“A STEADY RAIN” (Starring Daniel Craig & Hugh Jackman) – A Theatrical Review

  

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About: Greg Victor (Parcbench Culture Editor) is a historian, pop culture critic, and theatrical dramaturg and has stage managed theatrical productions on Broadway and on tour, including Billy Joel's "Movin' Out", Monty Python's "Spamalot" and more.See Authors Posts (225) on October 6, 2009

At the Schoenfeld Theatre, (NYC). Written by Keith Huff. Directed by John Crowley. 90mins. No intermission.

No disrespect to the playwright (Keith Huff), but when the play “A Steady Rain” opened on Broadway this week it was all about the two stars – Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman. Let’s face it… the script could have been provided by the telephone company and it would have been an event.

What playwright would complain? How many writers get the chance to see their work produced for the Broadway stage with two of the biggest movie stars around as the entire cast?

This has resulted in one of the biggest box office advances of a play in Broadway history. The cheers that meet the two superstars as they first appear on the stage are nothing next to the throngs of fans that gather nightly on West 45th Street to see them as they exit the stage door. Apparently, audiences in other theatres on the block have complained of not being able to hear the show they are attending due to all the commotion in the street. So much for the event. Now back to the play…

The play tells (without much “showing”) the story of two cops who are lifelong friends, and their differing accounts of a few traumatic days that changed their lives. Without giving away anything that would lessen the impact of seeing the play, I will say that the story offers a gritty behind-the-scenes look at the life of Chicago cops.

Much is asked of these inner-city police. They have to play by the ever-expanding rulebook and be prepared to patrol neighborhoods where the residents speak dozens of languages and have just as many conflicting cultural values. The old neighborhood isn’t what it used to be, but our two protagonists soldier through the days and nights of drug-dealers, hookers, pimps, and other criminals.

The play is structured as two interwoven monologues that overlap from time to time. The lack of drama inherent in this method of story-telling is replaced by the sheer star charisma onstage. Of the two, Hugh Jackman has the flashier role. This puts more pressure on him to deliver, of course. His accent is not as solid as Mr. Craig’s, and his performance seems to depend on the most dramatic moments of the story.

Daniel Craig, on the other hand, takes control of the stage during the less obvious moments of the play. He inhabits his character as if it were a second skin. If you come to the theatre looking for James Bond, he is hardly recognizable here.

Credit director John Crowley for bringing a basically minimalistic play to life with theatrical precision. The scenery and lighting seem to appear and disappear at the moments of greatest impact. Mr. Crowley knows just when to heighten the theatrics so that our imagination turns into an onboard squad car camera. By the end of the evening, we know there are more than two sides to every story.

No stranger to Broadway, Hugh Jackman earned a Tony Award for his portrayal of “The Boy From Oz.” If there are any awards given out for this production, however, it will go to Daniel Craig. “A Steady Rain” marks Daniel Craig’s Broadway debut. In London he has performed on the stage with the Royal National Theatre, among others. Let’s hope that the talented Mr. Craig appears in many more plays on this side of the pond.

If you aren’t coming to New York in the next eleven weeks (the length of the limited run), or if you can’t score one of the expensive and hard-to-get tickets – wait a year or so. Sitting in the sixth row, I kept wondering if the balcony was seeing the same amazing movie-close-up acting that Jackman and Craig were providing. The movie rights have already been sold, and as I watched two mega-movie-stars tell the story onstage, I couldn’t help thinking what a great movie it will make someday.

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