The glare on Broadway

Perhaps, long ago, stars were once made on Broadway, but these days they arrive at the stage already twinkling. A stint on the New York stage has become de rigueur for successful movie stars, and the arrangement suits everybody: nothing puts bums on seats like the tantalising opportunity for stalkers fans to see their favourite movie star, live and up close.

I have been a committed disciple of film and TV since I was old enough to sit crosslegged before the wood panelled splendour of the family television, and to this very day I remain particularly susceptible to the lure of celebrity. My keen pursuit of the theatre may seem cultured to the casual observer, but I almost always buy tickets to a show based on lowbrow factors like the fame of its cast. The superstar headliner is often joined by a couple of lesser-known but persistently familiar faces, and one of the many highlights for a New York theatregoer is playing “B-list Bingo” – a race to name the character from some obscure film or cult television series that the actor once played.

“Isn’t that Gareth from The Office?”

“That’s who it is! He looked so familiar. Nice one.”

Some are surprisingly brilliant. I agreed to Equus primarily to see Harry Potter get his kit off, and walked away impressed to the very core. Daniel Radcliffe generated drama so intense that when the moment arrived, I forgot to pay attention.  The play itself was wonderfully written and provocative in the right way, the set design was a marvel, and the performance by co-star Richard Griffiths was hands down the best acting I’ve ever seen. The Times critic, who apparently has been around long enough to have seen the original production in the 1970s, reckoned Griffiths did a better job than Richard Burton.

But while the immediacy of theatre can dazzle, so too can it sedate. The excitement of sitting four rows from the stage as Kristen Scott Thomas strides back and forth will wear off if it happens to be as drawn out and miserable a play as Chekhov’s The Seagull. Honestly, does nothing good ever happen to Russian people? By the end you are so desperate for relief from the rampant anguish, you couldn’t give a toss that you once thought Thomas was awesome in The English Patient.

Another problem is some of these plays boast A-listers who happen to be crap stage actors and who, facilitated by incompetent direction, deliver performances as underdone or overcooked as you’d find in any high school play, and frankly you’re a little shocked they allow that sort of thing on Broadway. When I learned that Jeremy Piven was to be starring in the revival of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, a writer I new and liked, I snapped up tickets in a flash. Like many others I consider Piven’s portayal of “Ari Gold” in the cheeky HBO series Entourage to be a triumph. Sadly, the show turned out to be a catastrophe: the play was silly – a purported satire with dialogue so blunt and witless it was annoying; no comedy survived the poorly timed delivery; and Piven’s performance was nothing more than a lacklustre version of Ari. At least Piven knew the whole thing sucked – he pulled out of the show after a month or so, claiming he had mercury poisoning from eating too much sushi. The producers, who found that excuse as convincing as you just did, are suing him.

On Friday I saw Mary-Louise Parker in Hedda Gabler. Parker is a stage actor from way back, she was great in The West Wing, and I love her in Weeds. Disconcerting, then, that she was a bit too familiar in Hedda Gabler. I think we can all agree that a drug-dealing suburban mother from present day Southern California should feel a little different to a 19th Century Norwegian villainess. I couldn’t help wishing that I’d seen that our Cate do it. Celebrity or not, she must’ve been brilliant.

I suspect that these starry starry casts, while seductive, may be bringing a little light-pollution to Broadway. We need some undiscovered talent to cut through the glare. And since I don’t like Katie Holmes anyway, I won’t be checking out the current production of All My Sons.

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