Mark Rylance's 'Rooster' Byron is just one of the Britons wowing New York in Broadway shows this spring
It's spring on Broadway, and that can only mean two things, both of them time-honoured: there are lots of shows opening, and quite a few are either British titles (Arcadia, War Horse, Jerusalem) or give pride of place to Brits. What's new, you might ask? Well, Daniel Radcliffe in a musical, for one thing, since the diminutive wizard has never previously given much indication that he's got rhythm.
Yet here he is in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (Al Hirschfeld theatre), the 1961 Frank Loesser musical about a window-washer's ascent up the corporate ladder, proving that the Hogwarts alumnus is a genuine hoofer, too. Radcliffe's nomination last week for an Astaire award – given each season to the best dancers on Broadway – must surely represent the young superstar's least anticipated accolade to date. And if his singing doesn't keep pace, that doesn't dampen the enthusiasm of the audience. Not even The Book of Mormon, homegrown runaway musical hit that it is, prompts the degree of rapture elicited by the Radcliffe character's every conspiratorial wink at an adoring public, who must be doubly pleased to find a tourist come-on called Harry Potter – The Exhibition a street or two away. (I skipped that one.)
Up the block from How To Succeed…, the continued abandon of Mark Rylance's Johnny ("Rooster") Byron in Jerusalem (Music Box) constitutes its own kind of event, sparked by the kind of long, take-no-prisoners rave from the New York Times that one rarely finds in London. Indeed, it's as if Rylance, in the course of a single three-hour play, wants to give the lie to all those tired cliches about British actors working solely from the neck up. Try telling that to a performer who within minutes of his arrival on stage is upending himself in water, puffing out his chest, and swilling a particularly foul-looking concoction, a worsening limp the only visual sign that this magnificent wreck of a renegade may have seen better days.
The acclaim abroad for a requiem for modern-day England signals perhaps the most bracing aspect of an unusually vibrant and varied New York theatre season that began with a British success (Kneehigh director Emma Rice's since-closed Brief Encounter), so why shouldn't it end with one or two, as well? War Horse (Lincoln Centre) has taken up perhaps permanent residence at Lincoln Centre theatre, Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris's production extolled rather more than the play itself – as was much the case in London. Besides, if the material appealed sufficiently to Steven Spielberg for him to adapt it for the screen, that's surely good enough for playgoers who value spectacle over script – which is just one reason why War Horse, and not the far more deserving Jerusalem, is considered the odds-on favourite to take the Tony award for best play on 12 June. (Nominees will be announced on 3 May.)
Why hasn't Jerusalem gone the grievous Broadway way of last season's early closing Enron? Well, Jez Butterworth's play doesn't talk to Americans about an American topic, nor (thank heavens) does it contain a potted version of 9/11. Instead, its insistence on the untrammelled primacy of the human spirit surely resonates beyond English borders, even if the programme does come with a map of Wiltshire courtesy of co-star Mackenzie Crook ("Wiltshire, England," we're informed: you were thinking Paris, Texas?) The play also boasts a newfound subtitle – "England's green and pleasant land" – to alert interested parties that the title does not portend an exposé of life in Gaza. I gather, by the way, that more than one spectator has been heard asking aloud whether the actual hymn "Jerusalem", sung by Aimee-Ffion Edwards at the outset, was written specifically for this play. In which case, what's needed is not a playbill but a full-fledged education pack.
Those do exist (in academic circles, mostly) for Arcadia (Ethel Barrymore), Tom Stoppard's gorgeous play that was poorly served by Trevor Nunn in its 1995 New York debut and is now back, to better if still-imperfect effect, in a revival from David Leveaux that is also the first version of this play, in my experience, to make one eager to get to the modern-day sections of the bifurcated script. One's impatience in that regard is due principally to the galvanic hold over events of Lia Williams as Hannah, the questing academic who keeps dampened down the very passions that the teenage maths prodigy Thomasina (Bel Powley) in the 1809 portion of the evening is burning to unleash. That the production is struggling at the box office may be due to the ongoing feeling in New York (repudiated by the author) that Stoppard equals homework and that Manhattan can only take so many so-called "snob hits" at once, with Jerusalem now having cornered that sector of the market.
Among the American entries, expletives are the order of the day, alongside comedians choosing to work outside their comfort zone. The Motherfucker With the Hat (Gerald Schoenfeld) is the brazen (and, in New York, mostly unprintable) title of the terrific new play from Stephen Adly Guirgis (Jesus Hopped the "A" Train), a baleful romance set among a community of addicts, past and present. As it happens, the Broadway debut of a commendably becalmed Chris Rock is overshadowed by the full-throated emotionalism of castmate Bobby Cannavale, a frequent presence in American TV dramas, playing a recovering alcoholic with girlfriend troubles engendered by his discovery of the hat of the title.
And scarcely has Robin Williams stepped on stage in his Broadway debut one street away before the "mofo" word issues from his lips, as well. Alas, his chosen vehicle, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Richard Rodgers), could use something of the Guirgis play's brio, stranded as it is in far too large a venue where the cod-existentialism of playwright Rajiv Joseph looks especially plodding. As is true of Rock, Williams serves the exigencies of the writing, not his own shtick, in a production that, for me, only came alive at the post-curtain call charity appeal. Off book, Williams has charm – and bite.
But I saw few American performances during my New York week to rival Enron survivor Norbert Leo Butz filling Tom Hanks's screen shoes, and then some, in Broadway musical Catch Me If You Can (Neil Simon). This latest movie-to-stage transcription from the Hairspray team has had unfairly dismissive reviews, especially given Butz's voracious portrayal of a stocky, ever-animated FBI agent in hot pursuit of a real-life conman, played with just the right slipperiness and sheen by Aaron Tveit. By turns manic, funny, and mournful, Butz is so alive to this portrait of a workaholic facing down his own demons via song and dance that a thought occurred to me. Should Mark Rylance ever choose to pass the Jerusalem baton – which won't be easy – Butz (in America, anyway) could well be your man.
