2016 Tony Award Predictions: Best Actress

The Tony Awards are almost here, and although I'm *slightly* behind on my prediction articles I am determined to get the rest of them out before Broadway's big night. It's time to tackle the last of the acting races, Best Actress in a Play and Best Actress in a Musical.

As always, I will use a combination of personal experience and popular opinion to determine who is most likely to walk away a winner Sunday night. And should the person most likely to win not match who I think is more deserving to win, I will be sure to point it out in my analysis.

Warning: Occasional snark and plenty of speculation to follow.

Best Actress in a Play

Jessica Lange in Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night.

Nominees: Jessica Lange, Long Day's Journey Into Night; Laurie Metcalf, Misery; Lupita Nyong'o, Eclipsed; Sophie Okonedo, The Crucible; Michelle Williams, Blackbird

An eclectic mix of performances are represented in this year's Best Actress in a Play category, although it looks increasingly likely that Oscar and Emmy-winner Jessica Lange will end June 12th one step closer to a coveted EGOT (that's an Emmy-Grammy-Oscar-Tony sweep for those of you who don't know). While I personally found the way Lange was directed to be problematic, there's no denying that her morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone is often a force of nature. It helps that the role is also one of the all-time great acting challenges in American drama, and that the currently running Long Day's Journey Into Night is the most recent of all the nominated productions.

I can't really imagine a scenario where one of the other actresses manages to wrest this award away from Lange. Metcalf was probably the only saving grace of the critically lambasted Misery, but I suspect most Tony voters have long since forgotten that Stephen King adaptation. Sophie Okonedo managed one of the most surprising Tony wins in recent memory when she won a Featured Actress Tony for A Raisin in the Sun two years ago, but I don't think the English actress will manage such an unexpected victory this time around. And while Lupita Nyong'o and Michelle Williams both earned strong notices in Eclipsed and Blackbird respectively, it doesn't appear that they inspire the same kind of passion among voters as Lange does.

Will Win: Jessica Lange, Long Day's Journey Into Night

Should Win: Lupita Nyong'o, Eclipsed

Best Actress in a Musical

Cynthia Erivo is here to stay with her star-making performance in The Color Purple.

Nominees: Laura Benanti, She Loves Me; Carmen Cusack, Bright Star; Cynthia Erivo, The Color Purple; Jessie Mueller, Waitress; Phillipa Soo, Hamilton

Let's be honest: this award is probably already being engraved with Cynthia Erivo's name. She is simply sensational as the much maligned Miss Celie in John Doyle's stripped down version of The Color Purple, giving the kind of diva performance that is the stuff of theatrical legend. Everyone I have talked to, from theatre geeks to those who went to see The Color Purple primarily for Jennifer Hudson, has been absolutely floored by Erivo's powerhouse performance and roof-rattling voice. And when was the last time an actress routinely commanded a mid-show standing ovation the way Erivo does during her 11 o'clock anthem "I'm Here?" I'd say not since Patti LuPone's "Rose's Turn" in the 2008 Gypsy, which I consider the single greatest musical theatre performance I have ever seen.

The other actresses are all incredibly talented, and in another year would be fiercely competitive. Laura Benanti is perfection in She Loves Me, with the role of perfumerie clerk Amalia Balash seemingly tailor made for her comedic chops and golden soprano. Phillipa Soo immediately impressed me during her Off-Broadway debut in Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, and is equally amazing as the emotional rock upon which Hamilton is built. I haven't seen Jessie Mueller in Waitress, but I have yet to see the Tony-winner give a bad performance, and by all accounts Carmen Cusack is one of the best things about this season's Little Show That Could, Bright Star. Yet Erivo has the combination of talent and incandescent star wattage that only comes about once in a blue moon, and will surely be awarded Broadway's highest honor because of it. (I mean, just listen to this performance from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and tell me you don't want to give Erivo every award imaginable.)

Do you think this year's Best Actress races are as locked down as I do, or do you expect someone else's name to be called Sunday night? Let me know in the comments, and don't miss out on the rest of my 2016 Tony coverage below:

Nominations React

Best Book and Score

Best Direction and Choreography

Best Featured Actor

Best Featured Actress

Best Actor

An Admirable "Journey," If Not a Great One

Review: Long Day's Journey Into Night

John Gallagher, Jr. and Jessica Lange in the latest Broadway revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night.

There's always been something off about the Tyrones, the highly dysfunctional family unit at the center of Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Long Day's Journey Into Night. Slowly learning the many ways in which the Tyrone family isn't what it seems is one of the drama's chief pleasures, with each new revelation forcing you to reconsider your feelings about the four deeply damaged characters onstage. But in the Roundabout Theatre Company's current revival of this American classic, something is even more off than usual, and it holds this fine production back from the transcendent heights it so desperately wants to achieve.

The cast of stage and screen veterans assembled here certainly dives into their meaty roles with abandon, with each cast member offering a perfectly valid and often fascinating take on their member of the Tyrone clan. Yet these performances don't quite stylistically mesh with one another, so at times it feels like four separate productions occurring simultaneously rather than one seamless whole. Whether this is a fault in casting or direction is up for debate, but it is a noticeable issue which distracts from the impressive acting of the cast.

As the family patriarch James, Gabriel Byrne is wonderfully understated, convincingly reserved and world weary from a life full of regret and emotional turmoil. Byrne does an excellent job of using the character's Irish bluster to hide his true insecurities, and his deeply expressive eyes make it clear that every insult and accusation hurled his way stings even though James rarely vocalizes his hurt. His is an all-too-real remorse that is quietly devastating, anchoring the showier performances around him with genuine human gravitas.

Jessica Lange is often captivating as the alternatively fragile and ferocious matriarch Mary, and is particularly effective in the scenes where the character rapidly shifts from one emotional extreme to another. Lange makes the character's repeated utterance of "I don't know what you're talking about" everything from the heartbreaking possible onset of senility to a bone chilling challenge to anyone who dares question her sincerity. You're never quite sure how conscious her denial of the problems in her life is, and it makes for a fascinating character study. Yet for all she does right, Lange sometimes feels out of place; you get the feeling her Mary would work even better in a production where the other actors matched her particular style of emotionally volatile acting, rather than the more measured and stately performances favored by her current costars.

As the Tyrones' two sons, both Michael Shannon and John Gallagher, Jr. are exceptional. As the elder son, Shannon is mesmerizing, expertly forging all of the character's conflicting impulses into one multifaceted gem of a performance. Shannon's Jimmy is the most self-aware of the bunch, but also the most vindictive, purposefully agitating the rest of the family by continually bringing up their hurtful past. There's a twinkle of joy in Shannon's eyes when he gets a rise out of one of the other characters, and yet his repeated apologies are heartfelt and his own self-loathing always readily apparent. As the younger son Edmund, Gallagher, Jr. nails the character's contradictory desire to be treated as a man and need for the extra attention granted him by virtue of being the family baby. He also makes for the most interesting foil to Lange, the only one who seems to really see her even as she continually lies to herself about his ongoing medical problems.

Director Jonathan Kent makes a few choices that actively undermine his cast, including staging the play so that an unnecessarily large amount of dialogue is delivered upstage. It robs the audience of the chance to see the actors' expressive faces, and occurs enough that it becomes difficult to fully empathize with them (Lange in particular spends a lot of time speaking upstage). Also, while no one has ever accused Long Day's Journey Into Night of being a short play, Kent's decision to provide only one intermission during the play's four hour runtime turns it into an endurance test for even the most devout O'Neill fans. The last of the four acts suffers the most from this decision, with several brilliantly subtle bits of acting competing against the increasing restlessness of the audience, and the heartbreak of Lange's final monologue undercut by the relief of finally getting a break.

Overall, this Journey is admirably executed but rarely excites, making it difficult to recommend but also hard to completely dismiss. O'Neill's play is a masterwork of rare skill, infinitely complex despite its relatively straightforward setup, and something that reveals new facets of meaning on every viewing. It is something that should be experienced by every theatre lover at some point in their lives, but it would be a shame if those unfamiliar with the work mistook the flaws in this production as flaws with the play in general. Audience enjoyment will be directly tied to how interested you are in seeing these specific actors tackle these specific roles, but those who have seen multiple productions of the play probably won't find much to distinguish this revival from the rest.