I'm looking forward to seeing Awake and Sing again to reappraise the Schreiber/Ruffalo debate. When I first went into it, I was admittedly biased towards liking Ruffalo (being a fan of his film work) and other than the accent irking me (I'm a New Englander, and it totally rang full-on Boston to me...very "pahk yeh cah at Hahvahd yahd" to me). BUT, his performance, especially as the play went on in the second and third acts really stuck with me, as did both Dominic Cooper and Jamie Parker's in History Boys (where Schreiber's really didn't). I think Ruffalo deserved his nomination, if only for the fact that fact that he did a pretty damn good job of making some incredibly dated lines sound as natural as possible (I know some other people have mentioned this before). I can just imagine looking at those lines on the page...I can't think of any off the top of my head, but they're almost bound to come out forced sounding and awkward.
And Zoneace, I totally agree with you about Jamie Parker in History Boys. It's a shame his part wasn't fleshed out just a bit more, because I think he's incredibly underappreciated in that show! I definitely hope he comes back around to do another show in New York at some point. I'd definitely love to see him in something else.
Anyway...I guess when you come right down to it, it was really just a great year for ensemble acting in shows. Between Awake and Sing, History Boys, Sweeney Todd, and even Inishmore. And that's always a good thing, imho!
But when did New Hampshire become--Such a backward wasteland of seatbelt hating crazies?...I mean, only 40 people actually live there. The others are just visitors who come for the tax-free liquor and three inches of novelty coastline. John Hodgeman on The Daily Show (1-30-07)
