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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Sunday, June 15th, 2008 - 1 Comment »
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Tony Picks

Okay… now that I have finished off the vast majority of the Broadway season with a few last additions, a quick Tony rundown for tonight in the obnoxious Will Win/Should Win schtick that is as cliché as thanking God or mom or your “significant other.”
Play
Will Win: August: Osage County” (Tracy Letts)
Should Win: August: Osage County” (Tracy Letts)
There was a lot of straight plays on Broadway this year and a high percentage were very good… this one was easily the best.
Will Win: In the Heights
Should Win: Tie: Xanadu and Passing Strange
I am amazed that people refer to Spring Awakening as “groundbreaking” and can’t see how clearly Passing Strange is the same show… for adults. Passing Strange kicks ass… but my heart belongs with Xanadu, the show that people are still scared to see… and scared to vote for. I guess the tie-break, for me, is that Passing Strange is so much about Stew while Xanadu is a show that can play – with deceptively talented people – anytime, anywhere like a Broadway classic. Unlike A Chorus Line, it will still be perfect when someone brings it back in 20 years.
You can’t help but to enjoy In The Heights, but it is not a great show and will never be a great show. It’s got enormous energy and the choreographer deserves a Tony… but the show and the lyrics are nothing more than mediocre.
Book-Musical:
Will Win: Xanadu
Should Win: Xanadu
Douglas Carter Beane dreamed this thing into what it is, which is not a retread of the movie. Stew’s story is a worthy book, to say the least. The others are not.
Original Score
Will Win: Passing Strange
Should Win: Passing Strange
The only real competition is In The Heights… and there is not a lyric in that show that comes close to Stew’s work.
Revival-Play:
Will Win: Boeing-Boeing
Should Win: ?
This is one category where I am most blind. Macbeth came and went before I could see it. The strike caused me to miss The Homecoming. And very soft reviews for ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses kept it from being a priority.
Revival-Musical:
Will Win: South Pacific
Should Win: South Pacific
Gypsy is a truly great show… a firmament of Broadway… and not very exciting this time around. And I was not the fan of Sunday in the Park that others were, mostly because I was not thrilled by the male lead. If there is an upset – and South Pacific has them all wet with joy – it will be Sunday… but there won’t be an upset.
Actor-Play:
Will Win: Mark Rylance, Boeing-Boeing
Should Win: Mark Rylance, Boeing-Boeing
It’s real simple… Mark Rylance gives the performance of the year. In this very broad period farce, he manages to keep to full speed without ever once looking like he is acting. It is very, very challenging and he is truly spectacular in this turn. He will be the next Brit who Hollywood doesn’t want to make a movie without in support.
Actress-Play:
Will Win: Deanna Dunagan, August: Osage County
Should Win: Amy Morton, August: Osage County
Dunagan is spectacular. This is no insult to her. But she has the show pony role. And Morton has to build what seems to be a very simple character into a match to go toe-to-toe with Dunagan. She is the lead of the best show of the year. And she deserves a Tony for it.
Actor-Musical:
Will Win: Paulo Szot, South Pacific
Should Win: Stew, Passing Strange
SP is the show they all LOOOOOVE. But Stew is not only giving a great performance that demands his physical, vocal, and emotional presence for virtually every second the show is on stage, but he grabs us all by the heart. I could see a Daniel Evans upset. If Miranda wins for In The Heights, it will be tragic… he is a very talented kid… and the weakest lead performer in his show.
Actress-Musical:
Will Win: Patti LuPone, Gypsy
Should Win: Kerry Butler, Xanadu
I wish I loved LuPone in this role like I was supposed to… but the real star of the show was her daughter.
You have to believe Kerry Butler is magic in Xanadu. It is an epic piece of comic acting, in addition to the singing and dancing and skating.
If there is a LuPone upset, I wouldn’t be surprised by O’Hara in the Love Show or Russell, who makes Sunday work.
Featured Actor-Play:
Will Win: Jim Norton, The Seafarer
Should Win: Jim Norton, The Seafarer
Many think that Raul Esparza will get make up sex for the absolute theft of his Tony last year. (I finally saw Curtains… love David Hyde-Pierce, but puh-leeze! Esparza was epic in comparison.)
Norton was the guy everyone was talking about coming out of The Seafarer and I like to think it will stick. David Pittu had two great turns in the last year, also as the one great thing in LoveMusik. A star. But not his year.
Featured Actress-Play:
Will Win: Mary McCormack, Boeing-Boeing
Should Win: Mary McCormack, Boeing-Boeing
Rondi Reed is great and the show will win the most awards tonight, but McCormack is a showstopper in Boeing-Boeing, doing what might be the hardest thing for an actor to do these days… committing 100% to a farce. Great performances all around, but…
Featured Actor-Musical: Daniel Breaker, “Passing Strange”; Danny Burstein, “South Pacific”; Robin De Jesus, “In the Heights”; Christopher Fitzgerald, “Young Frankenstein”; Boyd Gaines, “Gypsy.”
Featured Actress-Musical:
Will Win: Laura Benanti, Gypsy
Should Win: Laura Benanti, Gypsy
Ladies & Gentlemen… your next Broadway legend in the making.
Benanti, simply, is amazing. The title role in Gypsy is one of the most challenging ever because of its range. Most actresses do well with one of the halves of the personality and overact the other. No Benanti. She not only gets them both right, she brings the audience through her transition with fluid grace.
Direction-Play:
Will Win: Anna D. Shapiro, August: Osage County
Should Win: A 4 way tie
Every single one of these turns by a director is complex, almost impossible, and close to perfection. Really. The 39 Steps is unlike anything you’ve seen in a theater and must be seen. The Seafarer is such a work of focus, but because of the stage full of men, the whole things needs to remain compresses. August: Osage County is a massive epic, both relentlessly verbal and physical with a huge cast and a runtime over 3 hours. Shapiro maneuvers the full-stage and empty-stage moments to perfection. And Boeing-Boeing is a farce of over 2 hours that isn’t just a door slammer, but a constant color chameleon of styles.
Direction-Musical:
Will Win: Bartlett Sher, South Pacific
Should Win: Uh…
I would really be okay, though not all that enthusiastic, about any of these directors. It shows the lack of imagination of Tony voters that Passing Strange and Xanadu are not included. Even though I think the show overrated, I would be more than comfy with Thomas Kail getting it for In The Heights… he gives the audience all the reasons to have a great time at the theater.
Choreography:
Will Win: Andy Blankenbuehler, In the Heights
Should Win: Dan Knechtges, Xanadu
Heights is all energy… more choreography than anyone can consume in one sitting. Well done. Xanadu makes the impossible work… on skates.
Orchestrations:
Will Win: Alex Lacamoire and Bill Sherman, In the Heights
Should Win: Stew and Heidi Rodewald; Passing Strange
I feel I have explained this already. Both are exhilarating… one is just better.
Scenic Design-Play:
Will Win: Peter McKintosh, The 39 Steps
Should Win: Peter McKintosh, The 39 Steps
Not even close.
But I won’t be shocked by an upset.
Scenic Design-Musical:
Will Win: David Farley and Timothy Bird & The Knifedge Creative Network, Sunday in the Park With George
Should Win: David Farley and Timothy Bird & The Knifedge Creative Network, Sunday in the Park With George
The theater they put YF in, which ate some great work, cost Robin Wagner a Tony this year.
Costume Design-Play:
Will Win: Rob Howell, Boeing-Boeing
Should Win: Peter McKintosh, The 39 Steps
Great costumes for the women in Boeing… sexy as hell, but just the right side of obscene, they play a real role in the storytelling, as does our reluctant hero’s suit and moth-bitten sweater.
But the flexibility of the costumes on 39 Steps is a sight to behold.
Costume Design-Musical:
Will Win: Catherine Zuber, South Pacific
Should Win: David Zinn, Xanadu
Not an exciting category this year… again, Xanadu was the real story. Cheesy is not easy.
Lighting Design-Play:
Will Win: Kevin Adams, The 39 Steps
Should Win: Kevin Adams, The 39 Steps
I’m not sure why I believe this show will get these craft awards… but it really deserves them.
Lighting Design-Musical:
Will Win: Donald Holder, South Pacific
Should Win: Donald Holder, South Pacific
Sunday in the Park could upset.
Sound Design-Play:
Will Win: Mic Pool, The 39 Steps
Should Win: Mic Pool, The 39 Steps
Really? 3 Tonys for The 39 Steps? This one is the one that should be the lockiest lock.
Sound Design-Musical:
Will Win: Sebastian Frost, Sunday in the Park With George
Should Win: Sebastian Frost, Sunday in the Park With George
Enjoy the show.

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1 Comment »

One Response to “Tony Picks”

  1. scooterzz says:
    June 15, 2008 at 5:37 pm

    i’m hoping that cubby bernstein can push ‘xanadu’ to a win…..and, btw– if you haven’t watched the ‘cubby bernstein’ youtube vids, check ’em out….they’re pretty brilliant m(nathan lane backstage at ‘xanadu’…priceless)……

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon