By Andrew Gans
RSC / Peter Brook / Théâtre du Soleil in Nicholas Nickleby / Mahabarata / LesEphemeres (Broadway / BAM / Lincoln Center Festival)
09 May 2012
THEIR FAVORITE THINGS: 2012 Tony Nominee and Evita Star Michael Cerveris Shares His Theatregoing Experiences
"Roger Rees and a glorious company of RSC actors taught a master class in ensemble performance and character work, taking on dozens and dozens of characters in the multi-hour epic Nickleby. It was the first time I'd seen the kind of things we did at school realized at the highest possible level--and I was inspired. Similarly, Brook and Mnouchkine create worlds and incredibly dense, sprawling yet specific work from other worlds on universal themes with large companies that can transform and populate these worlds with such specificity and finely observed detail and such trust and abandon with each other. As a kid raised on Grotowski, it has always been ensemble acting like this that seems to me the real essence of theatre."
