Alan Rickman - Something the Lord Made - Part 2

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Sam Neill #AlanRickman is getting better , but says his Top 10 photoshop job should say ' as if ' underneath - a slightly vintage shot apparently

It’s opening night for Seminar, Theresa Rebeck’s biting new comedy starring Alan Rickman, Lily Rabe, Jerry O’Connell, Hamish Linklater and Hettienne Park. Directed by Sam Gold, the play makes its official Broadway bow on November 20 at the Golden Theatre.

Rickman leads the cast as a celebrated novelist who passes judgment on the work of four students who have signed on for a pricey private seminar. Not surprisingly, the opening night crowd for Seminar is expected to include many stars of Smash, the forthcoming NBC series created by Rebeck: Anjelica Huston, Katharine McPhee, Debra Messing, Will Chase, Megan Hilty, Christian Borle and more.

NEW YORK (AP) — There are terrible moments of silence in Theresa Rebeck's new Broadway play.

No, not to worry: None of the actors has forgotten a line or flubbed a cue while performing in the wonderful new comedy "Seminar," which had its world premiere on Sunday. Those pauses are just the moments where everyone in the Golden Theatre is frozen, staring at Alan Rickman.

Rickman is clearly very good at playing arrogant and sneering, but he shows a touchingly vulnerable side while also delivering a lacerating monologue about what the publishing industry does to young talent and how words can really hurt.

Sam Gold' directs Theresa Rebeck's entertaining new Broadway comedy with a stellar five-character ensemble.
NEW YORK – Anyone who has ever opened up his or her creative endeavors to unvarnished criticism will feel the sting – and maybe even relish the schadenfreude -- of Theresa Rebeck’s tart comedy, Seminar. Four ambitious young writers test the treacherous waters of the professional world in a fiction workshop led by a jaded novelist and editor with little use for diplomacy, providing a lip-smacking role for the redoubtable Alan Rickman.

The play is more driven by character than narrative. It doesn’t go deep on the armor required for artistic self-exposure or in subverting the mentor-acolyte dynamic. There are also drawbacks in the stage shorthand required to believe that fully formed opinions can be based on cursory glances at anything as complex as fiction writing. But Seminar is tight, witty and consistently entertaining, acquiring more muscle as the layers are peeled back to reveal both the scarred humanity and the numbness beneath Leonard’s soured exterior.

This happens incrementally, via nuggets dropped throughout the play – a few words here, a re-evaluating gaze there – but most dynamically, a fuller picture of the man and his methods emerges in two robust speeches. In one, Rickman masterfully builds steam in Leonard’s disparagement of Martin while gradually conveying that the soul-crushing path he’s mapping is actually his own. In another, he shows uncharacteristic vulnerability, confessing to the flaying effects on an artist of the whole process of being marketed and scrutinized.

This is a virtuoso role for Rickman; it’s to his credit and Gold’s that he makes it an integral part of the ensemble, not a star turn.

LMD: We hadn't the chance to speak at the theatrical release of the film, but I must ask what your inspiration was behind the pre-credits sequence which recaps Voldemort stealing the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's grave, then centers on haunting images of Professor Snape in the turrets overlooking Hogwarts. There's no dialog, only some sound effects and music. It's a stunning and heartbreaking way to begin a film.
DY: I wanted to start with Snape because he's so integral to the story and we discover so much about him in the movie. And Alan Rickman is so amazing as an actor, and what I love about him and the way he works is he thinks rather than shows. I know we usually open the movies with big bangs and bridges falling down and all sorts of stuff, but to open on an actor's face, quite close was so compelling. And it's actually quite an enigmatic expression; he's not giving away too much, but it completely pulls you in. And then visually, just this notion of this shape, this black shape, and you've seen these Dementors just floating there in the ether and he's almost like another Dementor. Visually, that felt quite strong, and also we needed to remind the audience of where we left the last movie. It was just a nice, neat reminder of our characters are in trouble, this is the guy who's got the Elder Wand, it's going to be scary. So, all those things just rolled together in the first few minutes.

LMD: In my review of the film's theatrical release, I wrote that Alan Rickman deserved a Supporting Actor nomination for his performance as Snape.
DY: I agree. He's mesmeric, you're right.

LMD: What, if anything, was different directing him for this film than in your earlier work together?
DY: I think the notion that this is our last roll of the dice always elevates everything. What I love about that character, particularly Alan's interpretation of that character, is there's something very trapped about Snape - something very hidden and trapped. And there's something very romantic about that; about someone who can't quite express their true self and I find that particularly moving about Alan's portrayal of Snape. He was aware that this was his last opportunity to do something and I'm in love with the character, what he does with it. It was great; it was fun just doing it. And Alan was letting go of it, of course. For him, that's quite a big deal; 'cos he'd lived with the character for ten years. When he dies and when he looks at Dan and says, "You have your mother's eyes" -- which is a line that wasn't in the book -- it's really moving.

Finally there comes a turning point, about an hour and 15 minutes into the show, when Mr. Rickman is allowed to embody something more than brisk intellectual sadism. Handed a really good piece of writing by one of his students, Leonard responds with a quietly potent mix of antagonism, humility, fear and something like joy.

Of course this mélange of feelings, magnificently orchestrated by Mr. Rickman, is arrived at after Leonard has only glanced at the first couple of pages of a vast manuscript. But for the first time I felt an authentic rush of pleasure and the exhilaration of being reminded that in theater, art comes less from landing lines than in finding what lies between them.

Characters turn out to be different than they appear on the surface, though in predictable ways. Yet Seminar, which opened Sunday at Broadway's Golden Theatre, is consistently clever and entertaining — and, under Sam Gold's briskly intelligent direction, a fine showcase for extraordinary actors.

They include the formidable Alan Rickman as Leonard, who returned to the role Friday night after an "acute respiratory infection" led to the cancellation of Thursday's preview (and the first missed performance of his career). If Rickman was feeling under the weather, it registered as part of Leonard's emotional malaise. Perhaps the most banal figure in Rebeck's play — a brilliant roué whose brutish behavior toward others masks his own regrets — this literary lion nonetheless has some delicious lines, and the actor serves them with robust elegance while suggesting a wounded humanity that transcends stereotype.

There are teachers who gently coax their charges. And then there’s Leonard, the brilliant editor who runs the titular fiction workshop in Theresa Rebeck’s new Broadway comedy “Seminar.” His inspiration isn’t “Dead Poets Society” but “Full Metal Jacket.”

And few actors could have fun with Leonard like the butterscotch-voiced Alan Rickman, a master of the withering put-down and the contemptuous side glance.

As for our star of contemporary letters, his prickly exterior inevitably hides deep-seated anxieties while his tough approach yields positive results — he can line-edit and give life lessons!

Yet you can overlook the formulaic plotting because the witty Rebeck hits plenty of bull’s-eyes, most notably when poking fun at literary Manhattan’s cutthroat world. And with actors of this caliber delivering the goods, it’s easy to just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Alan Rickman Devours ‘Seminar’
No one does mean like Alan Rickman. With a sneering smile and an evil twinkle in his eye, he can reduce anybody dumb enough to challenge him -- whether it’s Harry Potter or the four novice writers under his tutelage in “Seminar” -- with little more than a single word.

Yes, you have seen this one before, the play/movie/novel about a debauched, embittered genius wreaking emotional havoc all around him until one talented voice breaks through the armor. Doubtless you’ll see it again. Rarely, however, will you see such toxic zingers delivered with more elan.

Rickman and this extraordinary quartet, paced with feverish enthusiasm by Sam Gold, bring sexiness, verve and artistry to a tried-and-true formula. They come very close to making it seem seem fresh.

Rickman does his level best with Leonard, especially a juicy monologue about the arc of his career, but he simply doesn't have enough to work with.

In “Seminar,” Alan Rickman, though no longer Severus Snape (his role in all eight Harry Potter films), plays a character with striking similarities: Leonard starts off evil, ends up complicated. He even teaches one of the dark arts: writing.

There is not much of a story, other than our shifting knowledge and perceptions of the characters. But there is power in the acting. Alan Rickman is worth seeing in anything, but the focus here is not exclusively on the teacher.

There are consolations, chief among them Rickman, who wisely understates Leonard's prickly intelligence, colossal ego, and enormous self-loathing. The actor is absolutely delicious as Leonard slides a metaphorical knife in so smoothly and off-handedly that the victim can't even feel it. Watch Rickman as Leonard delivers a blistering assessment of a student's bleak future. Only gradually does it become apparent that the teacher is speaking about himself. This is the kind of part that could have been played with fireworks, but Rickman sounds subtle and beautiful grace notes.

Seminar has little of depth or authenticity to say about the struggle to put words in an order that says something true. But it does have Alan Rickman reigning over the production with his distinctive voice and imperious visage. No one delivers verbal abuse with more panache. Indeed, Seminar is almost too easy a gig for the star who, in the cramped staging of director Sam Gold (Circle Mirror Transformation) does a lot of entering, heaping plummily accented abuse in the name of brutal honesty, and then exiting the scene.

A curl of the lip, a twitch of the eyebrow, a flare of the nostrils: These nonverbal signals speak volumes. Out of small gestures and that slurry, violoncello delivery, Rickman crafts one of the most vivid, dimensional stage monster in years: a burnt-up monument to cynicism and appetite who beds his students when not pulverizing their egos. Rickman gives the comic performance of the season.

What have we learned at the end of Seminar? The publishing world is a jungle, and it’s best to have a big-toothed cat like Alan Rickman by your side.

He has assembled a cast of high fliers, starting with Rickman, a two-time Tony nominee now known Severus Snape of “Harry Potter” films. No one curls a lip or hurls a withering comment like him, but his Leonard is more than just a one-note meanie.

Last night, Denis and I attended the opening night of Seminar, Broadway’s newest play, starring the amazing Alan Rickman. We both loved, I mean we really, really LOVED this play.

It’s a comedy about a fiction writing seminar taught by Alan Rickman, and if you have ever been in a writing workshop or seminar or have been in any situation where you must reveal something you have created for the scrutiny of others, you’ll be laughing one moment and squirming in agony the next, while watching this play. Rickman is fabulous as the ruthless/borderline sadistic writing teacher who, after glancing at the first sentence, trashes a story that a young woman (Lily Rabe) has worked on for years. Other members of the workshop are played by Jerry O’Connell and Hamish Linklater.

Our friend, Amy Nauiokas, is one of the producers, and she told us that Mr. Rickman is recovering from pneumonia but still insisted on performing on opening night, and we would never had known he was sick, had she not told us. What a pro.

Actor Daniel Radcliffe, who portrayed the character Harry Potter in the popular film franchise, left, poses with co-star Alan Rickman at a luncheon for the final installment of the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2," at 21 Club, Monday, Nov. 21, 2011, in New York. (AP Photo/Starpix, Dave Allocca)

For Leonard, who’s from the Hugh Laurie and Simon Cowell school of Merry Olde Contempt, humiliation is performance art and teaching tool.

If you watched the superb “Song of Lunch” on Masterpiece Theatre last week, starring Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson, you know how well Rickman does sophisticated, arrogant, loathsome self-loathing. If you know Rickman from the Harry Potter movies, you know how well he does intimidating.

In Theresa Rebeck’s new dark comedy, Seminar, opening tonight on Broadway, Rickman plays Leonard, a famous novelist conducting a ten-week seminar in writing for four young aspirants. He is all of the above (sophisticated, arrogant, self-loathing, intimidating), and there is enough moral ambiguity to keep this funny, engrossing play from sinking into sit-com.

Rickman delivers, with surgical precision, a blood-curdling monologue of cynicism, only to have the play’s last scene—and the astonishing reveal of the set (designed by David Zinn)—show us the man beneath the monologue, and the real writer’s room beneath the sleek apartment.

1. Alan Rickman (Seminar) - 27%
Two-time Tony nominee Alan Rickman is currently headlining Theresa Rebeck's new play, Seminar as a celebrated author and teacher. Best known as Snape, the potions professor of Harry Potter (How to Succeed's Daniel Radcliffe), he has shown off his sexy side in a variety of film roles.

Snape snipes again in Seminar, a paper-cut of a comedy from Theresa Rebeck, which had a starry opening-night Nov. 20 at the John Golden Theatre.

He's called Leonard this time out, but a more sinister mentor hasn't come this way since Severus Snape ruled the roost at Hogwarts, creating all sorts of CGI conflicts for Harry Potter and the gang. Cinching this association is the fact that both roles are the nefarious work of Alan Rickman, who is as poisonously imperious and professorial as they come. Here, instead of young bibbidi-bobbidi-boo Brits, his target group is a post-college quartet of novice novelists who subject themselves and their prose to the withering heights of his criticism. Constructive, it ain't.

Rickman didn't squirm a bit when these parallel lives were pointed out to him after the show at the Gotham party. Indeed, he rather embraced the idea. "Both of them," he said, waving his "eureka" finger in the air, "turn out to be great truth-tellers."

Evil-geniuses-with-erudite-streaks wear well on Rickman, who speaks their minds exquisitely. "I love playing Leonard because he's very demanding. You can't kinda wander off. It's a big deep-breath part, but I'm working with such fantastic actors that life is a lot more pleasurable than it might be if you thought about it beforehand.

"I love all the scenes," he insisted, declining to name a particular favorite (even those with golden arias on the art of writing for him to articulate — beautifully). "One gets put up against another so you can't kinda pick out one. They're all accumulative."

Still, what a pleasure to observe Rickman as he creates another variation on the seductions of malice. Long before his Severus Snape evolved from Harry Potter's professor of Potions to teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, Rickman has been a sardonic master of magisterial theatrical magic and thin-skinned vulnerability.

Rickman could play Leonard, whose frequent fang-bearing serves to protect him against incurring new wounds, with his eyes closed. His eyes are open, and his effect abrasive.

Rickman is arresting as the slyly brutal educator who breaks all the rules, while hiding some novel-worthy secrets of his own.

Rickman is a virtuoso of venom, the panther in winter, letting sections like the following one soar like heat-seeking missiles into everyone’s heart.

Rickman is always fascinating to watch in action and I kept wishing that I was watching him perform as Richard III, Iago, Mephistopheles or Arturo Ui, instead of this facile exercise.

The brilliant Rickman, whose command of the stage is total, can execute a sneer and cold putdown better, and more amusingly, than any other actor alive, and the role of Leonard gives him abundant opportunities.

But Rickman—whose carnal magnetism and aura of danger remain as potent as they were when he made his Broadway debut in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, nearly 25 years ago—is the most compelling reason to see Seminar. His performance offers a master class in the kind of classically trained acting and old-fashioned charisma that never loses its luster.

While Alan Rickman may be known to the masses as Snape from the Harry Potter movies, his abilities on the stage prove that he is a master at his craft. As Leonard, Rickman portions out biting criticisms to his four waiting pupils, inhaling disappointment and exhaling poison, yet never completely extinguishing the faint possibility that he harbors some faint flicker of vulnerability burning beneath his jaded surface. To maintain any positive promise or likeability in such a character is no trivial task, yet Rickman makes it look easy. His deliveries are natural and unlabored, his presence relaxed yet commanding; watching him shed his hardened exterior as he melts at the image of his naïve, younger self is a captivating moment.

Alan Rickman Teaches the Texas Chainsaw Massacre of Writers Workshops in Seminar

Theresa Rebeck’s misanthropic master class is saved by devastating performances

I’ve never been a fan of Alan Rickman’s tight-lipped, prissy-mouthed acting style, but sometimes he picks a role that fits like a knee-high nylon sock, in a play that suits his nasal, slanty-eyed mannerisms with the sound of two hands clapping instead of one. The result in Theresa Rebeck’s Seminar, at the Golden, is a blessing. In fact, the entire cast of five is a marvel of well-oiled introspection, which is certainly a good thing, because without them, the enjoyable but often untidy and uneven play would be nothing more than a lot of clever one-liners.

It isn’t until the play’s final scene (shockingly sentimental, considering the cynical nature of the material) that we discover what Leonard’s motives are, and how he plans to make his talent count. For a master craftsman in mannerisms bordering on madness, Mr. Rickman is captivating. You can almost see the spit harden in the corners of his pursed lips, while the blood coagulates in his narrowed eyes. This happens in all of his roles, and he usually plays them all the same way. This time he’s doubly malevolent, but curiously charming.

Four ambitious young writers test the treacherous waters of the professional world in a fiction workshop led by a jaded novelist and editor with little use for diplomacy, providing a lip-smacking role for the redoubtable Alan Rickman.

But Seminar is tight, witty and consistently entertaining, acquiring more muscle as the layers are peeled back to reveal both the scarred humanity and the numbness beneath Leonard’s soured exterior.

This happens incrementally, via nuggets dropped throughout the play – a few words here, a re-evaluating gaze there – but most dynamically, a fuller picture of the man and his methods emerges in two robust speeches. In one, Rickman masterfully builds steam in Leonard’s disparagement of Martin while gradually conveying that the soul-crushing path he’s mapping is actually his own. In another, he shows uncharacteristic vulnerability, confessing to the flaying effects on an artist of the whole process of being marketed and scrutinized.

This is a virtuoso role for Rickman; it’s to his credit and Gold’s that he makes it an integral part of the ensemble, not a star turn.