Latest news with #Snook
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Inside the Drama Desk Awards: Sarah Snook, Nicole Scherzinger, Jasmine Amy Rogers and more on theater's big night
Maybe Happy Ending won big at the 69th annual Drama Desk Awards on Sunday night, earning a total of six trophies at the only awards show to recognize talent from Broadway, off-Broadway and off-off Broadway productions. Hosted by Debra Messing and Tituss Burgess, the show unfolded at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, with all proceeds benefiting the Entertainment Community Fund. Performers from a range of theater productions were both nominated and on hand to present, including Nicole Scherzinger of Sunset Boulevard, Jonathan Groff of Just in Time and Jeremy Jordan of Floyd Collins. More from GoldDerby Ready for her close-up: Nicole Scherzinger takes the lead in Tony odds for Best Actress in a Musical 'Maybe Happy Ending' dominates the 2025 Drama Desk Awards with 6 wins, 'Boop!' and 'Gypsy' stage upsets Kate Hudson and Mindy Kaling shoot for Emmys recognition for 'Running Point' at the Lakers training facility Among its many accolades, Maybe Happy Ending, which stars Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen as robots who fall in love, earned Outstanding Musical, Outstanding Direction of a Musical and Outstanding Music. Meanwhile, Outstanding Play went to Purpose, Outstanding Revival of Play went to Eureka Day and Outstanding Revival of a Musical went to Gypsy. (See the complete breakdown of winners.) Photo byThe Drama Desk Awards recognized thespians in gender neutral categories, a change implemented in 2023, with two individuals honored per award, or more in the case of a tie. This year, the award for Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play went to Laura Donnelly for The Hills of California and Sarah Snook for The Picture of Dorian Gray. Speaking to Gold Derby after her win, Snook reflected on returning to the stage after her time spent on television. 'It's like a homecoming,' the Succession alum said. 'It felt like a place that I've always been growing up, and I certainly pursued TV and film in my twenties, but I grew up doing theater, and it's where I really always wanted to come back to. So it's really special.' Snook also spoke to the daunting and rewarding elements of participating in the technologically innovative production led by director Kip Williams. 'Kip has been working with digital screens and cameras for over a decade of his work, but this is the first show in which he used prerecorded elements and composite elements,' she explained. 'That being the risk was a massive challenge for me as the actor as well, because it means there's a certain amount of time between each line and cue that I have to act opposite my prerecorded self, and if I lose concentration, or I relax for a moment, then I've missed the cue, and it's all over. So it's an incredible challenge, but it's the challenge that I've really relished.'The most nominated show of the night Boop!, a musical based on the animated character Betty Boop, won three of its 11 nominations. This included rising star Jasmine Amy Rogers winning Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical alongside theater veteran Audra McDonald, who won for 'Gypsy.' Sharing she was 'over the moon' with the win, Rogers went on to explain how playing Betty is quite strenuous — but that's part of the privilege of the role. 'The most challenging [part] is just the energy level that is required to deliver and pay homage to Betty,' she said. 'She is so full of life. She's so exuberant. She never stops moving. She never stops going, she never stops singing,' she said. 'So I would say that's the most challenging part, but the most rewarding part is also the fact that I get to do that, and that I am able to dive into this character and bring life to her in a way that we haven't been able to in almost the 100 years that she's been around. We've seen her in these small snippets here and there, but this is the first time we're bringing her to life. And it's an honor that I get to do that, that I get to be that girl that gets to do that.' Rogers was nominated alongside Scherzinger, who revealed on the red carpet how she taps into the emotionality of her Sunset Boulevard character Norma Desmond. 'A lot of prayer and meditation, because I've got to anchor myself,' said Scherzinger. 'It's got to come from a really, really, really, really, really deep, soulful, spiritual place. And just trusting in the work, the work over the past two years that I've put into this.' Also in the performance realm, Amalia Yoo of John Proctor Is the Villain and Kara Young of Purpose won in the category of Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play. Young spoke to Gold Derby about the profound topics addressed in Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins' story, which follows an African American family in Chicago.'I personally think that the story transcends race,' Young said. 'It's about a Black legacy family, but it transcends race because we're looking at actual family dynamics of a patriarch and a matriarch and their two children, and what love means in this household.' Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical resulted in three winners — Brooks Ashmanskas for Smash, Jak Malone for Operation Mincemeat and Michael Urie for Once Upon a Mattress. Andrew Scott took home the award for Outstanding Solo Performance for his role in Vanya. Alongside Michael Arden nabbing Best Direction for a Musical for Maybe Happy Ending, Danya Taymor won Best Direction for a Play in recognition of her work on John Proctor is the Villain. Several honors were bestowed outside of the contested awards categories. The late Broadway performer Gavin Creel, who died in September at the age of 48, was posthumously honored with the Harold S. Prince Award for Lifetime Achievement. Additionally, Norm Lewis presented Brian Stokes Mitchell with the William Wolf Award for his service to the entertainment community. Mitchell, who served as chair of the Entertainment Community Fund from 2004 to 2023, spoke to Gold Derby about the recognition: 'I'm just so honored,' he said. 'I'm so happy to get this award, because it's not just for my accomplishments. It's for service as well, and that's done with the whole team, a whole cooperative of people, including all of the staff and board of the Entertainment Community Fund, all the volunteers, anybody that's ever donated money, anybody that's ever done a performance — it really is a community event.' Elsewhere in the night, Kip Williams took home the award for Unique Theatrical Experience for The Picture of Dorian Gray. Asked if he believes that an innovative spirit has helped to fuel one of Broadway's most profitable seasons ever, Williams answered in the affirmative. 'Theater is my favorite art form, and it's my favorite art form because there's nothing like sitting in a room with several hundred other people, and all taking that creative leap of faith together to say what we're watching is real,' he shared. 'We're all going to take an imaginative leap and say 'That's real.' And for me, the bigger that leap, the more rewarding an experience it is for an audience, and particularly at a time where television is not only going through a golden age, it's going through a period of great accessibility.' 'I directed this show and conceived the show directorially whilst I was in the pandemic, not knowing if I would ever get to come back and make a piece of theater,' he continued. 'And so I was fueled by this desire to create an incredible live experience for audiences to say to them, 'Leave your homes that you've been trapped inside for so long. Come back to the theater. Join us in that extraordinary exchange between the stage and an audience.'' Best of GoldDerby 'Maybe Happy Ending' star Darren Criss on his Tony nomination for playing a robot: 'Getting to do this is the true win' Who Needs a Tony to Reach EGOT? Sadie Sink on her character's 'emotional rage' in 'John Proctor Is the Villain' and her reaction to 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow' Click here to read the full article.
Boston Globe
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
For actors sojourning on Broadway, TV stints are a hard act to follow
Consider the current revival of 'Glengarry Glen Ross,' David Mamet's 1984 drama about skeevy real-estate salesmen trying to stay afloat in a shark-infested environment. Slated to run at the Palace Theatre through June 28, the play stars Bob Odenkirk, Kieran Culkin, Michael McKean, and Bill Burr. 'Glengarry Glen Ross' is a juicy slice of early Mamet, and it's an excellent production, no question, as directed by Patrick Marber. Advertisement But does the play rank ahead of the best episodes of 'Breaking Bad' (where Odenkirk played sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman), or the spinoff ' No, no, and no. Jean Smart is starring in a solo show on Broadway titled 'Call Me Izzy,' described as 'a darkly comedic story about one woman in rural Louisiana who has a secret that is both her greatest gift and her only way out.' The play, written by Jamie Wax and directed by Sarna Lapine, with music by T Bone Burnett, just began preview performances and is not yet open to the press. Advertisement As with anything involving Smart, 'Call Me Izzy' is a must-see, but it's very hard to envision it being the role of Smart's career. That superlative currently describes her ' In a remarkably gutsy move, Sarah Snook, who played Shiv Roy on 'Succession,' is making her Broadway debut in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray," a one-woman show in which she plays 26 characters. I haven't seen it yet, but hope to do so. But I doubt that any of those 26 characters can do or say anything that will leave me as shaken as Snook did in that ferocious balcony scene between Shiv and her husband, Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen). The seething contempt Snook brought across in just a glance at her loathed husband amounted to the kind of master class in acting that most performers can only dream about — and she didn't need a stage to do it. Don Aucoin is the Globe's theater critic and an arts-critic-at-large. Don Aucoin can be reached at
Scoop
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Tauranga First To Hear The Call Of The Tūī: Te Tangi A Te Tūī Tickets On Sale Now
A powerful production fusing kaupapa Māori storytelling with breathtaking contemporary circus opens its Te Ika-a-Māui / North Island tour in Tauranga this August. Tickets are now on sale for Te Tangi a Te Tūī, which will have its only public performance in Tauranga on Wednesday 6 August at Baycourt Community and Arts Centre. A dedicated schools matinee performance will follow on Thursday 7 August. Performed entirely in te reo Māori, the work blends kapa haka, aerial artistry and acrobatics into a deeply moving performance that celebrates identity, whakapapa and cultural reclamation. 'Baycourt is proud to support culturally rich productions like Te Tangi a Te Tūī, particularly those that create space for rangatahi to see their language, identity and stories reflected on stage in creative and resonant ways,' says Baycourt Manager Reena Snook. Inspired by the evolving song of the native tūī, the show is a collaboration between master storytellers and kaupapa Māori performing arts company Te Pou Theatre, and world-class cirque innovators The Dust Palace. Audiences fluent in or on a journey with te reo Māori will enjoy full immersion. Those newer to the language will receive an English-language synopsis and radio play upon booking to ensure accessibility and connection. With just one public performance and tickets expected to sell quickly, Tauranga audiences are encouraged to book early to avoid missing out. "Described as transformative and visually spectacular, Te Tangi a Te Tūī is a must-see work of Aotearoa theatre," says Snook. Tickets are available now at
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Most Infamous Narcissist in Literary History Gets a Smartphone
In some ways, Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, a horror-tinged Victorian critique of the perils of existing in thrall to one's own image, is a story ready-made for 2025. The title character, a young man of striking beauty, begins the novel as a vain but apparently harmless naif. By the end, his possession of a magical portrait that ages and bears the physical marks of his sins while his own face and body remain unchangingly youthful and innocent has turned him into a monster. It's an intentionally superficial edit of the Faust story: A man barters away his soul in exchange for his heart's desire, but rather than yearning for something tinged with nobility—true wisdom, say, or love—he just wants to be gorgeous, forever. He gives up substance for surface; that is his tragedy. And oh, does Sarah Snook's new one-actor take on The Picture of Dorian Gray, now on Broadway, make hay of the obvious parallels to our time, in which social media has made the drive to maintain an idealized aesthetic more powerful than ever. Snook, who received a Tony nomination this week, plays 26 roles, with the help of elaborate wigs and even more elaborate camerawork. Mostly, the latter is performed by a crew of operators who follow her throughout the show. But midway through, Snook herself takes charge, using a smartphone to broadcast herself to a giant screen suspended above the stage as she embarks on a hedonistic rampage. Playing with filters, she gives her face an unsettling porcelain-doll perfection, then zooms out, cackling with glee as she strips the effect away to show her true face. Putting a smartphone in the hands of perhaps the most infamous narcissist in literary history plays humorously, and ominously: Dorian isn't just thrilled by his supernatural ability to maintain a flawless visage; he's also highly aware of—and titillated by—the gap between the false perfection he embodies and the truth of who he is. The act of deception has become, for him, not just a conduit to pleasure, but a source of pleasure itself. [Sophie Gilbert: Reclaim imperfect faces] The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of two starry new stateside arrivals from London in which a single actor plays every part in a classic story adapted for a modern moment; the other, Vanya, starring Andrew Scott, is quiet and introspective where Dorian Gray is frenetic and exaggerated. And at a time when the omnipresence of social media has brought a kind of self-conscious posturing to the cultural forefront, the two offer markedly different ideas about what it means to imagine oneself as a character, or several, to be watched. The Wilde adaptation, written and directed by Kip Williams, twists that critique into one tailored for a very different kind of image-centric era from Wilde's own, using the device of a single actor to develop a pointed reflection on the ways in which performing a persona for others can rot away every trace of an interior life. Vanya, adapted by Simon Stephens from Anton Chekhov's turn-of-the-century original, makes for something of a counterpoint, suggesting that there's extraordinary richness to be found in seeing yourself as the embodiment of multiple intertwining voices, and letting those voices freely engage with one another. In the difference between them lies a question bedeviling modern culture as it decides whether new norms forged by social media are forces of corruption, opportunity, or both: When is putting on a performance a perversion of the truth, and when is it a kind of manifestation—a way of becoming more freely oneself? Dorian Gray is skeptical of its own medium, full of warnings about the dangers of misinterpreting an act as reality. In a scene partway through the play, Dorian brings his friends Basil Hallward, the painter of the ill-fated portrait, and Lord Henry Wotton, a gadabout intent on corrupting Dorian's soul, to see his new fiancée, Sibyl Vane, act in a production of Romeo and Juliet. Snook, live onstage, portrays Sibyl as she turns in an outrageously bad performance as Juliet; Dorian and his friends—three pretaped videos of Snook in various wigs and cravats—watch. (Snook acts across from filmed, fabulously costumed versions of herself throughout the play, which works out to be part film, part theater.) So we get to see, in real time, a multipronged scrutiny: The men judge Sibyl; Dorian's friends judge him for loving her (and, in particular, for seeming to have radically misrepresented her talents); Dorian, in turn, judges himself for being so smitten by an incompetent actor. Later, Sibyl explains to Dorian that her bad performance was intentional, a renunciation of the emotive lies that acting requires, now that her love for Dorian has shown her how much more profound real feelings can be. But to the men observing her, her failure of performance equates to a failure of self. Her apparent ineptitude as an actress makes her irrelevant as a human being. That each of these characters—both those doing the judging and those being judged—is played by the same person crisply illustrates the scene's bigger point. While the text of the play suggests that the superficiality Dorian and his peers embrace is a poison that destroys everything it touches (as it will soon destroy Sibyl), the scene as Snook plays it produces a strange secondary effect: We watch as the actor also essentially spreads the poison to different iterations of herself. Yes, the characters are showing how a society over-interested in preening and posturing can obliterate the tender parts of a person, such as the inchoate, even contradictory feelings of someone newly in love. But the shades of Snook are showing, too, how a single person, overinvested in meeting those norms, can obliterate themselves. [Read: The art of putting on airs] There is an overt moral in this for the social-media age, cannily invoked by the production's use of tropes recognizable to anyone who's spent a few minutes on TikTok or Instagram. You can hardly open one of those apps without encountering a video in which a creator dons goofy costumes to play every part in a funny little skit; at the Dorian Gray matinee I attended, the first appearance of the multiple Snooks elicited knowing giggles from viewers who had seen this trick before. But those initially innocuous references slowly take on a dire tinge. At the end of her smartphone-editing spree, Snook takes an Ellen DeGeneres–at-the-Oscars-style selfie with the audience, then gleefully manipulates her own lovely visage in it into a monstrously distorted mask—the closest the play comes to showing us the horrors of Dorian's hidden portrait. The fact that she can toggle back and forth between the ideal picture and the grotesque one is a source of manic joy for her: What a thrill, to be able to present yourself as perfect while knowing that you are, at heart, willfully ugly. The message to us is clear—because everyone reflexively smiles to take their part in the horrifying tableau. (I did.) It's easy for those watching the show—or reading the original novel—to scorn the unthinking ease with which Dorian and his enablers give up their humanity for the satisfaction of turning in a flawless performance for their peers. ('I love acting. It is so much more real than life,' Lord Henry Wotton says in the book.) But we've just shown that we're on the way to doing the same. We're part of the performance too. One of the apparent costs of putting ourselves constantly on display is the risk of flattening the complexity of what lies within. Yet there might be a way to express ourselves, to be in and of the world, without losing our interior richness. Vanya suggests that with the right touch, doing so can even be a form of liberation. In contrast to Dorian Gray's technological wonderland, Vanya is starkly analog. The props that Scott uses onstage are notably low-key: a tape player, a player piano, an electric kettle. And although he initially distinguishes his characters from one another with telling accessories and mannerisms, he eventually comes to differentiate them with little more than a shift in expression and voice. So we come to see them emerging, one after the other, from within him, passing across his face as if Scott's emotions each take on the characters of fully realized people. Vanya, which examines the crumbling relationships within a family managing financial woes while stuck in close quarters on a country estate, is a story about the ways people delude and deprive themselves, and how their intimate misunderstandings of themselves can ripple outward, quietly changing the course of other lives too. The plot is propelled by everyday self-deceptions, the kind that could make someone marry a partner they actually dislike—as Helena, the beautiful young wife of the delusional film auteur whose late first wife owned the estate, comes to suspect she might have—or believe that their beloved local doctor's drinking really isn't that big of a problem. But as in Dorian Gray, the interactions of a set of closely linked characters take on a different meaning when all of them have the same face. So when Scott plays a scene in which Helena sees perfectly well what the plain but good-hearted Sonia, the auteur's daughter by his first wife, cannot—that Sonia's passion for the alcoholic doctor is never going to be reciprocated—it reads less as a delicate difference of perception between two friends than as a careful compartmentalization of truth within a self. One part adores; the other part knows that that adoration may be unreturned but—at least at first—lets it continue, out of an understanding that if the love were quenched, some essential part of the shared self would die. You must be every part of yourself to be all of yourself, Scott's sensitive exploration of these linked characters suggests. It is natural to have many different selves, and the ways they interact, when given the chance to speak honestly with one another—as Scott's quiet, tormented souls so movingly do—can be powerful. At both the start and the end of Vanya, Scott walks to the edge of the stage and flicks a switch on the wall, sending the theater into darkness. He has complete control over how much we see; he's letting us in as a favor, not because he's interested in the attention. The audience has been optional all along. When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
The Most Infamous Narcissist in Literary History Gets a Smartphone
In some ways, Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, a horror-tinged Victorian critique of the perils of existing in thrall to one's own image, is a story ready-made for 2025. The title character, a young man of striking beauty, begins the novel as a vain but apparently harmless naif. By the end, his possession of a magical portrait that ages and bears the physical marks of his sins while his own face and body remain unchangingly youthful and innocent has turned him into a monster. It's an intentionally superficial edit of the Faust story: A man barters away his soul in exchange for his heart's desire, but rather than yearning for something tinged with nobility—true wisdom, say, or love—he just wants to be gorgeous, forever. He gives up substance for surface; that is his tragedy. And oh, does Sarah Snook's new one-actor take on The Picture of Dorian Gray, now on Broadway, make hay of the obvious parallels to our time, in which social media has made the drive to maintain an idealized aesthetic more powerful than ever. Snook, who received a Tony nomination this week, plays 26 roles, with the help of elaborate wigs and even more elaborate camerawork. Mostly, the latter is performed by a crew of operators who follow her throughout the show. But midway through, Snook herself takes charge, using a smartphone to broadcast herself to a giant screen suspended above the stage as she embarks on a hedonistic rampage. Playing with filters, she gives her face an unsettling porcelain-doll perfection, then zooms out, cackling with glee as she strips the effect away to show her true face. Putting a smartphone in the hands of perhaps the most infamous narcissist in literary history plays humorously, and ominously: Dorian isn't just thrilled by his supernatural ability to maintain a flawless visage; he's also highly aware of—and titillated by—the gap between the false perfection he embodies and the truth of who he is. The act of deception has become, for him, not just a conduit to pleasure, but a source of pleasure itself. Sophie Gilbert: Reclaim imperfect faces The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of two starry new stateside arrivals from London in which a single actor plays every part in a classic story adapted for a modern moment; the other, Vanya, starring Andrew Scott, is quiet and introspective where Dorian Gray is frenetic and exaggerated. And at a time when the omnipresence of social media has brought a kind of self-conscious posturing to the cultural forefront, the two offer markedly different ideas about what it means to imagine oneself as a character, or several, to be watched. The Wilde adaptation, written and directed by Kip Williams, twists that critique into one tailored for a very different kind of image-centric era from Wilde's own, using the device of a single actor to develop a pointed reflection on the ways in which performing a persona for others can rot away every trace of an interior life. Vanya, adapted by Simon Stephens from Anton Chekhov's turn-of-the-century original, makes for something of a counterpoint, suggesting that there's extraordinary richness to be found in seeing yourself as the embodiment of multiple intertwining voices, and letting those voices freely engage with one another. In the difference between them lies a question bedeviling modern culture as it decides whether new norms forged by social media are forces of corruption, opportunity, or both: When is putting on a performance a perversion of the truth, and when is it a kind of manifestation—a way of becoming more freely oneself? Dorian Gray is skeptical of its own medium, full of warnings about the dangers of misinterpreting an act as reality. In a scene partway through the play, Dorian brings his friends Basil Hallward, the painter of the ill-fated portrait, and Lord Henry Wotton, a gadabout intent on corrupting Dorian's soul, to see his new fiancée, Sibyl Vane, act in a production of Romeo and Juliet. Snook, live onstage, portrays Sibyl as she turns in an outrageously bad performance as Juliet; Dorian and his friends—three pretaped videos of Snook in various wigs and cravats—watch. (Snook acts across from filmed, fabulously costumed versions of herself throughout the play, which works out to be part film, part theater.) So we get to see, in real time, a multipronged scrutiny: The men judge Sibyl; Dorian's friends judge him for loving her (and, in particular, for seeming to have radically misrepresented her talents); Dorian, in turn, judges himself for being so smitten by an incompetent actor. Later, Sibyl explains to Dorian that her bad performance was intentional, a renunciation of the emotive lies that acting requires, now that her love for Dorian has shown her how much more profound real feelings can be. But to the men observing her, her failure of performance equates to a failure of self. Her apparent ineptitude as an actress makes her irrelevant as a human being. That each of these characters—both those doing the judging and those being judged—is played by the same person crisply illustrates the scene's bigger point. While the text of the play suggests that the superficiality Dorian and his peers embrace is a poison that destroys everything it touches (as it will soon destroy Sibyl), the scene as Snook plays it produces a strange secondary effect: We watch as the actor also essentially spreads the poison to different iterations of herself. Yes, the characters are showing how a society over-interested in preening and posturing can obliterate the tender parts of a person, such as the inchoate, even contradictory feelings of someone newly in love. But the shades of Snook are showing, too, how a single person, overinvested in meeting those norms, can obliterate themselves. There is an overt moral in this for the social-media age, cannily invoked by the production's use of tropes recognizable to anyone who's spent a few minutes on TikTok or Instagram. You can hardly open one of those apps without encountering a video in which a creator dons goofy costumes to play every part in a funny little skit; at the Dorian Gray matinee I attended, the first appearance of the multiple Snooks elicited knowing giggles from viewers who had seen this trick before. But those initially innocuous references slowly take on a dire tinge. At the end of her smartphone-editing spree, Snook takes an Ellen DeGeneres–at-the-Oscars-style selfie with the audience, then gleefully manipulates her own lovely visage in it into a monstrously distorted mask—the closest the play comes to showing us the horrors of Dorian's hidden portrait. The fact that she can toggle back and forth between the ideal picture and the grotesque one is a source of manic joy for her: What a thrill, to be able to present yourself as perfect while knowing that you are, at heart, willfully ugly. The message to us is clear—because everyone reflexively smiles to take their part in the horrifying tableau. (I did.) It's easy for those watching the show—or reading the original novel—to scorn the unthinking ease with which Dorian and his enablers give up their humanity for the satisfaction of turning in a flawless performance for their peers. ('I love acting. It is so much more real than life,' Lord Henry Wotton says in the book.) But we've just shown that we're on the way to doing the same. We're part of the performance too. One of the apparent costs of putting ourselves constantly on display is the risk of flattening the complexity of what lies within. Yet there might be a way to express ourselves, to be in and of the world, without losing our interior richness. Vanya suggests that with the right touch, doing so can even be a form of liberation. In contrast to Dorian Gray 's technological wonderland, Vanya is starkly analog. The props that Scott uses onstage are notably low-key: a tape player, a player piano, an electric kettle. And although he initially distinguishes his characters from one another with telling accessories and mannerisms, he eventually comes to differentiate them with little more than a shift in expression and voice. So we come to see them emerging, one after the other, from within him, passing across his face as if Scott's emotions each take on the characters of fully realized people. Vanya, which examines the crumbling relationships within a family managing financial woes while stuck in close quarters on a country estate, is a story about the ways people delude and deprive themselves, and how their intimate misunderstandings of themselves can ripple outward, quietly changing the course of other lives too. The plot is propelled by everyday self-deceptions, the kind that could make someone marry a partner they actually dislike—as Helena, the beautiful young wife of the delusional film auteur whose late first wife owned the estate, comes to suspect she might have—or believe that their beloved local doctor's drinking really isn't that big of a problem. But as in Dorian Gray, the interactions of a set of closely linked characters take on a different meaning when all of them have the same face. So when Scott plays a scene in which Helena sees perfectly well what the plain but good-hearted Sonia, the auteur's daughter by his first wife, cannot—that Sonia's passion for the alcoholic doctor is never going to be reciprocated—it reads less as a delicate difference of perception between two friends than as a careful compartmentalization of truth within a self. One part adores; the other part knows that that adoration may be unreturned but—at least at first—lets it continue, out of an understanding that if the love were quenched, some essential part of the shared self would die. You must be every part of yourself to be all of yourself, Scott's sensitive exploration of these linked characters suggests. It is natural to have many different selves, and the ways they interact, when given the chance to speak honestly with one another—as Scott's quiet, tormented souls so movingly do—can be powerful. At both the start and the end of Vanya, Scott walks to the edge of the stage and flicks a switch on the wall, sending the theater into darkness. He has complete control over how much we see; he's letting us in as a favor, not because he's interested in the attention. The audience has been optional all along.
