Stage reviews: Acting pros show dark and light sides on Broadway
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Sara Topham, left, David Furr and a gender-bending Brian Bedford appear in "The Importance of Being Earnest" at New York's American Airlines Theatre.
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NEW YORK -- The name of a movie or TV star at the head of a Broadway cast likely is there mainly to sell tickets -- witness "Grease" or "Chicago," long runs that have exploited marquee power to keep on running.
But this happens less often than you might think. A performer is more or less naked on the live stage, especially in a play as opposed to a musical, and star vanity doesn't welcome that exposure. Conversely, because screen stars have often had their early experience on stage, what may seem like exploiting a famous name often turns out to reveal stage-worthy skill.
That's certainly the case with Al Pacino, a movie star who knows very well how to hold the live stage and has kept returning to it off and on, not fearing even the challenge of Shakespeare. He has also made this his subject, mixing stage and screen in "Looking for Richard," a movie as much about his figuring out how to play the famous Shakespearean villain as it is about whether Shakespeare can be made vivid for contemporary movie audiences.
In that case, the drama of the movie star tackling the Bard was softened by Mr. Pacino's having already played Richard III on stage. That was certainly good preparation for tackling another great Shakespearean villain, Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice," and doing so on the biggest stage available, Broadway. Unfortunately, Mr. Pacino is so big a star that he doesn't need Broadway very much -- his acclaimed but short run stopped once, started again and closed Sunday.
Today's other Broadway star is Brian Bedford, who over five decades has been on Broadway enough to earn six Tony nominations, although his regular home has been at Canada's Stratford Festival. There, the year before last, he played the imperious Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest." Stiffened with several New York acting veterans, that production has now come to Broadway, proving the framework for another Bedford triumph.
First Published February 22, 2011 12:00 am
