By Harry Haun
14 Feb 2010

In a sense, Dancy has been down this road before — for the film "Evening," in which he was another tragically tortured '50s soul torn between his now-wife, Claire Danes, and Patrick Wilson. "I didn't think homosexuality was the key to that character, and I still don't," says Dancy. "I think he's somebody who is undergoing an identity crisis, and that is in part to do with his sexuality, but it's more to do with his relationship with the people closest to him. If I were to project into the future for him — which I never do because it's not fruitful — I don't think it's a certainty he'd be gay. I think what he's not facing up to in his life is more about his upbringing."

Of the trio, Dancy is the only one who has acted on a New York stage before (he led the Broadway company of Journey's End to a Tony for Best Revival in 2007).

His co-stars have made their marks here only in movies: Riseborough in "Happy-Go-Lucky" and Whishaw as John Keats ("Bright Star") and Keith Richards ("Stoned").

"Ben was here for the reading," says Dancy, "and part of my sense of the play was forged by hearing him read the part of Oliver. I read the play initially because I was asked to do a reading of it by [director] Joe Mantello for MCC [Theater]. You read something a little more casually when you're doing that, but I found myself at home reading the thing from start to finish, completely absorbed by it. Within ten minutes, I was giving a one-man performance in my empty apartment. I was immediately aware that the writing was of an unusually high caliber, so I went into the reading with more thought and more work than I might usually, just for my own enjoyment. The day after the reading, it became clear we were going to go on the production path."

And, now, here he is — Hugh Dancy, just bursting with pride.