When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
Indeed - definitly not stunt casting. He is an experienced stage actor with many credits. He also happens to be a comedian and a TV actor but stunt implies a lack of credentials.
While I love Izzard and am mezzo-mezzo on Haysbert, I'm kind of fascinated to see both/each of them play these roles specifically and deliver that dialogue. Should be interesting...
I went Monday. They started out a bit roughing, going over eachother's lines. At one point Eddie apologized in character to Hank Brown for talking over him.
They settled in quite nicely by the second act though. Haysbert is a complete 180 from Grier, but I think it works really well. He's a much more composed, believable lawyer and when then everything starts going downhill his reaction to the events is much more powerful.
Eddie is drawing laughs out of lines that Spader didn't. "Well where DID you get the documents" a seemingly innocuous line got a bunch of laughs.
With the first cast I felt that the cast was elevating a so-so play, but once they got going I started to think that the play itself was a lot stronger than I originally thought it was, in that they were drawing out aspects of it that I hadn't thought of.