Two plays win big at Tony Awards

World Monday 10/June/2019 13:07 PM
By: Times News Service
Two plays win big at Tony Awards

Los Angeles: A musical inspired by Greek mythology and a play about the conflict in Northern Ireland were the big winners at the Tony Awards, the highest honours in American theatre.

Hadestown was the big favourite at the 73rd annual awards ceremony with 14 nominations and in the end it took home eight gongs, including best musical.

The show, a modern take on the underworld myth of Orpheus and Euridyce with jazz and folk, arrived on Broadway in April after an unusual 13-year journey.

From its 2006 origins in Vermont as a musical show without choreography,it has become a hit album and an off-Broadway show in London and Canada.

“If Hadestown stands for anything, it is that change is possible. That in dark times, spring will come again,” producer Mara Isaacs said as she received her Tony.

The Ferryman, written by Jez Butterworth, was also among the favourites this year with nine nominations and ultimately won four Tonys, including best play. Directed by Sam Mendes, who won the award for best director of a play, it depicts a day in the life of a rural family in Northern Ireland in 1981 at the height of The Troubles.

Its large and colourful cast of characters includes a baby and a goose.

British actor James Corden, master of ceremonies at the event broadcast from Radio City Music Hall, opened the awards by extolling the virtues of live theatre against streaming.

While his humour was apolitical, others spoke out during the three-hour show.

Bryan Cranston, who won best leading actor in a play for his role in the Network, adapted from the satirical 1976 film about a TV anchor, dedicated his award to “all the real journalists around the world.”

“The media is not the enemy of the people. Demagoguery is the enemy of the people,” the Breaking Bad star said, taking aim at President Donald Trump who frequently rails against unfavourable media as “the enemy of the people.”

While the entertainment world is frequently accused of downplaying the contributions of women and minorities, Broadway tried to redress the balance a bit during the ceremony.

Actress Ali Stroker became the first wheelchair user to win a Tony for her role in the musical Oklahoma! however, Rachel Chavkin, director of Hadestown, was the only woman to direct a Broadway musical this year. She called for greater diversity in her acceptance speech.

"I wish I wasn’t the only woman directing a musical on Broadway this season. There are so many women who are ready to go,” Chavkin said on stage. “There are so many artists of color who are ready to go. And we need to see that racial diversity and gender diversity reflected in our critical establishment too.”

“This is not a pipeline issue. It is a failure of imagination by a field whose job is to imagine the way the world could be. So let’s do it.”