WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2010
ANALYSIS
Tony Awards for a discerning palate
by Peter Marks
Displaying uncommonly good judgment, the nominators for the 64th annual Tony Awards an- nounced their picks Tuesday in a roster that intelligently rewards many of the finer offerings of the wildly uneven 2009-10 Broadway season — including some of Wash- ington area interest — and right- fully stiffs some of the showiest duds. Chief among the favored pro-
ductions are two that must be con- sidered prohibitive favorites for best original musical and best mu- sical revival. “Fela!,” a concert-style new musical about Nigerian activ- ist and performer Fela Kuti, raked in 11 nominations. So did the revival of the 1983 “La
Cage aux Folles,” featuring the priceless pairing of Kelsey Gram- mer and Douglas Hodge. Both were nominated for best actor in a musical, and they’ll face off against Sahr Ngaujah of “Fela!” along with Sean Hayes of “Promis- es, Promises” and Chad Kimball of “Memphis.” The awards are to be presented
June 13 at Radio City Music Hall. In the column of big surprises, place the seven nominations as- signed to the short-lived Broadway revival of the 1998 musical “Rag- time,” which began at the Kennedy Center and ran on Broadway from Nov. 15 to Jan. 10. It was an unex- pected bounty, given the show’s disappointing performance at the box office, but its artistry was vin- dicated Tuesday. Those recognized for outstand- ing work included director Marcia Milgrom Dodge; Christiane Noll, a nominee for best actress in a musi- cal; Bobby Steggert, tapped for supporting actor in a musical; and set designer Derek McLane. It was also named in the arenas of cos- tume and lighting design and, of course, best musical revival. Let it be noted that the season was not a fruitful one for original musicals, traditionally the catego- ry most closely watched by Broad- way enthusiasts. Along with “Fe- la!,” the nominees include the blues-driven “Memphis,” the punk- inflected “American Idiot” and the rocking-and-rolling “Million Dol- lar Quartet,” an appealingly mod- est jukebox musical directed by Signature Theatre’s Eric Schaeffer. How paltry the season was for
new musicals is illustrated in the category of best score: Two of the four nominees are for music used in plays. In fact, Branford Marsalis was named for the incidental mu- sic he adds to the scene changes of the drama “Fences.” What the nominators got right
was reflected in what was omitted. The well-earned snubs included
MONIQUE CARBON/ASSOCIATED PRESS JOAN MARCUS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
YEA
These productions scored multiple nominations: “Fela!,” “La Cage aux Folles,” “Fences” and “Ragtime.”
NAY
These plays, not so much: “Come Fly Away,” “Enron,” “The Addams Family” and “Race.”
Nominations represent the finest offerings of an uneven Broadway season
one for Twyla Tharp’s under- cooked tribute to Frank Sinatra, “Come Fly Away.” It received just two nods, for choreography and the supporting dance performance of the delicious Karine Plantadit. A bigger statement was made in the tepid acknowledgment of the lumbering, witless “The Addams Family.” Its two nominations came for best score and the performance of Kevin Chamberlin as Uncle Fes- ter. Among the ignored contribu- tions were those of the musical’s stars, Nathan Lane and Bebe Neu- wirth. The choices in the dramatic play
categories showed similar discern- ment. (The nominations are made by a committee, this year compris- ing 27 professionals from a variety of theater disciplines, from actors to designers to playwrights.) “Fences,” a revival of August
JOAN MARCUS/ASSOCIATED PRESS LUCAS JACKSON/REUTERS
Wilson’s popular 1987 drama, re- ceived 10 nominations, the most of any old or new play. Denzel Wash- ington and Viola Davis got well- deserved nods as lead actors, and Stephen McKinley Henderson’s supporting work was rightfully recognized, too. Director Kenny Leon, who oversaw the Kennedy Center’s marathon of Wilson’s plays in 2008, was named a con- tender for best director of a play. “Fences” will be the front-run- ner for best revival of a play. (Its ri- vals are “Lend Me a Tenor,” “The Royal Family” and the superlative “A View From the Bridge,” the lat- ter receiving justifiable recogni- tion for actors Liev Schreiber, Jes- sica Hecht and Scarlett Johans- son.) For best new play, John Logan’s
JOAN MARCUS/ASSOCIATED PRESS JOAN MARCUS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“Red,” a bracingly absorbing story about abstract painter Mark Roth- ko, leads all other new dramas, with seven nominations. It will vie with Sarah Ruhl’s “In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play,” Don- ald Margulies’s “Time Stands Still” and “Next Fall,” Geoffrey Nauffts’s quietly provocative tragicomedy about religious and sexual identity. The notable absences in this cat-
JOAN MARCUS/ASSOCIATED PRESS ROBERT J. SAFERSTEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
What the nominators got right was reflected in what was omitted.
egory were “Enron,” an overly broad vaudeville detailing corpo- rate shenanigans, and “Race,” Da- vid Mamet’s breathless, disap- pointing survey of a crime and its racial implications. Both stars of “Red,” Alfred Moli- na and Eddie Redmayne, are among the many actors whose ex- cellent work attracted the nom- inators. The panel even decided to single out Valerie Harper, whose portrayal of Tallulah Bankhead el- evated the late, unlamented “Looped,” which had made a pre- Broadway stop at Arena Stage. If this year’s Tony honor roll in-
dicates anything, it’s that this was a season in which the players were the thing.
marksp@washpost.com
BLAKE GOPNIK/THE WASHINGTON POST
WINNER BY A YARD:Mike Shaffer’s
“Lighthouse/Whitehouse” intriguingly mixes quaintness and eccentricity.
Foggy Bottom’s beacon of creativity
by Blake Gopnik
The second Foggy Bottom Outdoor Sculp- ture Exhibit launched Saturday in the front yards of 15 houses in far west Foggy Bottom. The best piece on view, by the widest of mar- gins, is Mike Shaffer’s “Lighthouse/White- house.” It’s good because, when you come across it on the lawn of a nice old Washington home, you can’t tell right away that it’s art. The piece is nothing more than a skinny
Shakespeare Theatre snags British productions
theater from C1
don production — the booking of the two new shows signals a healthy uptick in the competition to bring top-drawer British drama to Washington. “We had such a good time hosting
the National that we’re really pleased that these productions are coming in,” said the Shakespeare’s artistic director, Michael Kahn. “I wanted very much to have a home for international work in Washington besides the Kennedy Cen- ter. And I sure hope this proves to be something we can continue to do.” Both works will be launching Amer- ican tours in Washington. While the ac- claimed “Black Watch,” a product of the National Theatre of Scotland, has been to this country previously, “The Great Game” will be making its American de- but at Harman Hall on Sept. 15 before moving on to other cities, including Minneapolis and New York. Political theater of the kind champi- oned frequently on London’s stages has long been a lagging genre in the United States; the hope is that special-event programs of the variety the Shake- speare has planned will help to fill this curious gap. While the shows deal in different ways with the West’s histor- ical and current roles in the wars in Af- ghanistan and Iraq, neither work, the troupes involved say, seeks to preach or promote a single point of view. “In no way is it a sermon,” explains Nicolas Kent of “The Great Game,” whose 30-minute plays survey every- thing from the 19th-century hostilities between Britain and Afghanistan, to the Soviet invasion in 1979, to contem- porary American involvement. The 12 dramas will be spread over three eve- nings — four per night — and then on weekends, be staged all in one mara- thon day. Kent, artistic director of Lon- don’s Tricycle Theatre, dreamed up “The Great Game,” soliciting a gallery
Festival Fringe in 2006, it went on to an ecstatic reception around the world, including an extended stay at Brook- lyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse. The Shakespeare was not the only company here that expressed interest in hosting the production if it ever re- turned to this country. Arena Stage ex- plored the possibility of bringing it next season to its newly renovated campus in SouthwestWashington. But officials there and at the National Theatre of Scotland ultimately deter- mined the show’s physical demands could not be accommodated. That’s when the Shakespeare Thea- tre reentered the negotiations, accord- ing to Chris Jennings, the company’s managing director. “Black Watch” is ideally staged in a space 100 feet long, 75 feet wide and 25 feet high, with bleachers on two sides.
During a visit in December, Neil
MANUEL HARLAN
“BLACK WATCH”: The Iraq war as experienced by a Scottish regiment.
of dramatists to write on the subject of Afghanistan. “I thought very much we were focus- ing all the time on the war in Iraq, and at that time Afghanistan was very much a forgotten story,” said Kent, whose theater has created other pieces contoured to tumultuous modern-day events, such as “Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom,” culled from verbatim testimony and other documents. (The play was presented in a local version by Studio Theatre in 2005.)
“I felt it was time to focus on Afghan- istan and what had gone wrong there,” Kent added. The event, supported in part by the British Council, a global nonprofit or- ganization that advances British cul-
tural and educational interests, fea- tures a cast of 14, and works by drama- tists from several nations, including American playwright Lee Blessing and British writer David Edgar. It will run at the Harman through Sept. 26, and the company, with help from the Em- bassy of Afghanistan, will supplement the visit with discussion sessions about the country, as well as displays of Af- ghan art and handicrafts. “Black Watch,” which will run from
Jan. 25 to Feb. 6, 2011, tells in astonish- ingly theatrical, almost cinematic fash- ion the story of the Iraq war through the experiences of a legendary Scottish regiment. Gregory Burke’s play, direct- ed by John Tiffany, is based on inter- views with soldiers on the ground in Iraq. After a premiere at the Edinburgh
Murray, executive producer of the Na- tional Theatre of Scotland, had toured Harman Hall, and subsequently the Shakespeare sent him computer mock- ups of how the theater, built for flex- ibility, could be modified. “You’ve got to have the audience fac- ing each other and looking down on the action,” Murray said. “That’s what Chris and his team have managed to achieve for us.” Now, the Shakespeare has the job of selling the shows to the public. Unlike “Phèdre” with the electric Mirren and Dominic Cooper, these productions won’t have the benefit of bona fide box- office magnets. The concepts them- selves are the stars. Kahn has his fin- gers crossed that the city’s theatergoers will embrace these ventures. For Mur- ray, the dream is that federal Washing- ton comes as well, to hear what “Black Watch” has to say. “Let’s get the politicians in there, too!” he declared.
marksp@washpost.com
pyramid, maybe 10 or 12 feet high, covered with white vinyl siding — the kind with a fake wood grain — and topped with a small white ball that is wired to light up. The whole thing could be a steeple blown off a particularly ex- travagant McMansion. Set among the Victorian houses of this lit- tle-known corner of Washington (bless this neighborhood association show for getting us to tour it), Shaffer’s sculpture evokes the irre- sistible appeal of their clapboard quaintness. And it highlights how that appeal has been transmogrified in the suburbs into swollen architectural fakery — gingerbread on ster- oids. The idiom of this “steeple” is borrowed from the good old days, but it would be ab- surd to imagine it actually attached to the roof of the old-time house it sits in front of. Shaffer’s piece also might evoke an eccen- tric, DIY mysticism — the Masonic pyramid on our dollar bill realized by a homeowner with spare building supplies. It crosses Don- ald Judd minimalism with “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” There’s a lovely, peculiar balance between the thrumming portent of the sculpture’s monumental shape and scale and the comically domestic materials it’s made of. In the normal course of things, when you come across a house with a work of art in its yard, you can guess that someone inside has been taking Sunday sculpture classes. That’s what you’d guess at once about most of the politely arty objects installed in the yards of Foggy Bottom. Shaffer’s work stands out from the other 14, because you can’t be sure if its maker is artistic or whacked.
gopnikb@washpost.com
The Foggy Bottom Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit
runs through Oct. 23 in the yards of houses between 24th and 26th streets NW and H and K streets. Mike Shaffer’s piece is at 842 New Hampshire Ave. NW.
Visit
www.savefoggybottom.com/FBN/arts.
KLMNO
S
C3
ART REVIEW
Picasso painting sells for record $106.5M
Bloomberg News
new york— Pablo Picasso’s sinuous, laven- der-hued painting of his mistress, “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” (1932), sold for $106.5million Monday night at Christie’s International — the highest amount ever paid for an artwork at auction. The price surpassed the $104.2million paid in 2004 for a 1905 Picasso painting, “Gar- con a la Pipe,” at Sotheby’s in New York. And it exceeded the $103.4million paid for Giaco- metti’s sculpture “Walking Man I” (1960) in February at Sotheby’s in London. “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” had been
projected to sell for $70million to $90 mil- lion. The painting sold to an undisclosed bidder by phone during an impressionist and mod- ern-art sale. The 69 lots on offer were estimat- ed to sell for as much as $368.3million. The Picasso features his blond mistress Ma-
rie-Therese Walter. Other works from the same series belong to the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, casino mogul Steve Wynn and SAC Capital Advisors LP founder Steven A. Cohen.
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