Photo by stefano stacchini on Unsplash.
Last year I was in London with my uncle, who had booked tickets for us to go see some shows while I was in town. Of these, my most highly anticipated was definitely a production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie at the Duke of York Theatre, starring Hollywood mainstay Amy Adams as the iconic southern matriarch Amanda Wingfield. I was a fan of Adams’ screen work in films such as Arrival and Nocturnal Animals (and of course the indisputable classic that is Enchanted), and was excited to see what she would bring to such a famous character. But as we left the Duke of York auditorium for intermission, my uncle and I locked eyes and immediately agreed on one thing:
“Amy Adams is particularly poor isn’t she?”
Critical reviews of the show were only slightly less harsh than our own, and could be summed up as decidedly mixed regarding Adams’ performance. It wasn’t necessarily that her jovial and chipper take on such a commonly nasty character was totally off base – in fact, it could have been downright compelling given the chance. It was that she seemed dead set on delivering each line in one mode and tone that she couldn’t get out, stuck carrying the energy of a bad first take throughout an entire live show.
It was certainly disappointing to see such an accomplished screen actor fall flat in the theatre, no less because the marketing had leaned upon Adams so heavily: the poster for the show was just a massive superimposed image of her face. But it wasn’t entirely her fault that the show was lacking, as the direction of scenes and other performances failed to create a strong sense of identity separate from other versions of the play. The billing of a famous A-list actor was indisputably the most interesting thing about it.
This is not, however, an uncommon dilemma. Particularly in the aftermath of COVID as theatres attempt to pull audiences back in, more and more productions are turning to what has been described as “stunt casting” to boost box office sales. In essence, stunt casting refers to the casting of particularly notable celebrities in a production (often in leading roles) in order to draw in the crowds. The downside of this approach is that oftentimes, much like with Adams’ Menagerie, the production can lack substance beyond the appeal of its billable stars. Christian Lewis, writing for Variety magazine, diagnosed a Broadway production of Macbeth starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga with this exact problem. “There isn’t much substance in this production” Lewis writes, “The marketing, showing Negga’s face within a crumbling marble bust of Craig’s, feels like a lie; this production has no interest in exploring their relationship.”
Craig and Negga at least seemed to come off slightly better than Adams, whose lack of stage experience showed clearly in her performance. However, experience in stage acting (or even acting of any kind) is becoming less of a prerequisite for producers and directors when casting for shows. This was seen acutely last year in the Gate Theatre’s production of Endgame, which starred Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle as the wheelchair-bound Hamm. While I personally enjoyed Boyle’s take on the character well enough, the occasional line flub and loss of focus marked him out as significantly less experienced than his co-stars.
It also demonstrated another key issue with stunt casting – even at his sardonic best, I never once stopped seeing him as Frankie Boyle. Boyle’s cultural identity as a famous stand up comedian superseded his performance as the character, and undoubtedly influenced the audience’s reception of it. For a play like Endgame, which is most potently experienced in a kind of temporal and cultural vacuum, this is something of a disservice. I am subsequently wary of the methods which some theatres will resort to in order to pull in profits with this method. How long will it be until we start seeing social media influencers book leading roles over working actors? A little dystopian perhaps, but not altogether impossible.
However, the benefits of stunt casting were also demonstrated in the Gate’s casting of Robert Sheehan as Clov. Having both the stage experience to pull off the role and the assistance of competent direction, Sheehan gave a great performance while also undoubtedly drawing plenty of Umbrella Academy fans to the theatre. Surely this illustrates the main benefits of this recent and much debated trend of stunt casting? Its ability to bring both audiences and actors back into theatres has the potential to revitalise the industry, something the industry is in desperate need of. So long as the actors are capable, and productions don’t lean on their casting as a one-horse trick, playing the name game may just work out in the theatre industry’s favour. We just need to play very carefully.
