2016 Tony Picks

The 70^th Tony Awards will air Sunday the 12^th at 8 on CBS, hosted by James Corden.

            Well, here we are, a few days before what is certain to be the most predictable Tony Awards telecast in recent memory.  It is not only possible but likely that Lin Manuel-Miranda’s juggernaut, Hamilton, will outdo the likes of The Producers (2001) and The Book of Mormon (2011) in its all-consuming, hype-fueled sweep of the ceremony, nominated as it is in every category for which it is eligible (for a total of 16 nominations — the most ever).  As any summary of Hamilton’s effect on the theater runs the risk of becoming hagiographic, I would begin my listing only by remarking that, when confronted live and in person, as we rarely are, with one of the greatest musicals ever written for the first time, it’s easy to resort to the same excitability and irrational hero-worship normally reserved for pop stars.  Hamilton will make history again on Sunday, without a doubt.  But don’t let’s forget that it is a piece of art.  Don’t let’s forget that it’s theater.  In other words – please don’t freak out.

            And now, he wrote, sighing, let’s see who’s going to lose to Hamilton this time.  Quotes from my reviews appear throughout.

Best Play: King Charles III

Ah, what a relief!  You-know-who isn’t up for this one.  The die has been preemptively cast by the bookies of Broadway on this one – Stephen Karam’s The Humans, a bleak, realistic family drama, has already won the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics’ Circle Award, and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play.  But Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III, which closed in January, is the superior achievement by every benchmark.  It is not only a brilliant, resonant play written in iambic pentameter (which is achievement enough), it was also a joy to watch, which can hardly be said for Mr. Karam’s play.

Best Musical: Hamilton

Hamilton.  It’s Hamilton.  Okay?  In all honesty, this three-hour sung-through hip-hop musical about the life and death of the nation’s first Treasury Secretary would be a competitive player in almost any season.  (It’s fun to imagine Richard Rodgers gritting his teeth and taking a selfie with Mr. Miranda the way some of the other nominees in this category have during the past few months.)  This year, it’ll win without the slightest shadow of a doubt.  Despite my fatigue with the op-ed columns that rave about its impact, the fact is, they’re all right on the money (much like its subject — Ugh, forgive me).  Hamilton is an extraordinary achievement, certainly the greatest musical written since Les Miserables.  Just give him the damned trophy already and maybe we can talk about something else.

Best Revival of a Play: A View From the Bridge

Director Ivo van Hove is playing against himself here, as he so often is (he had four productions in New York this season).  But I’d pick his A View From the Bridge over The Crucible, if only for its stark, unforgiving physical beauty – courtesy of set designer and Mr. van Hove’s partner, Jan Versweyveld.  It was also better-acted than almost anything on the stage this season, and thematically pitch-perfect.  From my review: “A View from the Bridge is about a cycle of destruction, the remnants even of the things we hated crumbling to reveal that there was something worse lying beneath all along…  Van Hove begins the play with the actors being showered with water, cleansing themselves of the inequities of their lives.  At the end, from on high, they are doused with blood.”

Best Revival of a Musical: She Loves Me

From my review: “This is an absolutely delightful musical revived in an absolutely delightful production with a radiant ensemble (Michael McGrath, Nicholas Barasch, Jane Krakowski, and Gavin Creel are standouts), an irresistible sense of fun, and two perfect leads.  Laura Benanti, whose voice alone should be billed above the rest of the cast, had a cold on the performance I saw her, not that you would know it for the bravura performance she turned in.  The only thing that could match her singing voice is her funny, sympathetic, flawless stage presence.  A lesser actor would've quailed in her presence.  Instead, shockingly, the normally unremarkable Zachary Levi (late of NBC’s “Chuck”) more than matches her with the felicity of any rom-com leading man and energy that puts those leading men to shame.  (When Mr. Levi, six-three, pulled off a perfect cartwheel during the title number, I was barely surprised.)  I kept thinking he was doing an impression of some old matinee idol from the forties before I realized it was only that he was turning in a performance that would not seem out of place there -- the first I've seen in a while.  If I loved this trademark Scott Ellis production absolutely to death, if I would readily see it again several hundred more times, it’s for the same reason anyone still watches old romantic comedies -- the boy and the girl helped me fall in love with an old, dear friend all over again.”

Best Book of a Musical: School of Rock

Julian Fellowes’ book for the Andrew Lloyd Weber extravaganza School of Rock will not win this category.  But on principle, I refuse to give this award even theoretically to a show (namely, Hamilton) that’s sung-through.  If we’re worshipping Lin-Manuel Miranda to the point that we’re giving him awards for things he hasn’t even done, I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the Tonys after all.  Plus, Mr. Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey, did a surprisingly excellent job on the libretto for this adaptation of the 2003 Jack Black film: “Without losing any of the best parts of Mike White’s original film script (‘I have been touched by your kids… and I’m pretty sure I’ve touched them’ still gets laughs), he has rounded out characters, elucidated motivation, and adapted the hazy world of Richard Linklater to the more brightly lit one of Broadway, all without missing a beat.  His contribution refuses to be overlooked.”

Best Original Score: Hamilton

You know where this is going.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play: Mark Strong, A View From the Bridge

“The most brilliant piece of scenic design in Ivo van Hove’s production of A View From the Bridge, at the Lyceum, isn’t the colossal cubic structure that rises from the stage to reveal a stark, sterile boxing ring of a set, on which the production unfolds.  No, a much more interesting visual experience is Mark Strong, playing the doomed Eddie Carbone as colossal in more than one way.  Backlit by the same unforgiving white glare that floods the entire production… Mr. Strong in profile, his nose like a tomahawk above his near-perpetual sneer, is terrifying, an avenging angel.  When he turns toward the audience, you cower… Mr. Strong, reckless, ruthless, and daring, embodies Eddie as carnal, even monstrous, but never less than a man.  Miller would be shocked but impressed.”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play: Sophia Okonedo, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

Ms. Okonedo, the only palatable part of Kenny Leon’s 2014 A Raisin in the Sun revival, steals a show here that’s very difficult to steal.  “Ben Whishaw and Sophia Okonedo, as the Proctors, the skeptical couple who find themselves at the mercy of mob hysteria, steal the production, turning in sensitive, understated performances full of love, tenderness, and authenticity.  Where Mark Strong, in A View From the Bridge, bellowed and growled in fear of loss of his world, Okonedo and Whishaw stand proudly and finally bow humbly.”  (Incidentally, Mr. Whishaw’s being snubbed in the Lead Actor category is nearly unforgivable.)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical: Leslie Odom, Jr., Hamilton

Leslie Odom Jr., the outright best performer in a musical with a lot of legitimate claims to that title, referred to Aaron Burr as the greatest part written for a male actor of color in the musical theater canon.  It’s a broad statement, but upon consideration, he’s absolutely right.  What he left out is that Burr may well be the best-written villain in the musical theater canon – with enviable smoothness, an all-too plausible motivation, and a sounds-of-insanity breaking point number (“The Room Where it Happens”) to rival Sondheim’s best.  Aaron Burr is a flawless musical theater character, and Mr. Odom does him justice.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical: Phillipa Soo, Hamilton

This is the one category most experts are giving to someone else besides Hamilton – namely Cynthia Erivo for The Color Purple.  But of all Hamilton’s disparate elements, I feel Ms. Soo, as Hamilton’s stoic wife, Eliza, gets the least credit for her brilliance.  In a show full of feats of energy, Ms. Soo stays quiet and low-key, which makes her final moment in the spotlight that much more significant.  She gives the role of the woman in the nation’s founding its sudden – and surprising – focus in a show about male accomplishments.  Plus, her voice is ridiculous, and however many times the show might tempt her to be, she never becomes boring.  (Quick note, though: Where’s Audra?)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play: David Furr, Noises Off

For me, this is just a little opportunity to go against the grain.  Most experts will give this one to Reed Birney, of The Humans – and he’d deserve it, no question.  He’s a subtle and understated actor who’s been earning his stripes in low-profile jobs for years.  His performance, I wrote in March, “elevates [Stephen] Karam's excellent, funny, spilling-over dialogue to new heights.”  But David Furr, who, coincidentally, I saw the same weekend in the 1982 farce Noises Off, cemented his place in that short-lived production as a paragon of slapstick, playing most of the play straight before shocking the audience by “achiev[ing] things with his body I had not previously thought possible for those not composed of rubber.”  His pure daredevilry alone, to set aside his near-perfect delivery, deserves some kind of award.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play: Jane Houdyshell, The Humans

The snubs this year are harder to see, and one of them is in this category – though Noises Off scored two nominations, for an unremarkable performance by Andrea Martin and an amusing one by Megan Hilty, Tracee Chimo, Broadway’s most valuable character actress, was left by the wayside, perhaps because she “disappear[s], chameleon-like, into her demure, nervous stage manager.”  With two other nominations for Eclipsed, the vote-splitting will probably result in an utterly deserved win for the fantastic Jane Houdyshell, long relegated to completely uninteresting aging-mother roles, who finally got a fascinating one here.  She has a riveting intensity and majesty as an actress that “renders the issues of her squabbling brood,” the Blake clan, “seem like minor complaints by comparison.”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical: Daveed Diggs, Hamilton

In February of 2015, when I first saw Hamilton at the Public, I praised Mr. Diggs’ “incredible dedication to his [dual] roles and audience-pleasing comic dexterity.”  Since then, upon reception of the masterfully produced cast recording, I’ve come to appreciate something else – his unadulterated talent as a rapper.  That a Broadway musical could serve as a showcase for someone of Mr. Diggs’ particular skill set – he’s the lead MC for LA-based hip-hop group clipping.) – is one of the more impressive things about Mr. Miranda’s achievement.  With some difficulty, Mr. Diggs should muscle his way past equally impressive performances from fellow Hamilton cast-members and nominees Jonathan Groff and Christopher Jackson.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical: Renee Elise Goldsberry, Hamilton

“Ms. Goldsberry,” I wrote in my Hamilton review, “offers a preview of what is sure to be a long and rewarding career — she sings the hell out of anything she’s given.”  This was perhaps an unfair characterization since she’s had a ten-year career in everything from the last cast of Rent on Broadway to originating the role of Nettie in The Color Purple (Danielle Brooks in the revival now contests this award).  But this is the first role she’s originated of any consequence, and it will be difficult for any future actress to take the reins.  Playing Hamilton’s sister-in-law, Angelica, she makes Eliza seem something of a milquetoast by comparison, and she’s a masterful rapper on top of her singing ability.  More and more she seems the female counterpart to Mr. Miranda, certainly exceeding his performing ability and proving night after night she can play with the big boys.  A pity about Jane Krakowski in She Loves Me – God, she’s good, but business is business.

Best Scenic Design of a Play: Jan Versweyveld, A View from the Bridge

From my review: “Rarely on Broadway has scenic design and staging intersected so directly with the heart and soul of a production.”  Mr. Versweyveld is a genius, pure and simple, a man completely in control of his craft and his art.  His collaboration with Ivo van Hove in art and life is destined to go down as one of the theater’s great partnerships.  He brings a much-needed foreign perspective to scenic design in a category usually dominated by Americans and Brits.  And his “colossal cubic structure that rises from the stage to reveal a stark, sterile boxing ring of a set, on which [A View from the Bridge] unfolds,” was certainly his best work of the four productions he designed this season.  He’ll win lighting design, too.

Best Scenic Design of a Musical: Es Devlin and Finn Ross, American Psycho

Ding ding ding, ladies and gentlemen, we have our first Hamilton upset!  Three of the four greatest scenic designers in the world are up for Tonys this year – Mr. Versweyveld, Ms. Devlin and David Rockwell – leaving out only Bob Crowley, but he was nominated four times last year, so I feel he deserves a break.  In this category Ms. Devlin’s and Mr. Ross’s “seemingly infinite hall of mirrors and pristine white walls,” an innovation in a musical that lacked any others, bests Mr. Rockwell’s candy box of a She Loves Me set by a hair.  David Korins, who’s nominated in this category for Hamilton, seems to me to get entirely too much credit for his simple and relatively unexciting set.  Jeremy McCarter, in his adulatory biography of Hamilton’s creation, Hamilton: The Revolution, says of Mr. Korins’ set that it “evoke[s] both then and now… [is] both general and specific… substantive yet nimble.”  Seems to me it just gets the job done.  Ms. Devlin (a tour designer for the likes of U2) and Mr. Ross (who designed the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) blow minds, and their work should give an unremarkable show a memorable win over a masterpiece.

Best Direction of a Play: Ivo van Hove, A View from the Bridge

From my review: “[Mr. van Hove’s] signature is treating American classics with the same probing interest most contemporary directors have for Shakespeare -- in his Angels in America, the wings and delicate airs of the Angel are traded for vainglorious abusiveness; in his Rent, Mimi dies.  His idea of a good time is taking the self-regard this country has for its theatrical heroes and stripping away the accoutrements.”  This A View from the Bridge is the prototypical van Hove production, one that deserves the same study that nitpicks the backstage details of the original production of A Streetcar Named Desire.  His methods and talent are so clearly on display here that he nearly makes himself the star of the production.  It’s an auteur turn, something one only expects to see in film but is occasionally surprised to see on Broadway.

Best Direction of a Musical: Thomas Kail, Hamilton

This is the strongest all-around category of the ceremony.  Michael Arden, John Doyle, Scott Ellis, and George C. Wolfe are at varying stages in their careers, but all are phenomenal.  Mr. Wolfe, in fact, in his wrangling of an ensemble so talented it threatens to tear itself apart, pulls off a very similar feat to Mr. Kail.  But I’ve got to give it to the latter, if only because Hamilton is a force of nature, and making sure something like that lands night after night is a hell of a lot harder than it sounds.  Among the toughest imaginable competition, Hamilton triumphs again.  Go figure.

Best Choreography: Andy Blankenbuehler, Hamilton

There’s nothing like letting yourself be taken over by a performance.  And the non-stop, effortless choreography of Andy Blankenbuehler, who also did In the Heights, Mr. Miranda’s earlier musical, washes over an audience like a forceful, breathtaking wave.  No half measures here – everything is full-on or not done at all.  The freedom of a stylistically varied musical like this one gives Mr. Blankenbuehler the latitude for a Savion Glover-like turn in the spotlight – ironic, since he’s up against Mr. Glover here, nominated for Shuffle Along.  He should beat him easily, though, as well as equally worthy Jerome Robbins impersonator Hosef Schechter for Fiddler, on the strength of the Hamilton sweep.

Best Orchestrations: Alex Lacamoire, Hamilton

Mr. Miranda’s writing process is fairly simplistic – he cobbles together demos on his computer, using pre-recorded beats and mangled piano tracks (he himself admits he’s a pretty terrible pianist).  So at least half of the credit for Hamilton’s magnificent score goes to his partner, Alex Lacamoire (also of In the Heights), who has assembled complex orchestrations incorporating musical styles both old and new with shocking ease.  Above all, he’ll be forever remembered as the man who put a banjo in “The Room Where it Happens” – I’d argue the most brilliant orchestral choice since Anton Karas scored The Third Man.

Technical Awards (featuring two more Hamilton upsets!)

Best Costume Design of a Play: Michael Krass, Noises Off

Best Costume Design of a Musical: TIE between Jeff Mahshie for She Loves Me and Ann Roth for Shuffle Along (Hamilton upset!)

Best Lighting Design of a Play: Jan Versweyveld, A View from the Bridge

Best Lighting Design of a Musical: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer, Shuffle Along (Hamilton upset again!)

Total Count (Multiple Wins)
Hamilton: 9
A View from the Bridge: 4
She Loves Me: 2
Shuffle Along: 2
Noises Off: 2