A withering glance of her icy blue eyes, a few condescending words roared in that distinctive smoky voice, and Kathleen Turner has reduced her adversary to a quivering child -- as only she could. As Sister Jamison Connelly in rising playwright Matthew Lombardo's drama "High," Turner plays a character with what may be an impossible mission -- to reform a despondent, 19-year-old meth addict and teach him faith.
"It's not common, conventional theater and I love it," Turner says, in her dressing room filled with roses at the Booth Theatre.
In the three-character play, Turner plays a nun who wears no habit but has a (past) habit of drinking too much ? an addiction she has replaced with a less fatal indulgence, swearing too much.
"She?s a very strong woman with very little patience, I suppose is a nice way to put it," Turner says.
"I like her drive. I like her determination ? the fact that she simply doesn?t tolerate any crap."
Playwright Lombardo wrote the role of Sister Jamison with Turner in mind. Currently in previews and opening April 19, the play is the writer?s second work to be performed on Broadway. (His first was last year?s "Looped," a three-person drama about screen star Tallulah Bankhead.)
Lombardo trusted that Turner would bring life to a project he created out of the most painful experience of his life. When he was 36 years old, Lombardo ? who had never taken drugs before ? fell in love with a meth addict and developed an excruciating addiction to the drug that took over his life for seven years. He has been sober for four years, but put off writing "High" until the desire to cleanse himself of the experience ? and to try to help others ? overwhelmed his fears about sharing his past.
"I knew if I was to get the play produced ? I would have to reveal my whole history," Lombardo says. "(But) as artists that?s what we do, we take the biggest challenge in our life and we turn it into art."
"High" opens and closes with Turner center stage against a backdrop of a starry night, speaking directly to the audience.
"Because of the subject matter, I wanted to create not only a character that the audience was familiar with, but a device that would allow the character to check in on the audience periodically throughout the play," says Lombardo.
Because the playwright likes to write "strong female characters of a certain age" ? and he "needed a broad" to play Sister Jamison, he says ? Turner is the only actress he could imagine in the role.
the ideal choice
Noted for her powerful roles from the diabolical sex symbol Matty Walker in the film "Body Heat" to Edward Albee?s complex, vicious but vulnerable Martha in a Broadway revival of "Who?s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Turner?s authority onstage made her the ideal choice to take the audience on a rough ride.
"From the beginning, you grab onto her and its going to get very, very dark sometimes and very scary ? and you know she?s going to somehow get you through it," Lombardo says.
Like many of Turner?s best-known characters, there are moments when Sister Jamison can be difficult to take ? difficult even to look at.
"I don?t do nice people very often," she muses. "Years and years ago it was very clear to me that nice people or good people ? especially as a young woman ? were boring."
The creative team behind "High" includes director Rob Ruggiero, Stephen Kunken as Father Michael Delpapp and Evan Jonigkeit, who is making his Broadway debut as the addict Cody Randall.
("This is his first time in New York and he?s walking right onto Broadway," Turner says excitedly, clasping her hands together. "Is this dream stuff or what?")
Despite her clear affection for her colleagues, Turner knows she can be intimidating ? although, she says, it?s "rarely" intentional. As the senior member of the cast and creative team, she says she occasionally used the experience card to settle a dispute. But it didn?t happen often.
"It?s been an extraordinary process," she says. "I?ve never been such an integral part of creating a new piece of theater before, and to think that this is something we?re going to add to the library is really kind of thrilling."
Turner calls Lombardo?s monologue device "part of the magic."
"Usually, you will have a fourth wall. Well, okay, that works a lot of the time, and it?s not a bad thing. But a chance to go through that wall, to dissolve it and see people?s faces and tell a story or, oh, share a sorrow or tell a joke, it?s as though I had all new friends every night."
"How the audience comes in and responds changes how I talk to them and that?s just fun ? to say, ?Okay, you?re in this mood, are you? Then we?re gonna do it this way.??"
She says this with the energy of a cat ready to pounce ? friendly, mostly good-natured, but supremely self-assured.
"I am confident in the work," she says. "Lord have mercy, over the years I have wished desperately that I had half that confidence in my life choices. I haven?t done too badly ? I have this extraordinary daughter and wonderful friends."
"I just wish I didn?t screw up so often sometimes, but everybody does."
life, love and acting
Turner?s life ? which she chronicled in the 2008 memoir "Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles" ? has had more than its share of turmoil. Her father was a U.S. Foreign Service officer. She traveled throughout her childhood, living in Canada, Venezuela and England, developing her unique speaking patterns. Trained as a gymnast, her early film roles are marked by physical vigor.
But for years before being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 1992, movement became extremely difficult. She fought through severe pain and the side effects of medication for many years and abused alcohol for a time.
"It was a cautionary tale that I take to heart," she says.
Turner has overcome each of the challenges she has faced, with an attitude reflected in the name of an acting course she teaches at New York University: "Practical Acting: Shut Up and Do It."
Of an experience playing August Strindberg?s "Miss Julie," she says, "I?ve never been very good at playing victims. Something in me just wants to fight much, much too hard."
As "High" went through performances in Hartford, Conn., Cincinnati and St. Louis leading up to its New York opening, talk-back sessions every few weeks with the audience provided an illuminating experience into the play?s resonance for Turner.
"People just poured out these horrific stories about the lives that had been destroyed and I thought ?My God, I am so na�ve.??" she says.
"I haven?t lost anyone to this terrible disease and I haven?t lost myself, and I had not realized how extraordinarily prevalent it is in our society."
While many have empathized with the work?s depiction of addiction, the impact of the show?s other major topic ? faith ? is one that audiences have found open to debate. Half found the representation of the Catholic church excellent ? Lombardo says nuns tend to like the show best ? but others found its interpretation disrespectful.
Not surprisingly, Turner wasn?t fazed.
"I think the nun shocked a few people," she says with a laugh. "Well, too bad!"
High
Where: Booth Theatre, 222 West 45th St., New York.
When: Tuesdays to Saturdays at 8 p.m., matinees Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m.
How much: $61.50 to 91.50; From opening night, April 19, $61.50 to $111.50. Premium seats, $176.50 to $251.50. Call (212) 239-6200 or visit telecharge.com.
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