..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

History Boys Continue
To Make Awards History?

Historic Haul of Six Tonys Paves
Boys Path to the Oscars

The History Boys, the smash hit play on Broadway, continues to make awards history, garnering six Tony Awards on Sunday night, more than any other show this season, and tying the all-time Tony record for most awards ever for a straight play. Only the original production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman in 1949 starring Lee J. Cobb, directed by Elia Kazan won as many.

As Miller himself said, "Attention must be paid."

The History Boys by Alan Bennett won for Best Play; Best Director of a Play was Nicholas Hytner; Best Actor in a Play, Richard Griffiths; Best Featured (Supporting) Actress in a Play, Frances de la Tour; Best Scenic Design of a Play, Bob Crowley; and Best Lighting Design of a Play, Mark Henderson.

This historic sweep paves the way for the film version of The History Boys to score heavily in the Oscar race, breaking out fast as an early favorite. The unusual circumstance of the original cast recreating their stage roles in the film (that was shot last summer) is due to The History Boys being the biggest financial success to have come out of Britain's renowned National Theatre.(See the May 31 Oscarwatch article, "History Boys Take Over Broadway")

Their distributor is Fox Searchlight and execs on both coasts are understandably ecstatic about The History Boys' historic Tony take, and are going to focus all their Oscar-savvy energy on a major campaign for the film, which opens in the U.K. in October.

The exact U.S. fall release date is even now being decided based on a few still unresolved factors. Like whether or not the much anticipated film opens at the Toronto Film Festival in Sept. or at the New York Film Festival in October. OR BOTH.

Searchlight, the film company that did so well with Sideways two years ago, is hoping that it will very likely score heavily with film critics as it did with the theater critics, who have so tumultuously hailed the play on both sides of the Atlantic as a masterpiece.

Timing is crucial in awards races these days and the caution about the release date that Fox Searchlight is exhibiting is no doubt due to Sideways' early sweep of all the critics awards, only to lose to Million Dollar Baby, which opened very, very late two years ago.

There is also the question of whether the smash hit play will continue its record-breaking run on Broadway. Will it extend to October 8 with the lauded British cast? Or will it close as scheduled on Sept. 3?

Also, if the Broadway version continues to run, will the film opening too soon, diminish it at the box-office? Actor's Equity has strict rules about just how long it lets foreign talent stay on Broadway, and if the play runs beyond a certain point, an American replacement cast would certainly have to take over.

Nevertheless, the good news is that whatever decisions are made, the big winners are certain to be Best Actor Winner Richard Griffiths and Best Featured Actress Winner Frances de la Tour whose Tony triumphs push them ahead of the pack in the races in their respective categories. Both Griffiths and de la Tour have to now be taken VERY seriously as contenders for Oscar nominations.

Ditto beloved British author Alan Bennett who adapted his own screenplay for the film. And also director Hytner. Both won Tonys, and Bennett was nominated before for his last screenplay adaptation of another National Theater hit, The Madness of King George, which Hytner also directed. Hytner, who has yet to be nominated for an Oscar, could also finally score here. I am told he has wisely shaved nearly an hour off for the movie.

"The film is 104 minutes long," says Fox exec Susie Hodges. The present running time of the Broadway play version clocks in between two hours and forty minutes and two fifty, depending on how many laughs the expert comic timing of this great ensemble cast gets each night. This is the rare serious drama that is also riotously funny.

Hytner and Bennett are also said to have moved the boys themselves to the forefront of the screenplay, whereas in the stage version the conflict between the teachers (including Griffiths and de la Tour) dominates.

All of these cinematic decisions seem poised to make the literate, poetic drama transfer smoothly to the screen. Having been through the same process together with The Madness of King George, Bennett and Hytner approached the movie as it's own separate entity, and it is in no way a reproduction of, or simply a film of a stage performance.

Or so one hopes.

And as for the Oscar chances of the hot, young History Boys themselves?

Unfortunately poor Samuel Barnett, as the hugely sympathetic gay Jewish character, was the sole Tony nominee to lose in his Best Featured (Supporting) Actor in a Play category. At the Tony telecast, the visibly moved, 23-year-old, blond Barnett received a huge, extended ovation from the Radio City Music Hall audience of 6,000. However, he lost the award to another Brit, character actor Ian McDiarmid, who was also making his American debut in The Faith Healer.

Barnett, of all the History Boys, was the lone Tony nominee, but notably he DID win the prestigious Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Actor, beating his fellow cast members, Dominic Cooper, the sexy Boy, and Stephen Campbell Moore, the rival teacher.

Barnett, of all the boys, seems the most likely to repeat his Tony hat trick with an Oscar nomination. He also sings all the musical numbers, which according to Hodges are all still intact in the film. In fact, "There's more music," she says. Memorably Barnett warbles the uncensored version "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" to Cooper, whom he is hopelessly in love with.

However, most assured of reaping Oscar gold are the stupendous Richard Griffiths and the resplendent Frances de la Tour. I would say that their nominations are pretty much in the bag. All of these Tony winners, their Oscar (and probably Golden Globe) nominations are theirs to lose, but Fox Searchlight does not intend to let that happen.

Everybody I spoke to at Fox Searchlight on both coasts was unanimous in their rapturous reaction to the movie.

Where had I heard these ecstatic emotions expressed before? Why, it's in the same audience response the play gets every night on Broadway!

- Stephen Holt
June 15, 2006

Stephen Holt is a veteran NY-based journalist. The Stephen Holt Show continues to run weekly in NY.

 

Also by Stephen Holt ...
Newport Film Festival 2006 Wrap-Up

 

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