I saw three plays in anticipation of the Tony Awards, two of them representing multiple nominations. Those two were God of Carnage and Waiting for Godot. I also saw Our Town, revived at the Barrow Street Theatre, largely because Edward Albee recommended it at a “Talk-Back” following the production of his “Zoo Story” at the Philadelphia Theatre Company this year. He responded to a question from the audience saying that he believed Thorton Wilder’s Our Town is the best American play and that, by the way, it was experiencing an excellent production in NY right now... Thanks, Mr. Albee; Our Town was the best play we saw, although it is not nominated for a Tony.
God of Carnage, in my opinion, was next best although my partner did not agree, likening it to a re-hash of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe, which it does resemble in that two couples go at it pretty intensely. I think Hope Davis should win Best Actress award in God of Carnage, although Marcia Gay Hardin is the New York Time’s pick in the same play. I thought Marcia Gay Hardin overdid it. She reached a peak of emotion and never varied it. Could be that is the Director's fault although he is nominated for Best Director for this show.
James Gandolfini was terrific and so was Jeff Daniels, both in God of Carnage, and both are nominated for best actor. I think Gandolfini was better. God of Carnage would be my pick for Best Play, since Our Town was not nominated.
Waiting for Godot was terrific except for John Goodman, who really chewed the scenery. His performance was over-the-top and it required a lot of physical activity, which led to a concern that Goodman, who must weigh more than 350 pounds, was going to die on stage. Seriously. It detracted from the play because he is so obese.
Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane were terrific, both in Waiting for Godot, and I could agree with either of them winning Best Actor nods, although I think my choice would still be Gandolfini.
We heard wonderful things about Geoffrey Rush, but did not see his show.
I wish we could have stayed a week and seen two plays a day, but the cost would have bankrupted us. We bought tickets for the three shows we saw back in February and, even so, each seat was over $100, with the most crazy price being the two for God of Carnage which came it at more than $150 each. Nevertheless, we were on the first or second row for each show, so I think it was worth it, especially for these kinds of plays. I’ll sit in the balcony for a musical.
Do you know why Kushner's chef d'oeuvre (Angels in America) found no mention?
ReplyDeleteGoodman tossing his girth around sounds painful to watch. Jerry Lewis lives in horrendous pain because of all the prat falls he took early in his career.
I did not check to see who won best actor, but that started me thinking about the ones who are deemed good actors but can only play themselves no matter which character they are supposed to be...
There was a Shakespearean actor on the English stage who received a review along the lines, "It was like reading Shakespeare by lightning flashes, with Hamlet playing the role of {Sir Ham Thespian}." (My other all-time favorite was this review by Dorothy Parker of a tenor named Guido Nazzo she found uninspiring, "Guido Nazzo is Nazzo Guido..." which unfortunately cost the poor man his career because he was never able to escape the association.)
I have always felt that John Malkovich, Jeff Goldblum and Jack Nicholson are exemplars of this category of actor...polar opposites of Philip Seymour Hoffman or Julianne Moore or even Rachel Griffiths from "Six Feet Under" (can you believe she's really Australian?)