The 2019 Tony Awards nominations were stunning for what happened (and didn’t) for Network and To Kill A Mockingbird.
The 2019 Tony nominations have been announced, and this year’s Tony Awards are stunners before they’ve even been handed out. Some of the year’s best plays aren’t contending for Best Play, and some great actors were entirely overlooked.
Awards show snubs are common, but the decisions made by the American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League this time around are worthy of talking about. Three of the top productions that were eligible — Network, To Kill A Mockingbird and American Son — didn’t get the full recognition that they were due. None of them will be competing for Best Play. All of them had people who were worthy of being nominated and weren’t. One of them wasn’t nominated at all.
How does this happen?
Network and To Kill A Mockingbird were perhaps the two buzziest productions on the Great White Way. Both of them were headlined by a major Hollywood star with an established source material; there was Bryan Cranston and an Oscar-winning movie, or Jeff Daniels and one of the great novels in American history.
Both of them got more than their fair share of rave reviews, not undeserved. Each of them were not only great productions for 2019, but great productions that people will remember for years and decades to come. Network managed to eclipse the film in many respects, while Mockingbird proved that Harper Lee’s story is still relevant decades later—no matter what that says about the state of race relations today.
And speaking of race relations, no play has ever tackled them more intensely or more fairly than American Son, which brought crowds at the Booth Theatre to tears and stunned silence.
Not to take anything away from the productions, stars and crew members who were nominated, but it’s honestly surprising that not one but all three of these plays got what could be considered short shrift.
Network did earn a nomination for Bryan Cranston as the spectacularly self-destructing anchorman Howard Beale, and director Ivo van Hove snagged one for the way in which he melded technology with live theatre (something that’s become his hallmark; he also recently did the same with his stage adaptation of All About Eve).
But the the rest of the play’s Tony Awards recognition was technical: Best Scenic Design (Jan Versweyveld), Best Lighting Design (Versweyveld and Tal Yarden), and Best Sound Design (Eric Sleichim).
Cranston, a previous Tony Award winner for All The Way, gives one of the best performances of his career playing Beale—he’s able to tap into everything that makes the man disintegrate, while also doing it with a self-deprecating smile.
But what about a nomination for Tony Goldwyn, who portrays Beale’s longtime friend and boss Max Schumacher, and gives him such depth and such heartbreak as he realizes that his own end is closer than the beginning?
Or for Tatiana Maslany, who has the showier role of ruthless producer Diana Christensen—and outdoes Oscar winner Faye Dunaway by also showing all the emotional failures that make Diana a professional sociopath?
Network isn’t just Bryan Cranston’s play, and it’s not just Howard Beale’s story. Beale is the core, the catalyst, but all of the characters have compelling journeys as they grapple with what they do not have and likely never will. And each of the three leads is marvelous at showing us how their humanity has essentially been twisted, if not consumed, by the media machine.
While Cranston deserves his nomination wholeheartedly, and should likely win, it’s frustrating that there isn’t equal acclaim being given to his co-stars who also have accomplished something that’s special and real.
And that the Tony Awards bypassed Network for Best Play, when it wasn’t just a play—it was an immersive experience, from the way the cast emotionally pulled audiences into the story to how van Hove artfully used TV to comment on TV and media messages. It had something timely and bold to say, but all it’s being recognized for is one performance, however amazing.
To Kill A Mockingbird made out better—the Tony Awards not only nominated Jeff Daniels as Atticus Finch, but also his co-stars Celia Keenan-Bolger (Scout Finch) and Gideon Glick (Dill Harris), along with director Bartlett Sher and five other technical nods (Best Original Score, Best Scenic Design, Best Sound Design, Best Lighting Design, and Best Costume Design).
But where’s the nomination for Aaron Sorkin’s wonderful adaptation of the play, which stayed true to the source material while also making it feel fresh and new with his trademark beautiful style of writing?
Where’s the Best Play nomination for a production that took Mockingbird in a direction it had never gone before, having the children portrayed by adults? This wasn’t just an adaptation from book to stage; it was a reinvention that took serious creative chances.
It’s a difficult balancing act to remain faithful to a source—especially when that source is so beloved and so well-known—while also providing something new that justifies bringing it to the Broadway stage in the first place. To Kill A Mockingbird did that, and it was a masterclass in how a Broadway play is ideally supposed to come together.
How can the Tonys recognize three of the play’s four main cast members and its director as among the best at their positions, and yet not nominate this for Best Play? Why is Jeff Daniels the only nominee people are really talking about as a serious contender?
At least To Kill A Mockingbird and Network are in the running for Tony Awards. The complete absence of American Son is the biggest snub of all—truly jaw-dropping considering how powerful Christopher Demos-Brown’s play was and how much the cast poured into their performances.
Of the three, American Son was the most timely and had the most resonant message. Its unflinching, yet also incredibly fair and honest, discussion of race, class and social conflicts provided so much wrapped up in one scenario. It’s the richest play, emotionally and intellectually, that’s been on Broadway in quite some time.
Where actors could easily drown in such complex material, or not be able to rise to the level it demanded, all four main cast members were spot on in their performances. Kerry Washington, in particular, clearly left her heart and soul out on that stage playing a woman on a desperate search for her missing son. But she’s not a nominee at the 2019 Tony Awards. None of her colleagues are. And that’s a shame that simply shouldn’t exist.
The 2019 Tony nominations proved that big performances will get their due. But, unfortunately, they also proved that when big names are involved, people don’t always see past that. Network, To Kill A Mockingbird, and American Son all deserved better—more than just talking about their lead actors, and in the latter case, not talking about them at all.
The 2019 Tony Awards will be presented June 5 at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT on CBS. Find the latest Deeper Cut every Wednesday in the Entertainment category at FanSided.