Rufus Sewell Rocks
Although Tom Stoppard’s play Rock and Roll brought down it’s final curtain on March 9th, the memory of Rufus Sewell’s performance remains. After getting terrific reviews as well as the Evening Standard and Olivier awards in London, it opened on Broadway a year later to similar accolades.
In an Associated Press article as reported by LoHud.com, Sewell considers himself “a comic actor, that’s what I actually am. Everything else is a stretch.” It’s an accepted fact that the Brits and Americans don’t laugh in sync with one another which was made obvious in the Broadway crowd’s response to the play’s humorous moments. He felt that some jokes went over better than others and that American audiences “get some things in a much quicker way; they get other things in a slower way. It’s just a slightly different sensibility.”
Although he’s best known for his movie roles (”The Holiday” and “A Knight’s Tale,” to name a few), we think he showed some real acting chops in the live theatre arena and Broadway Undercover would welcome the opportunity to see him back on the great white way. However, for now he has the independent movie bug which offers more diversity in roles, and he has completed two films (”Vinyan” and “Downloading Nancy”) which were very well received at the Sundance Film Festival. And for those history buffs, he can now be seen in the new HBO miniseries, “John Adams,” as Alexander Hamilton. After being blown away with his “Jan” in Rock and Roll, we think that’s the performance to beat come Tony time.
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I have to admit that “Rock ‘n’ Roll” left me kind of cold. I didn’t like this play very much at all. It was too episodic, the way it kept flitting back and forth between England and Czechoslovakia. I never thought we got a real feel for what life for Jan was like under Communism. Yes, he went to jail, but how did that affect him? He seemed pretty much the same before and afterward. And the rock music selections didn’t seem to have much to do with what was going on in a particular scene. The Syd Barrett stuff mystified me. I know a lot of people loved it, but it just didn’t do anything for me. And I was really looking forward to it. Oh well. Part of it was, I’d seen “August: Osage County” the night before, and that was such gripping, emotional storytelling.