Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesLinda Lavin in “The Lyons.”Fabulously funny as she is, strafing her nearest and dearest as a lovably hateful mother in “The Lyons,” Linda Lavin may not come home with a Tony Award this year. She has the fortunate misfortune of being nominated in the most competitive category in the awards, leading actress in a play.
As Rita Lyons, embittered wife and exasperated mother in Nicky Silver’s splenetic comedy of family discord at the Cort Theater, Ms. Lavin makes an ample acting feast of her character’s motherly malice. Her timing is peerless; she can win a belly laugh just by placing a basso-profundo emphasis on a single word; and she’s the reigning stage mistress of the withering eye roll discernible from the back row.
It’s great fun to watch her deliver Rita’s passive-aggressive sallies at her family with the offhand air of a woman engaged in the most ordinary of activities, like plucking dead leaves from a potted plant. Her performance also miraculously manages to bind together the character’s inconsistencies – does Rita really love her son, or is there nothing but chipped ice in that heart? – so expertly that you don’t notice them until you’ve left the theater. (And has anyone but me noted that the play’s title should really be “The Lyonses”? Not to nitpick or anything.)
But Ms. Lavin’s competition for the Tony is formidable. Her fellow nominees include a couple of blazing newcomers — the exciting young talent Nina Arianda, radiating wit and mystery in equal measures in David Ives’s nifty two-handed psychological thriller “Venus in Fur,” and Tracie Bennett, explosively channeling Judy Garland in extremis in the sadly tawdry (albeit juicy) London import “End of the Rainbow.”
Two highly respected stage veterans are also in contention: Stockard Channing, as the poised Palm Springs matriarch whose carefully manicured life comes unhinged in “Other Desert Cities,” and the ever-wonderful Cynthia Nixon as the dying literary critic in the revival of “Wit.”
But even should Ms. Lavin end the night with no twirling trophy to put on the mantel, she deserves some kind of honor for the remarkable year she has had onstage – and, in a bizarre twist that adds a soupçon of drama to this year’s awards, for the opportunities she’s given other actresses by choosing to get offstage.
Consider this peculiar, possibly unprecedented fact: two other actresses are nominated for Tony awards this year for roles Ms. Lavin first played in the productions in question. In both cases Ms. Lavin chose to forego an assured perch on Broadway in favor of taking on the ravaging Rita, when it must have seemed pretty unlikely that “The Lyons,” which opened off Broadway last fall, would move uptown. (It’s the first of Mr. Silver’s many sharp-tongued, sad-hearted comedies to do so.)
Judith Light is in contention in the featured actress in a play category for the role of Silda in “Other Desert Cities.” Ms. Lavin was the first, formidably funny Silda when that play, by Jon Robin Baitz, opened off Broadway last winter. Meanwhile, Jayne Houdyshell is nominated in the featured actress in a musical category for her performance as Hattie, the “Broadway Baby”-belting trouper in the acclaimed revival of “Follies.” Ms. Lavin played that role first, too, when the production opened at the Kennedy Center last summer.
With hand-me-downs like that, who needs to buy retail? Both roles are small, glittering gems that afford fine actresses wonderful chances to display new aspects of their talents.
Ms. Houdyshell, whose performance in Lisa Kron’s “Well” remains a high-water mark of comic naturalism, managed the heroic feat of making “Broadway Baby” – one of the most frequently performed songs from “Follies” – feel as fresh and funny as it must have when it was first written. With her popping eyes and air of sincere innocence, Ms. Houdyshell’s Hattie retained something unmistakably girlish, even babyish. As her delivery of Mr. Sondheim’s affectionate tribute to troupers slowly gained in polish and power, it was as if the magic of being in the spotlight were stripping away the years to reveal the scene-stealer long since buried beneath Hattie’s now-retiring and frumpishly ordinary exterior.
I didn’t get the chance to see Ms. Lavin play Hattie in Washington, but I did see her Silda in “Other Desert Cities,” and, generally speaking, I’d have to say that taking over a role from Ms. Lavin is probably about as appealing as playing an exhibition match opposite Roger Federer. And yet Ms. Light brought moving shades to the character that made me quickly cast aside vivid memories of Ms. Lavin’s wry dissolution. Silda’s mordant humor was inflected with a sense of bone-deep despair that suffused the play like a mournful tune that hovers on the edge of your consciousness, making its impression without ever fully capturing your attention.
Ms. Light and Ms. Houdyshell must be grateful that Ms. Lavin chose to take on a new role rather than continue in ones she had already created. And I’m grateful, too, that her choices gave us the chance to see all of these variously rewarding performances.
Ms. Lavin’s wonderful year is also a heartening reminder that the theater continues to afford fine opportunities to actresses long past their ingénue years. I can’t wait to see what she does next. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some of her peers are feeling the same way: inheriting a role from Ms. Lavin, challenging though it certainly must be, this year seems to have been something of a lucky charm.
Anyone care to join me in my unofficial kudos to Ms. Lavin, or append your thoughts on her remarkable year-and-change onstage?
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