How long can a play, or even a player, remain relevant?
The question wandered into my mind after I saw the Atlantic Theater’s sprightly staging of Harold Brighouse’s amiable, 86-year-old North Country English comedy, “Hobson’s Choice,” starring the 64-year-old New York actor Brian Murray.
Take the play first. Why has it lasted?
It’s a charming period piece of Victoriana, Manchester-style, and at the Atlantic, David Warren has directed it with light-fingered, tender loving care.
In fact, the whole easy-going production – including a totally enchanting Martha Plimpton as Maggie, the super-efficient ugly duckling who, when the time is ripe, becomes the cock of the walk – is deftly executed and surprisingly entertaining.
“Hobson’s Choice” is still a popular repertory selection in Britain, and has been ever since 1964, when it was grandly staged by Britain’s National Theater, with a brusquely brilliant Michael Redgrave.
Two years later, it was made into an indifferent Broadway musical, “Walking Happy,” starring the British comic Norman Wisdom as Willie. And in 1989, David Bintley premiered his highly successful full-evening ballet version of “Hobson’s Choice” for his Birmingham Royal Ballet.
But it was probably David Lean’s splendid 1954 film version with Brenda de Banzie, John Mills and Charles Laughton that jump-started the old, well-made play into an unexpected semblance of classic immortality.
Now, how about Murray? Why has he lasted?
The Johannesburg-born actor started his career as a child actor in Cape Town in 1950, making his London debut nine years later.
He spent a few years with the Royal Shakespeare Company and appeared on Broadway as Rosencrantz in the New York debut of Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.”
What is fascinating about Murray is that he is essentially a stage animal. He is one of those rare actors who seem to move from one New York stage to another. Ceaselessly.
I remember him in so many roles – and yet, there will be more. After “Hobson’s Choice,” he moves into Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.” The memory whirls.
His longevity, apart from his John Gielgud-like anxiety for work, can be put down to three factors.
First, he has a very solid technique. He’s totally at home on stage. Second, he is unusually versatile, going from “The Little Foxes” to Falstaff in “Merry Wives” with no great stretch.
Third – and this at first might seem to run contrary to the second – he always reveals, like most of the best actors, a recognizable persona, from the unmistakable voice to the larger-than-life presence.
Indeed, the more Murray changes, the more he remains Murray. And this quite simply is why he is part of New York’s theatrical life, and why he is one of our best-loved, and finest, actors.