Entertainment

Actor Stephen Jones on bringing hit play Class to The MAC in Belfast

Ahead of its first touring production in Belfast, David Roy speaks to Dublin actor Stephen Jones about starring in the hit play Class, in which a parent-teacher meeting at a primary school goes wrong

Sarah Morris, Stephen Jones and Will O'Connell star in Class
Sarah Morris, Stephen Jones and Will O'Connell star in Class Sarah Morris, Stephen Jones and Will O'Connell star in Class

DUBLIN actor Stephen Jones originated the role of Brian Costello in the new Irish comedy drama Class, which was a hit at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2017 before going on to become a Scotsman Edinburgh Fringe First winner the following year.

Now, the Tallaght-born performer is returning to the part in the Iseult Golden and David Horan written and directed piece alongside co-stars Sarah Morris and Will O'Connell as the Verdant Productions show embarks on its first Irish tour.

"It's one of my favourite plays I've ever done," enthuses Jones (33), a Stewart Parker Award-winning playwright himself who's just completed a run in Last Orders At The Dockside at Dublin's Abbey Theatre.

"We've been very lucky that it's been successful and got to travel. It's always nice to bring theatre to new audiences to see how they react."

It's a cliché that no actor ever knows if a play or film they are starring in is going to be a success, but in the case of Class – a three-hander in which a parent-teacher meeting about a youngster with 'learning difficulties' takes several unexpected turns – it seems that Jones had an inkling they were on to a winner.

"I had a good feeling about it," he tells me ahead of its run at The MAC in Belfast next week. "I knew it would be a good show. I mean, you never know exactly how it's going to go, but I remember my agent at the time was looking for me to hold off in favour of another role. I said, 'No, I think this will be a really good one'.

"This was the very first production of Class, when Iseult Golden and David Horan were producing it themselves, so there wasn't a big budget. But they said if it went well and they got funding that they would look after me.

"I was also pushing to do it because I knew the part and the play itself were kind of special – one of the great joys for an actor is getting to be the first person to play a role and it doesn't happen that often.

"So I was there from the start and was doing development workshops with them maybe a year before it was even staged."

Indeed, Jones tells me that the play and the role of Brian, a father whose bad memories of his own schooling affects his judgment when he and estranged wife Donna (Morris) are summoned to meet their son's primary school teacher, Ray McCafferty (O'Connell).

Stephen Jones, Sarah Morris and Will O'Connell in Class
Stephen Jones, Sarah Morris and Will O'Connell in Class Stephen Jones, Sarah Morris and Will O'Connell in Class

"I really connected to it," says the actor, who studied History and English at University College Dublin before completing an MA in Creative Writing.

"I'm from a working-class part of Dublin and you read scripts sometimes where you can tell straight away whether there's a realness to it or whether it's a patronising or unrealistic depiction of how someone would speak and feel.

"The play's about class, but it's also about real people struggling to do their best even though their hands are tied by the system or their own circumstances. The three main characters in this play, the two parents and the teacher, they're all trying to do 'the right thing' – but the their communication skills aren't great in relating to each other.

"It's about how there's a vicious cycle when it comes to insecurities and feeling of failure, especially around areas of class and education. How your own personal insecurities or the barriers you feel that are put up by how you speak, your level of education and all different societal factors, how they cause you to not have the confidence to be yourself.

"For Brian, you know that he's trying his best, but you can see that it's his own issues that are going to be passed down to his son. So it's about 'How do you break that cycle?'"

Jones adds: "Although the play is about class, in a way we want you to forget about that and start to see Brian, Donna and Ray as these three real people. They're not poster people for their backgrounds."

On the subject of having the confidence to 'be yourself', it took Jones a few years to finally pursue the acting career he's currently enjoying such success with on stage and screen.

He says he'll always crave the immediacy of theatre no matter how his film and TV work – which has recently included roles in Dublin Oldschool, Red Rock and Love/Hate – takes off.

"I played football at a fairly decent level," he explains of his younger years. "Two friends who grew up on the same estate as me went on to play in England – so my childhood was really all about playing soccer. But I always enjoyed movies and I was always a pretty good mimic.

"I'd make little home movies with friends and stuff, but never thought about it formally. I wasn't until I went to UCD and joined a creative writing group that someone told me that I should join the Drama Society 'because you might write a play one day and they'd put it on'.

"So I did and I ended up getting a part in a production of 12 Angry Men. Of the 12 guys in the play, six or seven of us are now professional actors or comedians, including two of the guys from Foil, Arms & Hogg, Killian Scott who's in Dublin Murders, Ronan Rafferty from Moone Boy and a couple of guys from Fair City.

"That was in 2004. Since then, there's been maybe a three month gap where I haven't been doing a play at some point. I just love doing them, even if it's writing or producing my own [such as 2015's Stewart Parker Award-winning play, From Eden, co-starring Seana Kerslake] – I can't be off the stage for too long, I think."

:: Class, November 12 & 13, The MAC, Belfast. Tickets via Themaclive.com