I’ll be peering into my flawless crystal ball Friday to see who this year’s Tony Award winners will be.
But today I want to tip my Bob Fosse bowler hat to a few nominees who, due to heavy-duty competition in their categories and the politics of this year’s Tony races, needn’t labor over their acceptance speeches.
They all gave remarkable performances and deserve one final bravo before the Tony Award goes to . . . somebody else.
* KELSEY GRAMMER
(Best Actor, Musical)
As Georges in the delightful revival of “La Cage aux Folles,” Grammer’s job is to support the musical’s diva-in-drag, Albin, played by Douglas Hodge. It can be a thankless task, since Albin has all the sequins and most of the evening’s showstoppers.
But Grammer holds his own, delivering a performance of elegance, warmth and wit. There’s real chemistry between these two — the key reason why this revival is as moving as it is entertaining. By the time Grammer’s finished singing “Song on the Sand,” every couple in the theater, gay or straight, is likely to be holding hands.
He’s an old-school Broadway leading man, right up there with such giants as Robert Preston, Richard Kiley and Jack Cassidy.
* CHRISTOPHER WALKEN
(Best Actor, Play)
Walken has a no-frills approach to creating a character. When, during rehearsals, the director asked him what he thought about the one-handed killer he played this season in “A Behanding in Spokane,” Walken thought for a minute or two and then replied: “I think he’s like Chris Walken. With one hand.”
And that, really, is all you need. Walken played the part with his customary blend of menace and humor, this time adding some delicious physical gags, like trying to dial a phone with one hand.
His line readings were quirky and unpredictable. His unique timing, he thinks, is due to his training as a dancer.
Whatever the reason, it kept the audience on edge, elevating a second-rate play into first-rate entertainment.
* ANGELA LANSBURY
(Best Supporting Actress, Musical)
Last year, doing a dance of sublime dottiness as Madame Arcati in “Blithe Spirit,” Lansbury stole the show and earned her fifth Tony.
She’s stealing the show again this year as another madame: the tough, cynical old bird in the wheelchair, Madame Armfeldt, in “A Little Night Music.”
But a sixth Tony is probably not in the cards, since the momentum is behind fellow show-stealer Katie Finneran of “Promises, Promises.”
And Lansbury, classy as always, doesn’t mind at all. Interviewed by the BBC last week, she said five Tonys were plenty and that she’d be very happy to see her “much younger” competitors get their shot.
At 84, Lansbury’s a wonder. The energetic cast swirls around her, but with an arched eyebrow, a snap of her lorgnette and a flawlessly delivered zinger, she brings down the house.
* LINDA LAVIN
(Best Actress, Play)
Speaking of flawlessly delivered zingers, Lavin’s got a great one, at the expense of The New Yorker, in the revival of Donald Margulies‘ play “Collected Stories.” I won’t give it away; let’s just say it lands perfectly with an audience of older, self-styled Upper West Side liberal intellectuals. And Lavin lets it loose with polished timing.
Lavin is a delight as a sardonic writer whose fame rests largely on a collection of short stories she wrote many years ago. Like Lansbury, she gets laughs with small physical gestures — peering witheringly over her reading glasses, rolling her tongue inside her cheek and, of course, arching an eyebrow.
Sarah Paulson is fine as a pupil who becomes an adversary. But the pretty actress is no match for a scene-stealer like Lavin. Sometimes, all Paulson can do is stand aside and, like the audience, relish an old pro at work.
* SCARLETT JOHANSSON
(Best Supporting Actress, Play)
Hollywood starlets tend to get swallowed up on Broadway stages. But not this time. Johansson held her own alongside stage vets Liev Schreiber and Jessica Hecht in the acclaimed revival of “A View From the Bridge.”
She was fresh and lovely as Catherine, a young woman whose burgeoning sexuality stirs dark desires in the play’s doomed protagonist, Eddie Carbone. When they touched, you could sense her innocence, his lust.
It was a subtle performance. But just as impressive was her Brooklyn accent.
She may have been born and raised in Manhattan, but in a “A View From the Bridge,” Scarlett was Red Hook all the way.