Anna Manahan shuffles around the table, hunches, shrugs and grimaces absurdly. "This," she says in mock despair, "is what acting has become. Young actors seem to think that they need to show everything with these big, exaggerated gestures, as if they're explaining something to infants." Anyone who saw Manahan play the widow, Mag, in Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen Of Leenane will remember the charged sense of stillness she emanated, which was as eloquent as any of her character's querulous refrains to her daughter about lumpy Complan.
Holding, watching, staying, expressing potentiality or imminence - these qualities are the hallmarks of Manahan's acting, and they won her a Tony Award last year for her role in Druid's production of Beauty Queen, which was acclaimed in Galway, London, New York and Australia. She was deeply honoured.
This month she has temporarily forsaken her beloved Manhattan for Ireland, where she and the other cast members touring with Red Kettle's revival of Bernard Farrell's Happy Birthday Dear Alice. Focusing on the family dilemma of whether to put an ailing parent into a nursing home, the play was a huge popular success for the company five years ago. By a near miracle, the same cast (Brendan Cauldwell, Arthur Riordan, Noelle Brown, Natalie Stringer, Brian Doherty) has reassembled, "because we had such fun last time", Manahan says.
She plays the spirited mother, Alice, who wishes to live alone in her own home in resistance to her children's plans. "We got an extraordinary audience reaction," Manahan says. "Everyone thinks about their own parents. One woman told me that she saw it twice: the first time, she was shattered, then she watched it again and forgave herself. It's a comedy, with dark undertones. It raises questions about selfishness versus necessity, and what is best for older people. While people seem to live longer and are more content in their own environment rather than in old folk's homes, this is not always possible."
Decades of acting for stage, screen and television have moulded the way Manahan speaks: her presence, her timing, her use of her molten brown eyes. She combines a warmly gracious manner with a consciousness of her audience, which by now is probably involuntary. While she has a perspective on Irish theatre stretching back to her early training with Edwards and MacLiammoir at The Gate, she doesn't exude any arrogant sense of having seen it all, done it all. The Farrell play prompts some reflection on the ageing process which she talks about with compassion but without dread. Her exact age is something of a mystery, but some rudimentary computation suggests she has made inroads into her eighth decade.
"As you age, your mind gets broader, more open, even ecstatic at times. If you enjoy life and people, it can be a very enriching time. But you need to hold onto some curiosity and a sense of childish wonderment."
Having a passion such as hers for the stage helps, of course. And it is a lifelong passion; from the age of seven she knew she wanted to be an actor. "I could have done other things, perhaps, but only if they involved communicating with people. What's so special about the theatre is the marvellous sense of communion. In theatre - not in film or TV - you have this family feeling. You share so much with the people you work with. Some actors were talking recently on the radio about the difficulties of an actor's life, about the uncertainty and all that. But there's a lot of joy too. In my early years, when I was touring around the country, we never talked about the money, just about our next part and the experience of the production. There was no money, but we subsidised the theatre joyfully."
For her, the theatre remains an anti-materialist zone, largely immune from the changes in attitudes she observes in Ireland on her return. "People seem to be becoming hardened. There was great poverty when I was growing up in the 1930s and 1940s but I never saw what I see here now: all the homeless people. It's hard to equate this with all the new wealth. And, while you will meet some people in the theatre who just want to be stars, or are in it for money, the vast majority of people are there for the love of it."
She talks about her chosen life with a sense of vocation. "One's job in the arts is to inquire about life, to depict life, to ask questions about the human condition. We must ask: where are the things of the spirit? If you don't nurture the spirit you are a very dead person. That applies to the work of an actor especially. MacLiammoir said that actors should travel light - if you get bogged down, too settled, you lose your pure line to an audience."
MOVING between London, New York and the family home in Waterford that she shares with her brother, Manahan seems to have resisted temptations to accumulate trappings. There is always some conflict between the desire to put down roots and to work abroad, but she seems to be able to make strong connections even in temporary postings. The past year, performing in Beauty Queen among what she calls "the Broadway community", has been especially memorable. "I have always loved Manhattan, but in the last year I have made some great friends. Not people who were just attracted by my success but lasting friendships. Winning the Tony meant so much to me, because I was getting a vote of approval from my peers. And I realised that I had become a skilled, professional actor."
Had she doubted that before? "Well, you must have a certain ego and confidence to perform. But there's also an element of humility and a necessary lack of confidence. It's a very fine line."
She is conscious of the need to keep honing her skills. "I bring a blank canvas to work, and I listen. I'm learning all the time. When I think about a role, I try to bear in mind that everyone is extremely complex; there is no such thing as an ordinary character. I move into the part by trying to see the whole human being from childhood to old age."
Working with a new writer such as McDonagh gave Manahan a chance to create a role from scratch, to be an interpreter. She is full of praise for his work, and hopes to perform other plays by him in the future. "Martin brought back stories to the stage. He speaks this heightened language, but he speaks truthfully and passionately. The drama arises from character and situation. It is both theatrical and real and the actors can soar." Or in her case, they can stay still. "Isn't it extraordinary that a man in his 20s could write two such magnificent roles for two women of 40 and of 70? Like Conor McPherson's creation of the 60-year-old man in The Weir.
"I have great hopes for this new generation of writers. Maybe they will be the ones who will react against all the shallowness and emptiness that surrounds us." But why wait for them to do it? When pressed, she admits slightly bashfully that she has a desire to write a play herself. "Perhaps I will, yes. Yes. Life unfolds, doesn't it?"
Happy Birthday Dear Alice ends a week at the Theatre Royal, Waterford, tonight. It then tours: Watergate, Kilkenny - July 19th-24th; Everyman, Cork - July 26th-31st; Dunamase Theatre, Portlaoise - August 2nd-4th; Art Centre, Mullingar - August 5th-7th; Town Hall Theatre, Galway - August 9th-14th