On a bitterly cold London evening, schoolteacher Kyra Hollis (Carey Mulligan) receives an unexpected visit from her former lover, Tom Sergeant (Bill Nighy), a successful and charismatic restaurateur whose wife has recently died. As the evening progresses, the two attempt to rekindle their once passionate relationship, only to find themselves locked in a dangerous battle of opposing ideologies and mutual desires.
David Hare's Skylight originally premiered at the National Theatre in London in 1995 before going on to play smash hit engagements in the West End and on Broadway the following year. When the 2014 production of Skylight opened in the West End in June it was praised by critics on both sides of the Atlantic.
But Hare's play is not a polemic, and the chasm that has grown between Tom and Kyra owes to more than political differences. In this U.K.-based production, directed with compassion and brutal clarity by Stephen Daldry, both emerge as flawed, sympathetic, believable human beings...This Tom, for all his superficial arrogance, is a man overwhelmed with restlessness...We see the flickers of shame and vulnerability behind his imperiousness. Mulligan's Kyra has her own nervous energy, but is more palpably weighed down by repressed passion, and guilt...Sad-eyed and draped in an oversize sweater, Mulligan seems almost physically transformed by her character's premature weariness...Whether Kyra and Tom can reconcile or not, this Skylight assures us, both will endure -- as will the troubled, contradictory world around them.
I don't know many authors who can so seamlessly blend comedy and sadness the way Hare does. Or perhaps weld is the better word, because there is no pulling apart the joy and sadness in this play, the outcome of which, while most assuredly inevitable, is never predictable...I can't imagine any actors serving Hare better than these actors do. [Mulligan] inhabits her role as though it were written just for her...She completely embodied the role of the earnest schoolteacher Kyra Hollis...Nighy is Nighy, you could say. He has gestures, inflections, rhythms, and body language that follow him from project to project. All true, and yet I don't know any actor who, at a deeper, more profound level, inhabits a character the way he does...Skylight isn't some exhausting O'Neill-like epic, but it is an intense experience. It picks you up and hurls you along for two hours, and then resolves with such dramatic rightness that you walk out completely satisfied and at the same time all shook up.
1996 | Broadway |
Broadway |
2014 | West End |
West End Revival West End |
2015 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Play | Carey Mulligan |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Carey Mulligan |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Bill Nighy |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | David Hare |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival Play | Skylight |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Direction of a Play | Stephen Daldry |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Play | Natasha Katz |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Matthew Beard |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play | Bill Nighy |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Carey Mulligan |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Una Jackman |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Scott M. Delman |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Heni Koenigsberg |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Spring Sirkin |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Stuart Thompson |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | True Love Productions |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | The Araca Group |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Carlos Arana |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | David Mirvish |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Joey Parnes |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | John Johnson |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Sue Wagner |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Jay Alix |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Catherine Adler |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Stephanie P. McClelland |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | The Shubert Organization |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Jon B. Platt |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Roy Furman |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Roger Berlind |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Eli Bush |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Scott Rudin |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Robert Fox |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Skylight |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Scenic Design of a Play | Bob Crowley |
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