Tony vs Chad

On the face of it this wasnrsquot the most inspiring Academy Awards yearsno glitzy showbiz night no wisecracking show host no hordes of luminaries a lacklustre red carpet even the media build up tepid at bestAnd yet itrsquos the Best Actor category that had me hooked like no Oscar before with Anthony Hopkins Chadwick Boseman and Riz Ahmed all good enough to win the top honoursThe Father vs Ma Raineyrsquos Black Bottom vs Sound of Metalthree great characters pitted against each other A man suffering from dementia vs a trumpeter whorsquos dreams are shattered vs a drummer whorsquos hit by deafnessChadwick tragically passed away last year throwing this year into that delicate posthumous area the judgesrsquo ultimate conflictldquoan actor has died his performance is phenomenal but do we give him the award because he deserves it or hersquos deceasedrdquofurther complications the other nominees are pretty darn goodThis year the show had its share of red face momentsThe producers paid the price for their lsquoextra clevernessrsquo so definite were they of Boseman winning they decided to keep the Best Actor award for the end post Best Picturethe thinking being ldquoLetrsquos give Chad a fitting endrdquo Well nobody had bargained for the members of the Academy choosing Anthony Hopkins who was at this time fast asleep in his farmhouse in Wales so sure was he of losingBut all that is behind the scenes on the screen three men brought acting its highest honours Tony Hopkins Riz Ahmed and Chad Boseman were all phenomenal Frankly any of them could have won each one giving fragility and fury new expressionThe jury is out on Hopkins vs Boseman Whose performance was better Should they have given the award to Chad How will Hopkins feel knowing that as good as he was Chad should have got it Well wersquoll never knowBut that aside there was one driving reason that fascinated me about both The Father and Ma Raineyrsquos Black Bottomtheir screenplays are adapted from stage plays both of them being largely single location dramas The directors Florian Zeller and George C Wolfe didnrsquot really expand the visual scope of either world no massively extended casts not too many additional locations They have remained true to the stageThe Fatherrsquos closeted living room and Ma Raineyrsquos claustrophobic recording studio retained for 80 per cent of the dramatic actionHopkinsrsquo Anthony all of 84 imagining people mixing them up driving both himself and those around him crazyBosemanrsquos Levee is a black trumpeter in the 1920s desperate to reach for a future that feeds from a toxic pastThe camera dwells on Hopkins and Boseman following both these men around pausing on them soaking in their silences watching their seething anger allowing for their confusions their conflictsthe camera waits for them to make up their minds the close ups trollying into their headsMost plays that are made into films transcend the medium In the transfer from the verbal to the visual very little is left of the stage craft of the dialogue In these two screenplays Zeller and Wolfe stayed true to the original work leaving the verbosity intact adding uncomfortable silences the cinematic experience never extending too far from the boundaries of theatreThese were two plays on screen two stage performances shot on celluloidMy verdict on Tony vs Chad itrsquos a pity someone had to loseRahul daCunha is an adman theatre directorplaywright photographer and traveller Reach him at rahuldacunhamiddaycom