Upbeat and Onstage, Despite the Strike
It seems only appropriate that, during Broadway's worst strike in decades, when two-thirds of the theaters are dark, actor Michael Cerveris should find a way to keep working. On December 2, Mr. Cerveris will open as Posthumus in "Cymbeline" at Lincoln Center Theater's Vivian Beaumont Theater — one of only eight Broadway productions unaffected by the stagehands strike. Since winning a Tony Award for his empathetic John Wilkes Booth in the 2004 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins," unemployment has not been in the cards for the 47-year-old actor. He was nominated for a Tony again in 2006 for Mr. Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd," in which he played the title role, and earlier this year for "LoveMusik," in which he portrayed composer Kurt Weill. And in his spare time, he took the role of Kent opposite Kevin Kline's King Lear at the Public Theater.
You may have noticed a certain pattern in Mr. Cerveris's credits — something like musical-Shakespeare-musical-Shakespeare. For many years, Mr. Cerveris's career was stuck in a musical track, owing to his Tony-nominated 1993 title performance in "The Who's Tommy." But since 2002, the actor has become one of New York's leading practitioners of both sorts of verse — an extraordinary feat for any performer, but perhaps more so for one cut like Mr. Cerveris, whose shaved head, pale skin, and short stature are not among the typical features of the leading man.
"I've been lucky because the kind of musicals I've done — because they're Sondheim musicals mostly — are heavy-acting musicals," Mr. Cerveris said. "They help people be capable of thinking of you in something else."
Mr. Cerveris said he has guided his career only by honoring an instinct to choose the project that scared him most. "I've pursued the things that I thought were more frightening and challenging and wasn't quite certain I could do. As soon as I get to the crest of one hill, I'm sort of looking for the next. It doesn't have to be higher in the way I imagine a lot of people see career paths; it doesn't have to be more prestigious or more financially rewarding. But it's got to be a better project by my idiosyncratic sense of priorities."
Going from the Bard to a musical and back again would seem a pretty nifty trick for an actor, requiring two very different sets of skills. But Mr. Cerveris hasn't found the shifts particularly jarring. In fact, with each successive production, he's come to view the two genres as more complementary than contradictory. At one point during "King Lear," Mr. Cerveris found himself hanging back, listening to a character embark on a long speech. And it dawned upon him that his situation wasn't dissimilar to that of a musical character waiting for his turn to sing.
"You've got to hold that reaction alive until it's time for you to speak," he said. "That is very much like when someone is singing to you. You have to wait for the lyric and that number of bars before you speak."
In "Cymbeline," Mr. Cerveris plays an honorable outsider who is banished when he weds King Cymbeline's only daughter. The actor has played virtuous suffering before: His Kent in "Lear" was of that ilk, as was the Weill of "Love-Musik." (Booth and Sweeney also suffered, but not as virtuously.) Mr. Cerveris admitted he's had to struggle to make Posthumus "not end up being the character you want to slap." But he has had rare luck enlivening his string of wounded mensches, perhaps because, like the characters — and unlike a lot of other performers — he's more concerned with doing right than pleasing the masses.
But for this production, Mr. Cerveris did seek guidance from fellow actors who had played the part, including one illustrious name: Sir Ian McKellen. Sir Ian responded by asking if Mr. Cerveris hadn't been more interested in playing the flashier role of the roguish Iachimo. But Mr. Cerveris had a ready response. "I could see what I would do with Iachimo," the actor explained. "With Posthumus, I had no idea."
