MB Civic

By Peter Marks | Monday, June 12, 2006; C01 | The Washington Post

In a Broadway season more noteworthy for triteness than transcendence, the jukebox hit “Jersey Boys” captured the Tony Award last night for best musical, winning the prize over the 1920s musical-lovers’ spoof “The Drowsy Chaperone” and musical adaptations of “The Color Purple” and “The Wedding Singer.”

As expected, the Tony for best play was awarded to “The History Boys,” Alan Bennett’s universally well received comedy about a group of secondary school students in England and the eccentric, leering instructor who prepares them for Oxford and Cambridge. For his portrayal of the teacher, Richard Griffiths earned the Tony for best actor in a play, one of the six trophies the production took home.

Griffiths thanked his wife for persuading him not to leave the show early on. “Boy, what a clever idea that seems,” he said.

“The History Boys,” in fact, was the most honored work at the 60th Annual Tony Awards, presented in a three-hour ceremony at New York’s Radio City Music Hall and broadcast on CBS. “The History Boys” also picked up honors for best director of a play (Nicholas Hytner); featured, or supporting, actress (Frances de la Tour); and set design and lighting.

Two stars in an emerging generation of Broadway stars, LaChanze and John Lloyd Young, earned the Tonys for best actress and actor in a musical. LaChanze won for her work as the heroine, Celie, in “The Color Purple.” Young was honored for his uncanny vocal impression of lead singer Frankie Valli in “Jersey Boys.”

Cynthia Nixon, who achieved small-screen fame on “Sex and the City,” was named best actress in a play for her performance as a grieving mother in David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Rabbit Hole.”

The award for featured actor in a musical went to Christian Hoff for his turn as a streetwise singer in “Jersey Boys,” which tells the story of the rise of ’60s singing sensations the Four Seasons. Best featured actress was given to Beth Leavel, as the tipsy title character in “Drowsy Chaperone.” Ian McDiarmid received the Tony for best featured actor in a play, for his small-time impresario in the revival of Brian Friel’s “Faith Healer.”

Revivals — old plays and musicals drawing a second breath on Broadway — are recognized in their own categories. Best musical revival was Roundabout Theatre’s “Pajama Game,” which stars Harry Connick Jr. “Awake and Sing!,” the 1935 drama by Clifford Odets revived by Lincoln Center Theater, won for revival of a play.

Unlike most Tony broadcasts and other televised awards ceremonies, last night’s proceedings had no host. The evening was anchored by a rotating cast of 60 presenters, many of them familiar faces from TV and movies. The connective thread was that all the presenters have had their names on a theater marquee, which justified the presence of Julia Roberts — making a Broadway debut in “Three Days of Rain” — and Oprah Winfrey, who took on a much-ballyhooed job as lead producer of “The Color Purple.”

Roberts, whose own notices in “Rain” were largely negative, was asked to announce the winner for best actor in a play. Before doing so, she told the audience, “I just want to take this opportunity to say that you people are insanely talented.” Presenters also included Mark Ruffalo, Josh Lucas, Julianna Margulies, Alfre Woodard, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Hank Azaria, Christine Ebersole, Kyra Sedgwick and Paul Rudd.

The Tony voters — a group of several hundred Broadway producers, other theater professionals and journalists — have tended in the past to turn up their noses at the jukebox musical, so named because the shows are regurgitations of existing hits by one pop group or another. Although a dozen new musicals opened on Broadway over the past 12 months, the shows were by and large disappointing, which opened the door for “Jersey Boys,” a slick and musically exciting recitation of the Four Seasons songbook.

The lack of a consensus winner in the subordinate musical categories may be a further indicator of a weak field. The Tony for direction of a musical went to John Doyle for an unorthodox re-imagining of “Sweeney Todd,” in which the cast also played the instruments. “Chaperone,” meanwhile, won for original score and best book. Best choreography was awarded to Kathleen Marshall of “The Pajama Game,” and Sarah Travis of “Sweeney Todd” received the prize for orchestrations.

In the end, “Drowsy Chaperone” won in five categories, “Jersey Boys” in four.

A more competitive category, in fact, could have been devised: Best Bad Musical. There were certainly enough entries this season to fill the slate. “Lestat,” “Tarzan,” “Hot Feet” and “The Woman in White” were among the new musicals to get a critical drubbing.

Last night’s ceremony did not diverge in other important ways from Tony shows of the past. The nominated musicals each got a few minutes to stage a number, a spot on network television that Broadway producers covet. (“Jersey Boys” looked particularly sharp.) The ceremony has never been able to figure out how to showcase the best-play nominees: Each was represented by an eight-second film clip.

The low-key opening featured Connick singing a few bars of “Tonight” and “Give My Regards to Broadway.” What followed were three fairly mechanical hours. One of the oldest presenters, Hal Holbrook, told a funny story on himself, about a fan of his one-man Mark Twain show who thought that Holbrook, too, was dead. The most moving interlude was a short tribute, presided over by Woodard, James Earl Jones and Nixon, to two Tony-winning dramatists who died last year, August Wilson and Wendy Wasserstein.