INTERVIEW: Jay O. Sanders on his multiple roles in Roundabout’s ‘Primary Trust’
Photo: Primary Trust stars, from left, Jay O. Sanders and William Jackson Harper. Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus / Provided by Polk & Co. with permission.
Jay O. Sanders is one of the most celebrated theatrical actors of his generation. New Yorkers still have fond memories of his powerful turns in Uncle Vanya and Broadway’s Girl From the North Country, in addition to countless other roles. Now he’s offering his theatrical talents in Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust, currently running off-Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre in Midtown Manhattan.
The new play, directed by Knud Adams, stars William Jackson Harper as the character of Kenneth, a man who works at a bookstore in Cranberry, New York, a suburb of Rochester. He sticks to himself and enjoys mai tai cocktails at a local restaurant. His best and only friend is Bert (Eric Berryman), and the two have a secret they’d prefer not to talk about. Rounding out the cast are April Matthis in a series of roles, Sanders as Clay and other characters, and Luke Wygodny as an on-stage musician who offers melodic accents throughout the evening. Ultimately Primary Trust is a story about mental health and the courage to look within.
“I knew nothing about the project,” Sanders said in a recent phone interview. “I saw that Will Jackson Harper and April Matthis were both connected, and they’re both friends of mine. And that intrigued me right there. I didn’t know Eboni. I didn’t know Knud. … But I read the play. It swept me along. I just thought it was a beautiful piece, subtle and funny and unpretentious and theatrical.”
Sanders added that Primary Trust charmed and fascinated him upon first reading, and he was happy to sign on the dotted line. Critics and audiences have responded similarly, making the show a hot ticket on the off-Broadway scene. “Given that I do theater all the time, I think you see mental health approached in many ways,” he said. “Mental health was the center of it, but it wasn’t, oh, I want to do something about mental health. I wanted to do a good play.”
The fact that Sanders gets to portray multiple characters on stage also intrigued him, but that’s nothing new for the veteran actor. He has performed sometimes upward of 12 characters in one evening. He’s used to the “playfulness” of bringing to life many people under the proscenium. Perhaps his most prominent role in Primary Trust is the character of Clay, something of a father figure to Kenneth.
“I recognized him,” Sanders said about Clay. “I recognized him in people I had grown up with. I recognize aspects of him in me, though it wasn’t my story. Mostly I just connected with it. I think Eboni does a beautiful job of making all of her characters three-dimensional, exploring parts that are often left by the wayside. … She gets so specific in this with little suggestions here and there for everybody, suggesting a real multi-dimensional character and having them all play together, which is a big part of the joy of the whole piece.”
Sanders said that Booth was heavily involved during rehearsals, and he personally loves having the writer in the room. “She was there pretty much every day,” he said. “The only day she wasn’t, we missed her. Mostly listened, but here and there she’d guide or take a word out or just smile. I find it’s alway wonderful. There are people who don’t want to have the writer there, but I enjoy it. It depends. There are certain kinds of writers who are very nervous about their work and controlling. I haven’t run into much of that. I hear stories of it, but it’s not something I know from experience. She’s also an actor. She’s very instinctual in her writing and her acting, and that meant she was really listening to us and allowing us to go where we wanted to and responding to that.”
Sanders said he enjoyed working with Adams as well. He remembers he relied on the director to help with a character change fairly late in the rehearsal process. The actor said he ran into difficulties with Clay because he had jumped from the page to the stage and was too nice a guy.
“I was too good a father, and it took away your worry for Ken’s health,” he said. “You didn’t worry, oh my God, what’s going to happen to him because there’s this guy with all this experience who is completely benevolent who is taking care of him. So we had to backtrack and put some opaqueness into the beginnings of each of my scenes in order to have you wonder where this is going to go, and that all seemed to work really well. It’s the first time I think I’ve ever been told, oh no, this isn’t working. You’re too nice a guy.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Primary Trust, produced by Roundabout Theatre Company, continues through July 2 at the Laura Pels Theatre in New York City. Written by Eboni Booth. Directed by Knud Adams. Starring Eric Berryman, William Jackson Harper, April Matthis, Jay O. Sanders and Luke Wygodny. Click here for more information and tickets.
