A lean and hungry look

Scott Lemieux loves the theater.  But he never comes late.  That's why the blogger is a tramp.

Couple weeks ago he saw the revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross starring Alan Alda, Liev Schrieber, Gordon Clapp, Jeffrey Tambor, Tom Wopat, and some young actor I've never heard of who must be having the time of his life working with all those guys.

Frederick Weller.

Scott gives the show a rave.   He thought the movie was one of the best films of the 1990s.  But, he says, this production is even better.

You may think that you don't really need to see the play if you've seen the movie, but you do; if you have the opportunity and like, or think you might like, Mamet at his best you have to see it. The rhythm of the dialogue is a very deep pleasure indeed when performed this well, and seeing a live performance is an irreplaceable experience. The greatest potential concern would be comparing this cast to the one assembled for the film, and yet despite the less-famous names it's a wash at worst. To my eye and ear, only Jonathan Pryce's Lingk and Kevin Spacey's Williamson are clearly preferable to their counterparts in this production (played respectively by Tom Lopat and Frederick Weller--the latter's sometimes forced readings and excessive early telegraphing of Williamson's buried toughness and canniness are the only significant flaws in the performance I saw.) If anything, Alan Alda's Levine, Gordon Clapp's Moss, and (especially) Jeffrey Tambor's Aaronson are better than the estimable performances of [Jack] Lemmon, [Ed] Harris, and [Alan] Arkin. And, most surprisingly, Liev Schreiber's Roma holds its own. Pacino's Roma is about as good as acting gets, but Schreiber's is also superb, and is arguably truer to Mamet's conception of the character.

I'm there.

I hope.

When we moved down here one of the things we looked forward to was that, being only an hour or so from New York City, we'd get into Manhattan a few times a year.  Hasn't happened for me yet.  The blonde's been twice.  Once to chaperon the sixth grade's field trip to the Cloisters and once to see Spamalot.  You may ask how is that she got to see Spamalot without her loving husband?

Priced the tickets to a Broadway musical lately?

A friend was going and we flipped a coin to see which of us would get to go with him.

Which means Glengarry Glen Ross ought to be all mine.

She'll find a way to tag along, I just know she will.

We were planning to see Denzel Washington in Julius Caesar but we were scared off by the lukewarm reviews.  If Broadway ticket prices were like London's West End's, not much more than the price of movie tickets, a lot more people would risk going to see shows the critics were iffy about.  But we aren't going to spend a month's mortgage payment to see a play we've already seen done superbly and with one of the same actors playing the same role and doing with it what he did with it when we saw him.  Did you follow that?

The actor was Colm Feore.  He played Cassius.  We saw him at the Stratford Festival in Canada in 1990, and he stole the show from the actors playing Antony and Brutus.  Which, it turns out, is what he's been doing in New York, or so says Terry Teachout.

According to the posters, Denzel Washington is the star of “Julius Caesar,” which opened Sunday at the Belasco Theatre. The fine young ladies in the balcony signified agreement by squealing when he made his entrance in a sharp-looking business suit, this being a modern-dress version of Shakespeare’s classic tale of dirty work in ancient Rome. Don’t let appearances fool you, though: The real star of this mostly horrible show is Colm Feore, who is high-strung and lustrously precise as Cassius. Next to him, Mr. Washington comes off like a well-meaning amateur, standing stiff as a weathervane and gabbling his way through Brutus’ lines.

Terry blames Washington, but it's all Feore's doing, I'm sure.  When we saw him do Cassius, Brutus was played by Brian Bedford, a far more accomplished Shakespearean actor than Washington, and Bedford, who we saw another time work magic as Salieri in Amadeus, spent most of Julius Caesar rocked back on his heels, staring in helpless wonder at the show Feore was putting on.

I swear he was as lost in the enjoyment of watching Feore work as we were and there were moments after Feore finished off a speech when Bedford took a beat before beginning his line, as if to say, "Oh, is it my turn again?"

Feore turned Julius Caesar into the Tragedy of Cassius and it was wonderful!

Denzel must be having a similar problem.  It is awful hard to concentrate on your part when the actor playing opposite you is on fire.  Sometimes you just can't resist the temptation to sit back and watch him go to town.

From 1986 to 1995 the blonde and I made an annual trip up to Stratford.  We were usually joined by Nancy Nall and her husband Alan.  And during those years Colm Feore was the company's main leading man.  We saw him play Iago, Petruchio, Richard III, Hamlet, the Pirate King in Pirates of Penzance, Cyrano, Benedick, Angelo, Iachimo, Mercutio, Athos in The Three Musketeers, and Cassius, and he was never less than brilliant---except as Benedick, but that production of Much Ado was totally misconceived.

It should be noted that in those days he could make young women in the audience squeal and squirm in their seats as well as Denzel.

At least, the two young women on either side of me used to squirm and squeal.

That's Nance and the Blonde in front of the main theater at Stratford in 1995.  The gleams in their eyes are her Kate and our 9 year old.

For some reason, in 1990, when we saw Julius Caesar, Alan didn't go with us. It was just the three of us.  I'd like to tell you about a menage a trois, but the two of them barely noticed me.

They only had eyes for Colm Feore.

So, imagine their delight when, after the show, as we walking down the wide lawn from the theater to our car we met up with Feore hurrying away from the stage door.

Our paths intersected and without having to chase him down we walked right up to him, natural and casual as can be.  He said hello.  I said hello.  Then I started to tell him how much we had enjoyed the show, how much we had admired his work over the years, how we were looking forward to...

At this point I looked off to my left, wondering why I, who usually could barely get a word in edgewise when I was in the company of Nance and the blonde, was doing all the talking here and I discovered there was no we at the moment.

We weren't there.

We had faded deep into the background.

We two hardbitten newspaperwomen were standing twenty feet away from our idol, giggling and blushing like we were a couple of freshmen girls who'd just met the captain of the high school football team and he'd remembered our names!

Comments

[grishaxxx]

Aboot halfway thru this post I started thinking about those NYC prices and decided to check out Stratford - extraneous! Beat me to it, as usual (and such lovely theater company you have there, LM!).
Anyway, eat it all up - Tempest, Orpheus Descending, Edward II, As You Like It...arghhh!
I read about (but never got close to) the Maggie Smith "Way of the World" - geez, Congreve, oy! I saw her in Chicago in "Private Lives" amd there are line-readings that still stick.

[grishaxxx]

O yeah - Liev Schreiber doesn't surprise - I thought his Laertes was wonderful in the "Hamlet" that Almereyda did - hope you'seen it.

[Mo Xmas]

I don't know if we saw the same run of RICHARD III that you did, but seeing Feore stalk around the stage with the small hump and the large mace was one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen.

It would have been great on its own, but what shocked the whole family was that, just the year before, we had seen Feore make his big coming out at Stratford as one of the Young Actors -- playing Romeo. As Romeo, Feore couldn't have looked more miscast. Even then, he basically had the same middle aged hairline. I don't know how old he really was, but he looked 45 even then. And he still was completely amazing as Romeo; set a standard, controlled the stage, and made the rest of the cast disappear.

Then to see him the next year as Rick 3, well, for the very first time I understood what truly great acting was.

OTOH, the other guy who stood out at the same time was Geraint Wyn Davies, and he went on to be best known as a Cop Vampire. Thank god Feore's career worked out better.

[Trish Wilson]

I first saw Colm Fiore in that terrible Stephen King miniseries "Storm of the Century". I couldn't take my eyes off of him. He was very impressive.

I saw a stage version of Amadeus years ago in which Ian McKellan played Salieri. He stole the show from Tim Curry, who played Mozart. The real clue for me was when McKellan was eating in shadow while Curry and Jane Seymour (as Constanza) were in full light doing their scene. Even in the dark, I couldn't keep my eyes off of McKellan. I've seen him since in many movies, and he always steals the show.

[Lance]

Mo, It would be cool if we both saw the same production of Richard III. Small world, and all that. But I don't think we did. We saw Colm do it in 1988 and he played Romeo in 84. I know that for a fact because I have a souvenir book of Romeo and Juliet that I bought at the Festival bookstore on our first visit. Lots of pictures of a baby faced but balding Colm.

First thing we saw him in was Coriolanus in 86.

We saw Geraint Wyn Davies in a couple of plays, most notably Henry V. He was great. I think he's in the cast of a new comedy on Canadian TV that's set at a barely fictionalized version of the Stratford Festival.

Trish, so who's better in your view? Peter Cushing or Sir Ian?

Grish, that's my favorite movie version of Hamlet, believe it or not.

[Alice]

I'm so glad I found this post - I am hoping to get to Stratford this summer(2006)to see Colm Feore. I actually did see his Cassius on Broadway last spring and was very impressed. I loved your description of Brian Bedford dropjawed at his performance in Stratford. It was the same in New York; you couldn't take your eyes off him. Poor Denzel Washington never had a chance.