IRONS EVER 'SO GOOD'
TOP JOB IN BRIT POL DRAMA
Last updated: 6:51 am
July 18, 2008
Posted: 12:23 am
July 18, 2008
LONDON - Save for a short run in City Opera's "A Little Night Music" five years ago, Jeremy Irons hasn't appeared on the New York stage since his Tony-winning turn in Tom Stoppard's 1984 drama "The Real Thing."
So it's welcome news that he'll be returning to New York in a new play, "Impressionism," next year.
What's kept him away so long?
"I've been away filming, of course," says Irons, whose chilling portrayal of Claus von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune" made him a movie star.
"But the truth is that any offers I've had, I've had to put up against 'The Real Thing.' I was spoilt by 'The Real Thing.' And I really haven't done a lot of theater since."
Any fears that his stage chops have gotten rusty are dispelled when you see his performance at the National Theatre in Howard Brenton's "Never So Good," an absorbing political drama about the life and times of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
Irons is deeply moving as this aristocratic politician who helped steer Britain through World War II and its aftermath, only to be sneered at by the swinging '60s generation and brought down in 1963 by a shabby sex scandal known as the Profumo Affair.
"Never So Good" (the title comes from a 1957 speech in which Macmillan declared "most of our people have never had it so good") is sympathetic to the conservative leader, which is surprising: Brenton, the author of such fiercely political plays as "The Romans in Britain," "Weapons of Happiness" and (with David Hare) "Pravda," has long hurled bricks at the Establishment.
Imagine if Tony Kushner wrote a play called "Morning in America" that portrayed Ronald Reagan as unfairly maligned by the Left, and you'll have some idea of the reaction here to "Never So Good."
"When I was young, Macmillan was a figure of ridicule," Brenton says. "We hated him. He represented to us everything that was old, out of date, fuddy-duddy and class-ridden about England. He seemed so stuffy and airless. But when you look back now, you realize how brilliant and gifted he was. The old man got to me in the end, really."
Adds Irons: "I didn't give much thought to him at all, really. But when I read Howard's play, I was knocked out by the spirit of the man. How dare we write off that generation?"
