It was the bravest of instances, it was the priciest of instances. The Tony Award nominations, introduced Thursday morning in New York, mirror the break up display actuality of a Broadway season divided by mavericks and mega-stars.
The mavericks fared significantly higher.
Glenn Fleshler and George Clooney in “Good Night, and Good Luck” on the Winter Backyard Theatre.
(Emilio Madrid)
Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Othello,” George Clooney in “Good Night, and Good Luck” and newly minted Oscar-winner Kieran Culkin in “Glengarry Glen Ross” allowed producers to create sticker shock on Broadway. Magnets for media and cash, these productions created momentous New York buzz — together with the rising sense that Broadway is now a luxurious items merchandise, reasonably priced solely to the tremendous prosperous and the tremendous savvy about ticket reductions.
However of this group solely Clooney obtained a nomination for his wonderful lead efficiency as Edward R. Murrow within the stage adaptation of the 2005 movie. Culkin, the weak hyperlink within the in any other case sturdy “Glengarry” revival, was handed over for a featured actor nomination. Bob Odenkirk, who shines as shabby Shelley Levene, scored the manufacturing’s solely nod.
Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Othello” at Broadway’s “Ethel Barrymore Theatre.”
(Julieta Cervantes)
Clearly, the Tony nominating committee was paying shut consideration. All of the advance hype on this planet couldn’t extract a single nomination for the rudderless “Othello,” however Gyllenhaal’s sleekly sinister Iago and Andrew Burnap’s Cassio serving as a mannequin for a way Shakespearean verse needs to be spoken.
Probably the most memorable choices didn’t care a whit about product-testing methods. What advertising genius, for example, may have predicted that “Maybe Happy Ending,” a jazz-infused rom-com about robots and mortality that originated in South Korea, and “Dead Outlaw,” a unusual jam-session of a present a couple of butterfingers bandit who was outshone by his extra well-known corpse, could be probably the most acclaimed musicals of this season?
“Maybe Happy Ending” led with 10 nominations in a tie with fellow greatest musical nominees, “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Death Becomes Her.” “Dead Outlaw,” which opened Sunday simply earlier than the season deadline to glowing opinions, earned a formidable seven nominations.
From a purely business perspective, “Maybe Happy Ending” and “Dead Outlaw” signify enormous gambles. Each lack the preexisting IP and Hollywood star energy which might be the assumed necessities of Broadway juggernauts. However audacity mixed with inventive ingenuity continues to be one of the best wager for holding one’s head excessive in an American theater devoid of security.
Cole Escola and James Scully in “Oh, Mary!” on Broadway on the Lyceum Theater.
(Emilio Madrid)
Epitomizing this lesson is Cole Escola’s “Oh, Mary!” This wild trip of a play, which I noticed final yr off-Broadway on the Lucille Lortel Theatre, follows the machinations of an unsteady Mary Todd Lincoln (initially performed by Escola, who has returned to the function) as she drunkenly chases her cabaret desires.
Half off-color drag act, half Carol Burnett-style sketch comedy, the present has survived on its bountiful comedic wits to turn out to be one of many hottest Broadway tickets of the yr. “Oh, Mary” can be a contender in one of the best play race, having proved that it’s sturdy sufficient to not rely completely on Escola’s delirious drollery. (Betty Gilpin and Tituss Burgess each served excursions of obligation.)
Hearteningly, one of the best play class has turned out to be one of many yr’s best. Kimberly Belflower’s “John Proctor Is the Villain,” starring Sadie Sink from Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” obtained seven nominations, the identical quantity as Jez Butterworth’s “The Hills of California.”
“John Proctor” initiates a dialog with Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” about the way in which the struggling of ladies on this American traditional is given painfully brief shrift. The title might sound polemical, however the work, beautifully directed by Tony-winner Danya Taymor (“The Outsiders”), has a buoyant curiosity concerning the lives of younger girls and exists by itself impartial phrases. (Sink, Taymor and Gabriel Ebert within the Proctor-ish instructor function, all nominated, are an integral a part of the company-wide excellence.)
I’m nonetheless haunted by “The Hills of California,” Butterworth’s richly imagined drama concerning the death-bed vigil a bunch of sisters is holding for his or her mom, who sought to show them into a replica of the Andrews Sisters. The beautiful music-filled manufacturing, which had a restricted run within the fall, was too good to be forgotten. Sam Mendes’ magisterial route and Laura Donnelly’s heartbreaking efficiency have been a part of the trove of well-deserved nominations.
Broadway continues to acknowledge the brilliance of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, one of many excellent skills of this new era of American playwrights. Final yr, “Appropriate” obtained the Tony for greatest play revival. This yr, “Purpose,” his home drama about an illustrious civil rights icon’s dysfunctional household and checkered legacy, obtained six nominations, together with greatest play. And it was uplifting to see Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “English,” which I encountered final yr on the Previous Globe, rounding out a greatest play checklist that shores up religion in the way forward for clever playwriting on Broadway.
It was a credit score to the collective knowledge of the Tony nominating committee that Leslye Headland’s “Cult of Love,” one of many hokiest household dramas I’ve seen in ages, was excluded, regardless of just a few sturdy supporting performances. And that “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” obtained a slew of design nominations and a nod for Louis McCartney’s sad-creepy lead efficiency however nothing for the deranged script.
Escola is more likely to come out on prime within the lead actor race, which I used to be happy to see discovered room for Daniel Dae Kim’s superb work in David Henry Hwang’s “Yellow Face.” However I wish to stress that “Good Night, and Good Luck” isn’t any self-importance train and {that a} film star’s prime billing on Broadway is just not essentially an indication of a damaged system.
The manufacturing, scrupulously directed by David Cromer, is deeply shifting in its public-spirited imaginative and prescient. Cromer, a Tony winner for “The Band’s Visit,” would little question have been nominated for his work have been he not nominated for his ingenious staging of “Dead Outlaw.” He, together with Michael Arden, who gained a Tony for his route of “Parade” in 2023 and was nominated for his route of “Maybe Happy Ending,” could also be Broadway’s sharpest auteurs with the discreetest profiles.
Sarah Snook is the presumed front-runner within the lead actress in a play race for her solo tour de power within the multimedia extravaganza model of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” However how marvelous to see Mia Farrow in rivalry for her work in “The Roommate” reverse a sport Patti LuPone. Can producers discover one other excuse to convey this comedy duo again collectively?
Audra McDonald in “Gypsy” at Broadway’s Majestic Theatre.
(Julieta Cervantes)
The Broadway efficiency that lower the deepest for me was Audra McDonald as Rose in George C. Wolfe’s revival of “Gypsy,” a harrowing reexamination of the musical by means of the historic prism of race. She already holds the report for probably the most Tony wins for a performer with six awards. The one factor standing in the way in which of a seventh is Nicole Scherzinger’s elegant singing in Jamie Lloyd’s fearless re-imagining of “Sunset Blvd.”
The success of “Maybe Happy Ending” hinges in no small half on the miraculous efficiency of Darren Criss, who performs an automaton with a secretly delicate coronary heart. The appeal of this musical has proved to be in no way ephemeral, and in a Broadway season of invigorating lengthy pictures, the pleased ending of “Maybe Happy Ending” appears all however assured.
