Kit Connor, Jake Gyllenhaal, Denzel Washington could make Tonys history for ‘Othello’ and ‘Romeo + Juliet’
In all of Tony Awards history, there has never once been a season in which three performers have been nominated for Best Actor in a Play for Shakespearean roles. That could very well change this year, as both Othello and Romeo and Juliet were revived this season boasting three major stars: Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington in the former, and Kit Connor in the latter. If all three receive nominations, it would mark a historic first.
Othello is the rare drama that features two lead actors, as the title role (Washington) and that of his junior officer Iago (Gyllenhaal) predominate the proceedings. Indeed, Christopher Plummer was nominated in the lead category for playing Iago back in 1982. As of this writing, Gold Derby's odds predict the Othello duo to earn nominations, as Gyllenhaal and Washington currently rank second and third, respectively. Connor, who played Romeo in Sam Gold’s production of Romeo + Juliet that shuttered in February, ranks further down in ninth place.
If only two of these three performers are nominated this year, they would still match the mark in the Best Actor category, as there have only been two prior instances where two Shakespeare performances were nominated in the same year. The first occurred a little over two decades ago in 2004, when Kevin Kline and Plummer were nominated for Henry IV and King Lear, respectively. Neither took home the prize, though, as Jefferson Mays prevailed for playing around 40 different roles in I Am My Own Wife.
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Exactly 10 years later, Samuel Barnett and Mark Rylance were both nominated for Twelfth Night and Richard III, respectively. Although different Shakespeare plays, Barnett and Rylance were nominated for the same production, as the two works played in repertory with the same company at the Belasco Theatre. Barnett played Queen Elizabeth opposite Rylance’s Richard III, and Rylance played Olivia alongside Barnett’s Viola in Twelfth Night. Rylance earned double nominations that season, his lead one for Richard III and his featured one for Twelfth Night, and he won the latter prize.
Though Gold Derby is currently predicting that only two of the three Shakespeare leads will earn nominations, it may not be the two gentleman who are leading the odds. Neither Othello nor Romeo + Juliet earned universal rave reviews, but some critics felt more passionately about Gyllenhaal and Connor than they did about Washington.
Naveen Kumar of The Washington Post clearly favored Gyllenhaal in his review of Othello. He wrote that the Oscar nominee “delivers a precise and captivating turn as Iago. … Gyllenhaal is the production’s indisputable anchor: His Iago is rangy, cunning, charming even.” On the other hand, Washington shows a “tendency to recede” in this role, speaking “at a low clip, swallowing words or running them together, racing through verse as though its meaning were obvious rather than using the poetry to make it clear. ... It’s as though Washington is locked in a battle against the role.” In his review of Romeo + Juliet, he described Connor as “an agile interpreter of Shakespeare, making sense of the poetry while inhabiting its emotional depths. Romeo is a girl-crazy player. But Connor’s is also astounded by the thrill of a fresh flame and sufficiently floored with wonder to convince us that Juliet is the new sun.”
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Adrian Horton of The Guardian sized up the three performers similarly. In her review of Romeo + Juliet, she wrote that Connor “plays Romeo with amiable laddishness, more soft-hearted, hot-blooded brawn than underdeveloped brain. He is the only cast member who demonstrated a natural grasp on the tricky rhythm of Shakespeare; I palpably relaxed whenever he began to speak, so much better does the dialogue sound from his mouth: intentional, loaded, somewhere never obtuse." Writing about Othello, she said that Washington has “moments of sublime melody,” but “the overall tone of his performance is one of perfunctory hyper-competence.” Contrast that assessment with how she praised Gyllenhaal: "The show, instead, belongs to Gyllenhaal, an actor of singular intensity who makes a meal out of Iago's desperate two-facedness. ... Gyllenhaal's Iago is the one truly fun performance to watch throughout the show's nearly three-hour runtime."
While Tony voters often favor spring productions like Othello when they select winners, largely because they’ve more recently seen those shows, the smaller group of Tony nominators have demonstrated time and time again that they have strong memories and love to shortlist individuals from both fall and spring to reflect the full richness of the Broadway season. Just two years ago, for example, four of the five nominees in Best Actor in a Play were from closed shows. This proclivity bodes well for Connor, given his mostly favorable notices.
Washington could very well end up with the nomination, but if he doesn't, it wouldn’t be the first time the Tony winner did not receive recognition. Back in 2014, nominators overlooked his performance as Walter Lee Younger in the revival of A Raisin in the Sun, which was also directed by Othello's Kenny Leon, even though that production earned five nominations and won for Best Revival, Featured Actress for Sophie Okonedo, and Direction. If he misses out this year, Washington would be in very good company: the last Broadway Othello, two-time Tony winner and Lifetime Achievement recipient James Earl Jones, missed a nomination even though his Iago, Christopher Plummer, received one.