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.
And yet here they are in David Hare's Skylight, a monkey and a moonbeam, somehow bringing the same story to thrilling life. Nighy, as will be obvious to anyone who saw him in Love Actually or as Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, is the monkey, or perhaps better to call him a Catherine wheel of tics and poses and stutters and quirks. 'Mannered' is not a strong enough word to describe the way he creates the illusion of character from a million incessant, if apparently spontaneous, affectations. (At several points, he struts across the stage sideways, his long legs pointing into the wings while his face stares down the audience.) Meanwhile, as she did in An Education and in the 2008 Broadway production The Seagull, Mulligan creates the illusion of character with no affectations at all. In fact, she hardly seems to be doing anything - and then suddenly tears will fling themselves from her eyes, or a smile will rise from some depth to the surface and recede again. She is as rivetingly, radically transparent as he is hilariously baroque, but in the end that's only fitting; the play, one of Hare's best, is about the gap between what's reconcilable and what's not.
They are hardly a well-matched pair, this couple that has been given such transfixing life in two of the most expert stage performances you're likely to see for many seasons. As embodied by Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy in the heart-piercing revival of David Hare's 'Skylight,' Kyra Hollis and Tom Sergeant have none of the things in common that usually make for a fine romance...Yet as you watch Ms. Mulligan and Mr. Nighy move magnetically toward and away from each other in Stephen Daldry's exquisitely balanced London-born production...you can't help thinking that on some profound level these two were made to be together...The great achievement of this production from Mr. Daldry...is that it sustains each perspective with crystalline focus...As played by Ms. Mulligan...Kyra is obdurately calm and centered. But Ms. Mulligan achingly conveys just how hard-won this defensive stillness is. She has an uncommon gift for radiating complex layers of feeling by simply inhabiting a space. Mr. Nighy's Tom, in contrast, is a blinding kinetic force, a creature who never stops moving, advancing and retreating in a flurry of knife-edged angles, forever casing out and sizing up his environment.
| 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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