Mark Rylance is one of the hottest actors in the world, period. The prospect of his first co-authored stage work, with him starring in it, is therefore one of the hottest tickets on the stage, equally period.“Nice Fish” is a likeable, funny piece of theater – not quite a play, not quite a tour de force, but worth seeing, especially for fans of Rylance.It was been a stunning few years for the actor in a range of very different characterizations. His charismatic starring role in “Jerusalem” by Jez Butterworth was one of the great London stage performances, later transferred Stateside with equal success by an audience who seemed to get some very British references. Rylance’s Olivia in “Richard III” at the Globe Theatre was amusing. He played Thomas Cromwell in “Wolf Hall” and won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Rudolf Abel in “Bridge of Spies.”In “Nice Fish” – first performed in New York - he is Ron, an amiable amateur angler fond of hokey philosophy worthy of Forrest Gump. Ron shows how to make a perfect baloney sandwich and advises that uniforms and work clothes are good: whether priest, policeman or businessman, they suggest the wearer has a purpose and is not just “wondering the earth, no particular reason for being here.”While novice Ron and his more experienced pal Erik (played by Jim Lichtscheidl) are both dressed for the serious business of catching fish on an ice floe, it is hard to see that have much reason for being on the planet except to exchange homespun pearls of wisdom which have echoes of Samuel Beckett, Garrison Keillor and Morecambe and Wise.Much of the dialogue is adapted by Rylance from the prose poems of Louis Jenkins, a writer who he admires. Some long speeches don’t fit into the scenario of two men alone in a freezing waste, but much is amusing – how to tell the difference between a wolf and a dog, or how to amuse yourself in sub-zero Minnesota winters by watching the dials spin around on the electric and gas meters. Some of the best moments are visual, as the actors wrestle with a snowman and struggle to erect a tent in best Laurel and Hardy fashion.Rylance’s wife Claire van Kampen, the director, punctuates the short scenes with abrupt blackouts and snatches of music. It is a marvel how the actors manage to move within seconds to new positions in the darkness, but that is part of the humor.Thankfully, any hint of “Waiting for Godot” (waiting for a fish to bite) monotony is avoided as the duo are occasionally joined by visitors – a cop who wants to see their fishing permit, a vision of a girl who invites them to check out her sauna, and her grandfather. An hour in, things turn a little surreal: the girl, Flo, is turning out long perfectly-formed poetic sentences that is hard to image anyone really speaking; a sofa and a tree pop up on the ice flow; and there are knowing references to “the world’s a stage” and a lack of plot development. The work is after all essentially a collection of vignettes, reenacted readings or monologues. Rylance seems the only man capable of doing the central role and he does it very well, even to the American accent. If slightly dim-witted, red-nosed Ron is not one of the great names to sit alongside Rylance’s Johnny Byron in “Jerusalem,” he’s still a character worth seeing. We are left wondering who is the hunted and who is the hunter. Maybe God, the fisher of men, will catch them all in the end.“Nice Fish” runs at the Gielgud Theatre until January 21, 2017.Click here for a slideshow of images
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