A Raisin in the (Hollywood) Sun

Dancin' Dan here with the news that made my week: Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking play A Raisin in the Sun is coming back to Broadway. This news alone might not necessarily be cheer-worthy since it was just revived in 2004 but other than one of the great American plays back on the boards it's the starry cast attached to it that brings the excitement. Denzel Washington will lead the ensemble in the role of Walter Lee Younger which was played by Sidney Poitier on both stage and screen. So Denzel's Training Day Oscar speech continues to be true.

I'll always be chasing you Sidney. I'll always be following in your footsteps. There's nothing I would rather do, sir."

Joining Denzel will be no less than three Oscar or Tony-nominated actresses: Sophie Okonedo (as Walter's wife Ruth, originally played by Ruby Dee), Anika Noni Rose, and Diahann Carroll (as Younger family matriarch Lena, most recently played on Broadway by Phylicia Rashad).

WOW.

Taking a page from Cicely Tyson's book and returning to the stage after 30 years, Carroll is certainly my main draw here, despite Denzel's wonderful Tony-winning turn in August Wilson's Fences which was his last Broadway performance. He said he wanted to do this because his wife was outpacing him on the theater front and he wanted to catch up. Love that healthy competition!

Despite the play's acclaim, the original production of A Raisin in the Sun won none of the four Tony Awards for which it was nominated (it was a crowded year, with The Miracle Worker, The Best Man, and Toys in the Attic all being major players), and while the 2004 revival missed the Best Revival of a Play Tony (which went to Henry IV), it did score nods for its three main actresses, including a win for Phylicia Rashad.

Fun fact: Diahann Carroll was the first African-American actress to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical (for No Strings in 1962). Can she pull the same trick as Rashad and add one for Drama to her mantle? Can Washington finally catch up to Poitier? Will the third time be the charm for this gem of American drama? We'll find out in April 2014.

Stage Door: "The Pride" and "The Explorers Club"

In 'Stage Door' we share our live theater adventures... 

Hugh Dancy & Ben Whishaw in "The Pride" back in 2011

If you noticed the blog was far from fruitful this past week in the posting it's because I was in Chicago visiting Nick and Tim. Nick and I took in the play "The Pride" on its closing weekend in the Windy City. His partner had worked on it as dramaturg and Nick thought I'd like it. He was right...

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Stage Door: "The Nance" and How I Wish It Were a Movie

In Stage Door we tell you about our latest theatrical experiences here in NYC through our movie-mad filter

As you may recall I was out of the country this year when the Tony Awards happened and thus out of the theatrical loop. I didn't even realize until leaving the theater recently that the 'playsical' I'd just seen had been a multiple winner: Sound Design, Scenic Design, Costume Design (the great Ann Roth), and Original Music. Like one of those Oscar winners everyone thinks is exceedingly handsome but no one quite rapturously loves enough in the marquee categories. 

I'm referring to The Nance as a playsical because it is a play with music, all of the music being performance-based. The incidental music and the main talk-sung song -- a disposable come-on "meet me round the corner in a half an hour" performed multiple times by strippers and The Nance -- plays a key minor role since the story takes place in the final days of the waning vaudeville circuit in NYC in the 1930s and one theater in particular which becomes a target of right-wing politicans. [more...] 

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The Link (To Be Retitled)

The Guardian I have to admit I'm mystified by this MPAA ruling against TWC's The Butler using that rather generic title. They'll have to rename it but any random search on IMDb will prove that a ton of movies have the same title. Why is it an issue this time - especially with a century separating the titles?
Variety The Venice Film Festival will open with Gravity (albeit out of competition). Nice get there on the Lido
Empire Steven Spielberg beats Robert Redford to the rights to remake The Grapes of Wrath which is a pity really because Redford wanted to make it into a miniseries which would at least not be competing directly with the 1940 film classic

MPAA is excited about the Veronica Mars movie with this pic from the set. Confession: I have never been able to tell the cast members of this series apart. (I'm having the same problem with the third season of Teen Wolf in which all the women except Lydia have long dark and relatively straight hair)
Tribeca Joe Reid picks the five best performances of the year from Brie Larson to Greta Gerwig
/Film looks forward to The Wizard of Oz 3D/IMAX makeover with a trailer
Playbill asked readers which films Disney should give the Broadway stage treatment to. Good, unexpected and terrible choices mingle among the suggestions. FWIW I could totally see Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Hocus Pocus working theatrically. You?

"It won't cost much... just your voice!"

I realize it's only* voicework but I'm bit sad that Samantha Morton's voice has been removed from the upcoming Spike Jonze picture Her. She was to voice the operating system that Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with in lieu of, one supposes, flesh and blood options. I thought Samantha was brilliant in insert anything from her filmography here, and even though it was only* voicework, I was anxious to "see" her again.

Morton has the most terrible ratio of talent-to-role opportunities. I don't quite get what's happened to her career as she's one of the best screen actors alive. Still, since the world has a very short memory I didn't notice much mourning online about her replacement when the news broke. Or maybe that's just because Scarlett Johansson, her replacement, is early Aughts popular again. Scarlett weathered the storm of a lame but lucrative patch in her career in which she seemed more model/spokesperson/celebrity than talent. She seems interested in actually ACTING again (see multiple trips to the stage and a wonderful spin on Black Widow the second time around) so I am free to root for her again, too.

Scarlett's voice is a wonder, it's true. But also quite an expected choice for this type of role since her timbre is so effortlessly sexy. I guess I didn't quite expect the obvious from Spike Jonze which is why I'm still processing this news.

Anyway, do you miss Samantha Morton? If you're asking "who?"... please state your age! She couldn't have faded from collective memory that quickly, could she?

When it comes to singing actresses, I'm as greedy as Ursula! In other Beautiful Voice News, Anna Kendrick has been cast as Cinderella in Rob Marshall's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's fairytale mashup classic Into the Woods (2014)... a movie we're tracking closely but very worried about.

Since we first fell in love with Kendrick as evil scheming Sondheim-singing Fritzi in Camp (2003) and haven't ever felt quite that proprietary/excited about her again (but loved hearing the voice again in Pitch Perfect), this is potentially very good news. With Into the Woods and The Last Five Years (just discussed) both arriving in (presumably) 2014, and so quickly after Kendrick's first real success as a headliner (Pitch Perfect) will she be the first modern actress to really embrace becoming a star of film musicals?

Can you already here her version of "At the Palace"? (♥ that song!)

He's a very smart Prince,

He's a Prince who prepares.

Knowing this time I'd run from him,

He spread pitch on the stairs.

I was caught unawares.

And I thought: well, he cares-

This is more than just malice.

Better stop and take stock

While you're standing here stuck

On the steps of the palace.

-Cinderella in "Into the Woods" 

Everyone else in Mainstream Hollywood seems to think of musicals as one-off larks, something to do to say that you've done it or to demonstrate how "game" you are to mix things up. (Though Anne Hathaway won an Oscar that way she's built her massive career on diversity of genre so I'd say she's unlikely to stick to the form or even return to it for some time. Sad face. CZJ was obviously born to do them but it took how many years between Chicago and Rock of Ages?) If Kendrick makes a success of both of her plum movie musical gigs next year, I shall build a shrine to her.  

* I realize "only voicework" might enrage some readers and some voice actors! I don't mean it derogatorialy but for whatever reason I've observed that many TFE readers really value voice-only work in movies more than I do. Is this generational and tied to the second golden age of animation? I wonder... I mean I don't want there to be a whole Oscar category (do you?) but I do agree that brilliance is possible within the limitations of acting with one's voice alone.