One of my favorite actors is Bill Nighy, so I’m pleased to report he’s likely headed back to Broadway next spring in David Hare’s fine play, “Skylight.”
Nighy and his co-star, Carey Mulligan, opened to strong reviews — and a sold-out run — last week in London. Critics praised their chemistry and the revival, directed by Stephen Daldry (“Billy Elliot”).
Big Ben Brantley from The Times weighed in with a rave the other day, so producers Robert Fox and Scott Rudin are laying the groundwork for a transfer.
Nighy — Davy Jones of “Pirates of the Caribbean” — made his Broadway debut in Hare’s “The Vertical Hour” in 2006. It wasn’t top-drawer Hare, but it was fun to watch Nighy, as a lefty doctor, make the case against the invasion of Iraq, prowling around the stage with the grace of a panther.
I once asked him about his physicality — “all flying edges and angles, a perpetually moving and hungry soul” is how Brantley described him in “Skylight.”
“Originally, it was sort of the result of what happened when I was under pressure,” Nighy said. “In other words, opening a play … It is always to a purpose. I used to have a joke that it was all part of my relentless search for theatrical truth and not just me trolling for cheap gags.”
Mulligan, critics say, is his equal, giving a heartfelt and heartbreaking performance.
“Skylight” is a lovely play, perhaps Hare’s most humane. It’s constructed, as Hare’s plays often are, as a debate, this time on the merits of capitalism.
Nighy plays a successful restaurateur who made his own way in life and believes others should, too.
Mulligan plays an inner-city schoolteacher who’s turned her back on her affluent family and lives in a run-down, chilly apartment.
The two had once been lovers, and Nighy has come to her apartment to rekindle the old flame.
What saves “Skylight” from being too talkie and schematic is the palpable chemistry between them. Despite their political differences, they were and, you sense, always will be in love.
This is Hare with heart. I’ve been a “Skylight” fan ever since the original 1996 production with Michael Gambon and Lia Williams, both excellent.
What’s this I see: “Holler if Ya Hear Me,” the Tupac musical, is still open?
I predicted it would close two weeks ago, and yet it defies me by going on, piling up the red ink. The nerve!
Last week it took in $145,000, a figure so minuscule you can see it in Variety only if you have a magnifying glass.
I hear the person keeping the show afloat is Chunsoo Shin, a South Korean producer who’s apparently rolling in won.
He’s so rich, he also backed “Jekyll & Hyde” (total performances: 30), “Chaplin” (135) and “The Story of My Life” (five!).
Chunsoo’s got an instinct for the winners.