| re: Who were the best Amadeus leads? | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 12:11 am EDT 10/15/17 | |
| In reply to: Who were the best Amadeus leads? - bobby2 02:19 am EDT 10/14/17 | |
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| Scofield declined to come. He was playing both Salieri and Othello at the National, and that was enough for him. Or at least that was the reason that was given. I suspect that he was doing neither by the time the play got here, but that's what was said. He may not have liked New York a lot. He played here in A Man for All Seasons, and then briefly in King Lear at the New York State Theatre in 1964 as part of an international RSC tour. Never came back after that, and obviously he could have. I don't know why Callow didn't play it here. I don't recall reading or hearing anything particularly comparing Scofield with McKellen or Callow with Curry in terms of preferences. I would imagine that an exchange was worked out for McKellen to play here. When it was first announced that he had been asked, it was also announced that approval had not yet been received from Equity. He wasn't well-known here, but he was not unknown to hardcore New York theatregoers as he had appeared here in 1967 on Broadway in the short-lived The Promise, and in 1974 he had appeared in major roles at BAM with the Actors Company, a repertory group that he had helped start. I have nothing of great value to add on the subject of comparison between different actors who appeared in the first Broadway production as I didn't see it till fairly late in the run. When I saw it, David Dukes was Salieri, and Mark Hamill was Mozart. Dukes was very good, extremely skilled, but short of thrilling, and Hamill was more than acceptable. I've heard the BBC radio broadcast featuring the original National Theatre cast, and I will say that Scofield comes off very well on it. I'm not really a big fan of the play. I also saw the 1999 revival with David Suchet and Michael Sheen, both of whom seemed to me miscast. The result was that my favorite performance in that production was David McCallum as Joseph II. |
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