BY ANNE COLEMAN

In print | Published October 22, 2009

Open the Arts section of The New York Times and without peeking at the section headings, try to guess from the article titles and pictures whether you are looking at the film or theater section. If you keep your finger on the pulse of either industry it won’t be too difficult, but if your main source of pop culture information is People Magazine or Us Weekly, you could be forgiven for having trouble.
The relationship between Broadway and Hollywood is a confusing one. At some point in their career, most Hollywood stars decide that they need to change things up. Perhaps they are fighting type-casting or haven’t had a role that they’ve really enjoyed, or maybe they just don’t think they’re getting enough credit for their acting prowess, but whatever the case may be, star after star heads off to New York or London to tread the boards.

When a big name star who hasn’t worked on Broadway before decides to cross over, a flurry of excitement begins in the tabloids and among the star-tracking public. When Julia Roberts headed to Broadway to perform in “Three Days of Rain,” the amount of excitement and press made it seem like no other starlet had ever used Broadway as a star vehicle. People Magazine ran a cover story on her Broadway debut in April of 2006 and the article reported her weekly salary ($35K, if you’re curious) but neglected to mention the fact that she was god-awful.

Ben Brantley, chief theater critic for The New York Times and Swarthmore class of ’77, who reviewed Roberts’ performance, called it a “wooden and splintered interpretation.” Brantley has spent a lot of time pondering celebrities on the stage. In October of 2005, Brantley gave a lecture at Swarthmore titled “Mondo Broadway: New York Theater and the Cult of Celebrity.” During his talk, Brantley read an excerpt of a theater review in The Times from the mid 1910’s, which described the gown and appearance of the leading lady at length and almost entirely ignored the play that provided the viewing opportunity.

Hearing the article read aloud, one cannot help but laugh, but less than a year later, Brantley’s review of “Three Days of Rain” had to face the same challenge. The result was a review titled “Enough Said About ‘Three Days of Rain.’ Let’s Talk Julia Roberts!,” which danced back and forth between discussing the production and giving the readers what they really wanted, a glimpse of Julia.

Brantley was at it again two weeks ago when he was given the task of reviewing “Hamlet,” a much too popular star vehicle, currently played by Jude Law. Law’s Hamlet is all energy and no internal life, which makes him more successful than most of the other celebrities who have given “Hamlet” a go, despite the fact that he entirely misses the mark.

The most recent to the stage are Sienna Miller (perhaps best known as the former Mrs. Jude Law) and Jonny Lee Miller, two Brits who have given West End audiences a chance but are just now testing the waters on Broadway and star opposite one another in “After Miss Julie,” Patrick Marber’s re-imagining of August Strindberg’s seminal work. The two Millers (no relation) have a better chance at success than most of their film industry peers — Sienna Miller studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute and Jonny Lee Miller enjoyed positive critical reception for his work in the West End — but the conditions are never really auspicious. When so many more successful stars have bombed on Broadway, taking to the stage is a real risk for these film actors.

Why, then, do they risk it? And perhaps more importantly, why don’t the agents of famous but incompetent actors do something to prevent their clients from humiliating themselves? The answer is two-fold. Broadway and Hollywood are inextricably linked; there have long been screen stars who want to prove their merits on the stage and who can bring in a new audience for the productions they join. If we take the decades of newspaper reviews as evidence, celebrity culture hasn’t changed much this century. Producers know that fans will buy tickets, even if the starlet can’t act, and where there is money, there is a show.

The other half of the story is the lesser heard account, the story of theatrical greatness. When a star, someone whose pores you have counted, having seen his or her face blown up to twenty times its actual size on the silver screen, crosses the stage and on the way makes you completely forget the celebrity persona that is right in front of you, magic happens. Walking away from a great performance that happened to be delivered by celebrity floors a critic just as much as it does the super-fan. Watching Jeremy Irons perform in “Embers” after a 20-year absence from the West End or falling in love with Kevin Kline’s “Cyrano” is unlike anything you experience in a great play with a nameless cast. When you walk away from a star, you are star-struck; the glimpse at greatness is conjured up again and again at any reference to the actor or show.

We go to watch the stars again and again, knowing that they will most likely fail, because in our hearts we retain a precious hope that we might glimpse star-power at work. Whether it is for the Maggie Smith and Judi Dench types or the less-than-promising Julia Roberts and Sienna Miller ingénues, audiences aren’t crazy for giving these famous stage novices a chance.

In this, history is behind them. Screen stars have bombed and blossomed on Broadway for just as long as the idea of a screen star has existed. Theater snobs among us would do well to remember that.

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