Broadway Review: Mark Rylance Calls The Tune In ‘Farinelli And The King’
8 / 10
The performances under John Dove's direction are uniformly superb; in addition to Crane and Iestyn, they include the near-palpable forbearance of Melody Grove's Isabella and the Rushmore-faced Edward Peel as Philippe's conniving nemesis. And then there's Rylance. (Remember Rylance? It's a review about Rylance.) He compels us to watch him in close-up, because he has the star's gift of playing to the cheap seats without actually playing to the cheap seats. A sixteenth-inch twitch of the shoulder conveys the world-weariest of shrugs. The slight escalation of those drawbridge eyebrows rings louder than any shout of protest. And the throwaway line, like the subtle gesture, penetrates as keenly as any of Richard III's mocking asides. Meticulously off-handed, it's funny and sad, a performance to be savored in a totally engaging little triumph of a show.
