Stage Door: Oscar Flashback = Tony Prophecy?

I promised you a stage|screen colum each Tuesday. With the Tony Award nominations out this morning (see previous post), we already have so much to discuss but how is this for a twist on the flashback.

Remember this moment from the March 1995 Oscars? Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner won Best Costume Design for the epic outback drag comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Sharon Stone with Oscar winning costume designers in 1995

Lizzy's credit card dress was all anybody could talk about the next week in fashion reviews, outside of nominee Uma Thurman's lavender Prada that is.

Several Tony winners have gone on to repeat their wins at the Oscars when the stage plays or musicals transferred to the bigscreen (think Yul Brynner, Shirley Booth, etcetera) but it doesn't usually happen the other way around. Trivia Expert Question: would this be the first time that someone won a Tony for reprising an Oscar triumph?

OTHER SILVER SCREEN CONNECTIONS!
Let Them Double as Rental Suggestions If You Don't Have Access To the Stage Plays

Screen-To-Stage
Best Musical Nominees Catch Me If You Can, Sister Act and Best Musical no-shows that were nominated in other categories like Priscilla and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown are all stage adaptations of hit movies.

Stage-To-Screen and Back Again
Both Musical Revival nominees How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Anything Goes have made trips to the big screen in 1967 and 1956 respectively. How To Succeed is a typical adaptation but the Anything Goes film bears extremely little resemblance to the stage musical apart from some of the same songs. Driving Miss Daisy wasn't a big success in these Tony nominations but Vanessa Redgrave was nominated for reprising the Jessica Tandy role, a role that started on the stage.

Compare and Contrast
War Horse, one of the big tickets in town, is based on the book. The book is also the source of the upcoming Oscar Bait film War Horse from Steven Spielberg. It's not an adaptation of the stage play but they're both adaptations of the book. Got it?

If you can't see the plays, read the books or see related films

I've Seen That Face Somewhere Before
Mark Rylance, nominated for Jerusalem is a superb and acclaimed stage actor but unfortunately he doesn't work in movies very often. But some of you may remember him from his brief stint as  leading man of controversially explicit films like the beautiful period piece Angels & Insects (1996) or the stinging drama Intimacy (2001). Lily Rabe, nominated for her Shakespearean work in The Merchant of Venice, is the daughter of Jill Clayburgh and you may have seen her in the movies No Reservations, Mona Lisa Smile or as Ryan Gosling's loyal friend in All Good Things.

Ellen Barkin in "The Normal Heart" which has strangely never been made into a movieAnd though it pains me to admit it this, I've discovered recently that many younger readers are quite unfamiliar with Ellen Barkin. She's playing the stressed doctor in The Normal Heart, another revival of Larry Kramer's devastating AIDS drama (I saw the last revival which was great but people have been completely insane for this one so apparently it's unmissable.) Barkin's  screen heyday was in the late 80s (notably The Big Easy with Dennis Quaid and Sea of Love with Al Pacino). Her last high profile studio movie gig was Oceans 13 (2007). She's also Julianne Moore's bestie though that's neither here nor there, just a fun factoid.

Mother Gothel!
Donna Murphy, who hopefully won an army of new fans with her great work in Tangled, is Tony nominated again for Best Actress in a Musical for playing a woman from youth to old age in the tearjerker The People in the Picture. Murphy is  a two-time winner already.

Oscar Winners On Stage
Frances McDormand, Vanessa Redgrave and Al Pacino are all nominated for lead roles.

Will Any of The New Plays and Musicals Be Made Into Movies?
Your guess is as good as mine. Hairspray is a recent example of a movie that became a stage musical and then became a movie again based on its stage musical. Back and forth it goes. It's hard to know. Kander & Ebb's The Scottsboro Boys in particular might make an interesting transfer and we all know what happened with Cabaret and Chicago. Good People from David Lindsey Abaire has already had one of his acclaimed plays transferred (Rabbit Hole) and he's also a working screenwriter (his current gig being Oz: The Great and Powerful.) so maybe that show about a poor southie in Boston could make some sort of move.

Tony Nominees 2011

Matthew Broderick and Anika Noni Rose announce the nominees

Bright and early, that's how all awards nominations are announced. Tony winners Matthew Broderick and Anika Noni Rose, read the names at 8:30 AM. Broderick, who had a very famous run as a movie star in the 80s, actually won his Tony in 1996 for the musical revival of How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Sixteen years later, another revival of that same musical opens with another famous young movie actor, the boy wizard himself Daniel Radcliffe. But he wasn't nominated so no history repeating itself this time.

New musicals The Book of Mormon (from the South Park guys), The Scottsboro Boys and the raved revival of Anything Goes with Sutton Foster and Joel Grey (still doing 8 shows a week at 79 years of age) lead the nomination tally with 14, 12 and 9 nominations respectively.

Notable Celebrity Snubs: The Tony nominating committee has gotten a lot of flak over the years for valuing performers with off-stage celebrity over those with impressive Broadway credits. But this year maybe they're slightly working against the FAME trend. Celebrities Robin Williams (Benghal Tiger) and Kathleen Turner (High) were both left off their category's lineups and obviously Harry Potter fans won't be happy to see Radcliffe snubbed. James Earl Jones was also snubbed for his Driving Miss Daisy performance. 

Swenson, Butler and Radcliffe. All snubbed for roles you've seen at the movies!

Stage-Star Snubs: Will Swenson (Priscilla) and Aaron Tveit (Catch Me If You Can) were undone by competing against their co-leads (who were nominated). Future movie star Benjamin Walker, who ruled the nation onstage with huge charisma inBloody Bloody Andrew Jackson should have been recognized. Former Xanadu headliner Kerry Butler, who is always a joy to watch, did not win a nomination for Catch Me If You Can (she was in the Amy Adams role) continuing her rough relationship with Tony. Xanadu aside, she's been snubbed the other three times she's been eligible despite well received work or hit shows. What's that about?

Triple Crown Alerts? None that I see on first run through. Vanessa Redgrave, nominated for Jessica Tandy's Oscar winning Driving Miss Daisy role, already has the Oscar-Emmy-Tony triple. So does Al Pacino who is nominated again for The Merchant of Venice. Frances McDormand, nominated for Good People, only has the Oscar so she'd still need an Emmy if she wins this year's Lead Drama Actress prize.

Sutton Foster Break! I'm sorry but I just l-o-v-e her. Seeing her onstage is always a thrill. Here she is rehearsing with Oscar and Tony winner Joel Grey.

A complete list of nominations is after the jump divvied up into Plays and Musicals.

Click to read more ...

Stage Door: Marisa Tomei vs. Julianne Moore

Stage Door will now be a weekly Tuesday series featuring Nathaniel's (or other contributors') theatrical adventures and, as often as possible, how they do connect or could connect with the cinema. So pardon this Monday entry, and subsequent double dip, but 'tis the season; we'll do this again tomorrow for the Tony Award Nominations! But today... a few notes on Marie & Bruce, the current revival of the play with Marisa Tomei (it closes this coming weekend) and the movie version with Julianne Moore.

I mentioned the play briefly before. It opens with Marie and Bruce in bed. Marie is unable to sleep and proceeds to talk herself in circles, spewing bile towards her sleeping husband whom she apparently hates and plans to leave that very day. She tells us about his prized typewriter which she threw away and complains that it's a hot summer, they've both had the flu, and neither of them have jobs. After she wakes him, she emasculates him repeatedly while he tries to make coffee and dress for a lunch date. You get the sense that she's Martha but he's not George  --- a one sided Virginia Woolf (not that this play is a qualitative match but, then again, what is?). Instead of fighting back, he merely says "well darling" this and "well darling" that, smothering her with verbal affection which she returns with mocking bile.

The play is staged superbly in its current revival with a gorgeously flexible set which, with only minor adjustments, acts as the couple's bedroom, the dining room of a friend's party, and a romantic cafe. (It's basically a mini three-act play performed without intermission.  Both Marie and Bruce are hard to get to know but you still feel for them since they seem so ill at ease in all three environments. Or at least Marie does. The constant fourth-wall breaking monologues, which generally feel natural in theater settings and too affected in movies (and Marie and Bruce is no exception), help win you over to the harsh characters.

Throughout the entire second act, the party, you become privy to snippets of conversations from each partygoer. It's the best part of the play, staged ingeniously with a rotating set as if you're circling the party and drifting from conversation to conversation as people actually do at parties. Strangely, or perhaps ingeniously, the key to Marie's character seems to be one of these offhand conversations.

In the movie version, Marie (Julianne Moore) seems entirely stoned during the party sequence -- not just confused about her own feelings -- but she leans in to this particular party profundity (monday monologue alert!), bewildered but cognizant that she should understand it. And feels immediately sick thereafter.

Woman at Party: I understand what you're saying but isn't it possible for sometimes people to not feel what they actually do feel? Do you know what i mean?

I mean they may actually feel a certain thing but they don't really know that they do because
in their own conscience minds they're so incredibly involved in what they think that they feel that they don't really feel the thing at all. Do you see what i'm saying?

I mean like, for example, a very common example is when you're supposed to feel pleased by something thing like when somebody gives you a present and you're supposed to feel pleased but actually you don't because the thing is something that  actually you hate or you actually already have the thing. But you're not supposed to say 'Well, I really hate this.' You're supposed to say 'oh boy that's great I really like it.'

Julianne Moore has always had a gift with neurosis and her best characterizations tends to involve women who are lost to themselves through self delusion, mental illness, or societal mores (See: Amber Waves, Cathy Whitaker, Carol White, Laura Brown, etcetera). In theory Marie -- who seems very decisive only to gradually reveal herself to be confused and paralyzed -- is a perfect match for her gifts but it's actually Marisa Tomei who wins this round. It helps a lot that her vehicle is better all around and has more precise ideas about how Marie will interact with the audience; the movie can't seem to make up its mind about how much of a storyteller Marie should be or whether or not she should stare directly at the camera and break the fourth wall. But there is something in Tomei's gabby everywoman sensuality, and instant relatability that trumps the character's offputting nature. Marie is still an incredibly unhappy woman spreading her misery around -- Tomei doesn't sugarcoat it -- but she's somehow more sympathetic. Moore, with her inarguable star allure is maybe too much of a presence -- unwittingly closing the already impenetrable character off even further.

The play: B; The movie: C-; The current revival: B+/A-

Stage Door
Drama Desk Nominees announced. Color me very surprised that all three principles from Women on the Verge... got nominated: Sherie Rene Scott, Patti Lupone and Laura Benanti (pictured left). Only Benanti as the ditzy chatterbox who sleeps with a terrorist thrilled the audience the night I attended; the musical was no match for the Almodóvar source material.
Gold Derby has the Drama League nominees. I served one year on the nominating committee several years ago and it was a ton of fun (they have a rotating civilian section of the nominating committee)
Back Stage Blog Stage Seems that Sutton Foster (one of our favorites) and Bobby Canavale (The Station Agent, Will & Grace) are now an item.
Kritzerland Camelot's original London cast recording from 1964 is getting released this summer. Laurence Harvey instead of Richard Burton as King Arthur! [gasp]
La Daily Musto lists a very odd assortment of his fav "11th hour" Broadway Musical numbers. He seems to have a very loose definition... but there's absolutely no beating "LOT'S WIFE" from Caroline or Change. I saw that show twice and both times I thought I was going to explode inside it was so moving.

Overheard: On Marisa Tomei

Last night my girlfriend Kay and I saw Marisa Tomei in the revival of Wallace Shawn's 1979 play Marie and Bruce. (I'll tell you a bit more about it and how it compares to that very underseen Julianne Moore film in next week's theater column). As you walk into the theater, before the show starts, Marisa and co-star Frank Whaley are already on the stage, tossing and turning in bed.

Marisa aka Marie is obviously NOT sleeping. In fact, she's chain smoking in between fights with the blankets and jabs at her snoring husband. Two older women walk past me.

Elderly Woman #1: ... [unintelligible] My Cousin Vinny.
Elderly Woman #2: That must be so frustrating, to win the Oscar your first time in a movie and then... nothing!

UHHnnnhh. So I say...

'First things first, ladies. Tomei has had quite a healthy early-skeptics-defying film career... complete with two follow up Oscar nominations and, one might argue, ever increasing levels of respect for her endurance and range. Just because you haven't been to the movies since 1992 does not mean she hasn't been making them. And with major directors, too -- Aronofsky, Winterbottom, Lumet, Clooney .... Also: she can hear you. There's no music, she's already on stage, it's a small house, you are four rows away from her'

Well, that's what I said in my head. In reality I just gave Kay a sideways look and she fully understood my grievance. Then we mentally projected "Break a leg, Marisa!" up to the stage. But she didn't need the help; she killed it as usual. Don't you totally love her?

P.S. Also on the way in I heard theater patrons talking about how weird it is for Wallace Shawn that people always want to talk to him about Clueless (1995) since it's such a microscopic part of his career. (Perhaps these people knew him?) But, come to think of it, that must be true of all character actors who have showy parts in mainstream hits. That people wouldn't know everything else you've accomplished in life? [cue Princess Bride voice] "INCONCEIVABLE!"

Stage Door: Kathleen Turner in "High"

The Film Experience has always loved talking up theater, the true 3D experience. So let's do it weekly, even if it's brief. We'll make it movie adjacent: films adapted from stage, movies hitting the boards in a new form or worthy crossovers of any sort... that sort of thing. The lines in entertainment are much blurrier these days, aren't they? Many actors now do all three (tv, film, theater) with increasing regularity, don'cha know, no longer defining themselves as one medium actors.

Kathleen Turner on Opening Night | Turner w/ Evan Jonigkeit in "High"

I recently had the opportunity to see one of my all time favorite actresses on stage again: Kathleen Turner. Her major film career dwindled in the 90s but she's become a regular on Broadway and she's now starring as a foul-mouthed nun in Matthew Lombardo's drama "High". But not for much longer. It was announced yesterday that the show is closing Sunday after only 8 regular performances. Ouch. We're two weeks away from Tony nominations and we'd assumed that Kathleen would be nominated. But maybe not.

So is the play really that bad? The answer is a simple no. But it is a play that lacks the mythic enormity that you sometimes just have to have to fill up a big house with energy if not ticket buyers. Lombardo's last play "Looped" about the final movie performance of Tallulah Bankhead (played by Valerie Harper) had a similar problem though it was a much stronger show all told and was really helped by a transcendent sequence in the second act that was creatively staged as Tallulah remembers performing Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Both Looped and High are very simple in format -- which is not really a problem if the writing or story are superb -- but they rely too entirely on the star charisma of the lead actress, who is often monologuing, to really push them over.  High recounts the counselling sessions between a recovering alcoholic nun / social worker who is working with an unrepentant gay hustler and drug addict who has recently been involved in the overdose death of a teenager. How involved he was he won't say. The show has only three characters and while the nun and the drug addict have somewhat meaty if very traditional arcs, the Father character who pushes them together, just doesn't work in the writing or performing.

I'm glad I saw it and I hope Kathleen is Tony nominated being much stronger than the show but even she of that inimitable arresting rasp and considerable star charisma is unable to elevate it beyond its limitations. It might have worked far better as a made for TV movie, not for the subject matter exactly but for the intimacy that that medium can bring to small human struggle stories.

Stage/Screen News of the Moment
New York City Opera remember that Oscar nominated 60s movie Seance on a Wet Afternoon? It's now an opera by Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz. Should I see it and write about it?
Playbill an unauthorized musical parody of The Silence of the Lambs comes to Off Broadway in June.
Rama's Screen has the breakdown on the Rock of Ages cast -- who is playing who -- including a new character to be played by Catherine Zeta-Jones. So happy about this one as we needed Velma in another musical. I haven't seen the show -- I was put off by the American Idol stunt casting at the opening -- but now I'm curious and I have heard that it's very funny.