Kathleen Turner in
Who's Afraid of Virgirnia Woolf?
|
And so another Evening Standard Theatre Awards ceremony has come and gone, thereby inaugurating the unofficial start to the London theatre awards season—a protracted one by New York standards—that resumes in 2007 with the Critics' Circle Awards and, last but scarcely least, the Oliviers. But if this year's roster of Evening Standard gongs marks itself out at all, that distinction has to do with the enticing mix of old and new, American and British, in a lineup of recipients that is much more varied than used to be the case.
This welcome change has been afoot for several years now, reflecting an entirely different mood from that which prevailed when I first started attending these ceremonies some 20 years ago. Time was, for instance, when the Best Actress winner tended almost invariably to go to one of the following: Maggie Smith, Diana Rigg, Vanessa Redgrave, Fiona Shaw, Judi Dench, Geraldine McEwan. Indeed, so devoted is the Standard, apparently, to Dame Maggie that today's published list of previous winners names Smith as the 1981 recipient of the prize for best actress for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a National Theatre production that the two-time Oscar-winner wasn't even in. (That staging in fact starred Margaret Tyzack as Martha opposite the late Paul Eddington—the same Tyzack, of course, who later appeared opposite Smith in Lettice and Lovage, for which both Maggies won Tony Awards in the play's Broadway transfer.) Occasionally, you got a Julia McKenzie (Woman In Mind) or Josette Simon (After the Fall), as if they had somehow gained illicit access to some exclusive club.
Tom Stoppard
& Rufus Sewell
|
Nowadays, the winner is entirely up for grabs, as was made startling clear in both 2000 and 2003 when the Best Actress prize went to a production way below the radar—Paola Dionisotti, in the first instance, for
Further Than the Furthest Thing, followed three years later by Sandy McDade (the high point of this year's Almeida Theatre revival of
Period of Adjustment) for
Iron at the Royal Court. This year's winner is far better known, though no more a part of the London inner sanctum. But in giving Kathleen Turner the prize for her career-defining Martha in
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Albee's play was itself a Standard victor in 1964), the panellists showed that they have blessedly long memories, given that Anthony Page's superb production has long since come and gone. And also that the onetime injunction—whether explicit or not—against American winners is history once and for all. Put another way, the thinking that in 2002 gave a comparative unknown called Jake Gyllenhaal the Outstanding Newcomer prize for his blissful performance in
This Is Our Youth still holds today: this is an event devoted to excellence, from wherever it springs, as opposed to the repeated sanctification of a select British few.
To this extent, the Standard could be seen to be taking its cue from the Oliviers, which several years ago gave their Best Play trophy to August Wilson's Jitne—a richly deserving winner if also a surprising one given its relatively brief National Theatre tenancy. Another black-themed New York show—Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's Caroline, or Change—is currently having a much longer National Theatre life than Jitney ever did, but it was still unexpected to find George C. Wolfe's London version of his New York production triumphing as Best Musical in a London season all but suffused with musicals: I would have put my betting cap on Sunday in the Park With 
Tonya Pinkins in
Caroline, or Change
|
George, which brought an entirely British take to a Broadway Pulitzer Prize winner. In the event, Sam Buntrock's superlative revival of Sunday had to settle for the same prize awarded it by the critics earlier this year: for the innovative designs of Timothy Bird and David Farley, whose comical joint acceptance speech suggested that they are a double-act whose day at such podiums is far from over: Could a Tony loom somewhere in their future?
Because the Evening Standard prizes, like the Oliviers, are no longer broadcast (can't some enterprising digital or cable channel pick up the slack?), the acceptance speeches live on only in the memories of those actually in attendance at Monday's celebrity-packed luncheon at the Savoy Hotel. With Ned Sherrin graciously compering against the odds—the obstacle posed this particular day being the same bad throat which we've all suffered from at one point or another this autumn—numerous winners deserved plaudits for their grace under the pressure of a room full of industry types and journalists—albeit far more of the former than the latter. I smiled at Kushner's reference to heralding from "the sort of alarming country to your west"—where was Caryl Churchill to applaud that comment?—while Turner's allusion to the uptick in the Democrats' fortunes was tailor-made for this particular audience.
Elsewhere, several victorious U.K. first-timers to these prizes combined candour with the sort of wit and polish at which British awardees always seem to excel. Twenty-two-year-old Andrew Garfield, winning in the Jake Gyllenhaal newcomer slot but for an amazing five different performances over the year instead of simply one, let slip that his prize meant, "I'm no longer allowed to be shit at anything I do." (That came a minute or so before he praised his parents, who were in the room, as "cool.") Most promising playwright Nina Raine (
Rabbit) revealed that she had earned a total of £9000 last year, which must sweeten the fact that her particular award came accompanied by a cheque for £30,000. And Rufus Sewell—winning what one suspects isn't going to be his last award for
Rock 'n' Roll—was both touching and infinitely droll as he described the lot of an actor premiering a new play by Tom Stoppard: "Just because I nod doesn't really mean I understand," he told a crowd whose warm applause made one thing fully understood: the man can act.