The Factory Girls and Tom Murphy's A Whistle in the Dark. She dismisses the talk of Catherine being Friel's muse as "the gossip of the town": "Catherine has illuminated all the Friel roles she has played, which is what you want when you are casting a play."
Catherine's peers in the acting world are voluble in their praise of her talents. The word most often used is "generosity", both on and off stage: "She can bring excitement and passion to a role, which are wonderful qualities to have in a rehearsal room," says Hynes. "She is clearly one of Ireland's leading actors."
Frank McGuinness adds: "She doesn't shy away from complex roles. She is loyal and 100 per cent committed to the part. She has a magnificent imagination and a great empathy for other people's suffering." Catherine gave a stunning performance in the title role of his version of Lorca's Yerma in the Peacock in 1987, for which she won a Harvey's Best Actress Award.
Joe Dowling has directed Catherine in many roles, including her memorable Nora in The Plough and the Stars (it is a testament to her youthful energy that she played the role convincingly again last year in London Nora is supposed to be 23 years old). Dowling. who first came across Catherine nearly 20 years ago when he was artistic director of ITC, gave her parts in Juno and the Paycock and As You Like It: "She was very young then, and her ingenue quality was good for little girl roles. Since then she has grown immeasurably. She retains her youthful ebullience but has matured into a fine leading actress. She has grown through 20 years of solid and important work.
Dowling, now artistic director of the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, says that Catherine occupies a unique niche in Irish acting, because of her capacity to be both ethereal and down-to-earth, a combination which is perfect for her role as Molly. But Catherine has mastered her other roles: "She was brilliant as O'Casey's Nora, particularly in the last act when Nora goes mad. She was also a delight as Viola in the production of Twelfth Night which I directed at the Gate."
One of her greatest, yet relatively unsung, strengths is, he believes, as a comedy actress. Early in her career she had a small part in Hugh Leonard's Do which Dowling directed at the Abbey: As the Yellow Peril in Do she could bring the house down with one look.
Catherine's sense of fun is well-known and loved among her colleagues, as is her capacity for ensemble acting: "She is not the type to upstage other actors," says Brid Ni Neachtain. "She treats the other cast members as if they were part of her extended family." This does not mean that Catherine brings her own problems to work and dumps them on her colleagues: "When she was in The Plough and rehearsing Lughnasa at the same time, her son Max, who is diabetic, was very ill in Crumlin hospital. Although she was under a lot of strain, she never brought her troubles into the rehearsal room," says Brid.
CATHERINE'S husband is John Olohan, an accomplished actor in his own right. They met while touring with ITC.
"I married a nice soft man from the country. He is a much nicer person than me," she has said. A few days after they were married, Catherine decided she missed her adored mother, the actress Kitty Thuillier, and moved back home. After a few days, she went back to John, deciding that "being married wasn't so bad, really". Now she can't live without his encouragement, which offsets her insecurity. They go to each other's dress rehearsals, and somehow manage to juggle their careers and still have a family life with their sons Max and Jack. Catherine was thrilled that they were able to be together in New York for Christmas.
Catherine has recently embarked on a new career development, taking the lead female role of Molly (another Molly) Keogh in the new RTE TV sitcom, Upwardly Mobile, which has just finished its first season and will start again next autumn (she has only had one other significant screen role, in the Irish film Eat the Peach, made some 10 years ago). David Blake-Knox, assistant director of television at RTE and executive producer of Upwardly Mobile, says Catherine has risen to the challenge of acting for television in front of a live studio audience: "She has a great need for emotional honesty in any role she plays. This can make her a demanding actress to work with, but it always leads her to find the emotional truth in any role she plays. She is popular with everyone in the series because of her great sense of humour."
Michael Colgan pays tribute to her versatility: "She was in Old Times in our Pinter festival at the Gate and Harold Pinter thought she was terrific. She was in J.B. Keane's Sharon's Grave during the summer. She works very hard, and when it's over she loves to just go out for a drink and a cigarette."