On a bitterly cold London evening, schoolteacher Kyra Hollis (Carey Mulligan) receives an unexpected visit from her former lover, Tom Sergeant (Bill Nighy), a successful and charismatic restaurateur whose wife has recently died. As the evening progresses, the two attempt to rekindle their once passionate relationship, only to find themselves locked in a dangerous battle of opposing ideologies and mutual desires.
David Hare's Skylight originally premiered at the National Theatre in London in 1995 before going on to play smash hit engagements in the West End and on Broadway the following year. When the 2014 production of Skylight opened in the West End in June it was praised by critics on both sides of the Atlantic.
They are hardly a well-matched pair, this couple that has been given such transfixing life in two of the most expert stage performances you're likely to see for many seasons. As embodied by Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy in the heart-piercing revival of David Hare's 'Skylight,' Kyra Hollis and Tom Sergeant have none of the things in common that usually make for a fine romance...Yet as you watch Ms. Mulligan and Mr. Nighy move magnetically toward and away from each other in Stephen Daldry's exquisitely balanced London-born production...you can't help thinking that on some profound level these two were made to be together...The great achievement of this production from Mr. Daldry...is that it sustains each perspective with crystalline focus...As played by Ms. Mulligan...Kyra is obdurately calm and centered. But Ms. Mulligan achingly conveys just how hard-won this defensive stillness is. She has an uncommon gift for radiating complex layers of feeling by simply inhabiting a space. Mr. Nighy's Tom, in contrast, is a blinding kinetic force, a creature who never stops moving, advancing and retreating in a flurry of knife-edged angles, forever casing out and sizing up his environment.
...the three-decade age difference adds interesting layers to Kyra's daddy complex, and Nighy projects such unforced charm and wit that it's easy to imagine him seducing a smart, attractive girl in her twenties. The actor has a peerless way with Hare's caustic dialogue; he's magnetic in sardonic mode, when feigning indifference, in sputtering moments of rage, or letting down his guard to show his creeping desperation...Mulligan is more contained but no less commanding. She's watchful, controlled and wary, almost as if Kyra has played out this encounter many times in her head. And yet she's unable to deny a deep affection for Tom that lingers as undiminished as the hurt. If restless physicality and verbal dexterity are the signature traits of Nighy's performance, it's Mulligan's stillness and emotional transparency, battling with pride and anger, that distinguish her fine work, even navigating some of Hare's speechier passages with naturalness. Daldry has drawn three exquisite performances from his cast, and they lock together both in sharp contrast and in melancholy harmony with one another.
Videos