The stage has long been a major artery for the film world. Al Pacino, Helen Mirren, Kevin Spacey, Eddie Redmayne, Liev Schreiber, Viola Davis, Michael Shannon, and Meryl Streep began their careers on the boards and return to Broadway or the West End periodically to be re-charged. Now that the film awards season is heating up, there are quite a few among the recently-announced nominees for the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards who have long been familiar to the theatrical community.Chief among these is Mark Rylance, who was recognized by both organizations in two categories: as one of the leads in the Tom Hanks cold-war drama “Bridge of Spies” and as Thomas Cromwell in the television miniseries, “Wolf Hall,” based on Hilary Mantel’s epic Tudor-set novel.Rylance, who is arguably the greatest actor in the English-speaking world, has won three Tony Awards in five Broadway appearances, beginning with his debut in 2008 in “Boeing-Boeing,” based on a French sex farce. He dramatically changed gears two years later playing a subversive roustabout in Jez Butterworth’s “Jerusalem,” about the decline of modern-day Britain. He then switched it up yet again two years when he took on two wildly divergent roles in the Globe’s repertory productions of “Twelfth Night” and “Richard III.” For the former, he donned skirts to play the Countess Olivia; for the latter, he hobbled around the stage with deformed malevolence. His respective performances in “Bridge of Spies” and “Wolf Hall” both demonstrate one of his greatest gifts: the ability to convey depth and emotional tension in moments of stillness and utter silence. Butterworth once observed, “Mark has the uncanny ability to be fully present onstage and totally within character and yet know that the man in the third row just took out his handkerchief to wipe his brow.”Another veteran stage actor who has finally broken into film in a big way this year is Brian d’Arcy James, thanks to the success of “Spotlight,” in which he plays one of the four Boston Globe reporters who uncover the sexual abuse scandal which roiled the city and the Catholic Church. Unlike Rylance’s work, James’s brilliant performance has yet to be widely recognized among the nominations, although he is included in the Screen Actors Guild’s nod to the ensemble for “Spotlight.” (That ensemble, by the way, is a veritable Who’s Who of one-time or present New York actors, including Billy Crudup, Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, and Stanley Tucci.)Like Rylance, James is an extraordinarily versatile actor who has turned in sharply observed performances in both musicals and dramas, beginning with his Broadway debut in 1993 in the musical “Blood Brothers.” Nine years later, his career gained traction when he co-starred with John Lithgow in the musical version of “The Sweet Smell of Success,” as the sleazy Broadway press agent Sidney Falco. James has since distinguished himself in productions of “Macbeth,” “Time Stands Still, “Giant,” and in the title role of “Shrek” when that animated feature was translated to the musical stage. He is currently on Broadway in “Something Rotten!,” the hit musical in which he plays a hapless playwright competing for Elizabeth audiences with that “hack,” Will Shakespeare. Although a multiple Tony nominee, James has yet to win Broadway’s top honor. Which demonstrates just how arbitrary all awards are. Still, it will be more than deserving if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chooses to recognize his exceptional work in “Spotlight” with a nomination.
↧