Actors who really know how it’s done

WHAT lingers in the memory of my mostly New York theater year -- one that no one of sound mind could possibly call vintage -- isn’t a playwright’s dazzling new drama or a visionary director’s groundbreaking production but a passel of courageous portrayals by actors who reinvigorated familiar roles with difficult, and consequently dignifying, human truth.

“Aristocrats,” London’s Royal National Theatre. Brian Friel’s Chekhovian comedy about “big house” Irish Catholic siblings reeling in the wake of their dying father’s tyranny featured two standout performances in Tom Cairns’ top-notch revival: Andrew Scott as Casimir, the genteel adult son with shattered nerves and fugitive sense of self, and Dervla Kirwan, the daughter whose married life in London has taken a lonely, alcoholic turn. Through their characters’ outsize yet always sympathetic eccentricities, the past revealed itself to be not only a destructive burden but a cache of long-forgotten hope and tenderness.

“Glengarry Glen Ross,” Broadway. In Joe Mantello’s revival of the David Mamet play, Liev Schreiber’s incisive, Tony-winning portrayal of Richard Roma, a part I assumed was forever owned by Al Pacino, freshly honored the tough -- and more pertinent than ever -- vision of a playwright who cunningly embeds his critique of American ruthlessness in jazz-like riffs of attitudinizing words.

“Seascape,” Broadway. The same dexterity with stylized language characterizes Mark Lamos’ retread of Edward Albee’s 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning “Seascape.” The production, starring George Grizzard and Frances Sternhagen, grounds Albee’s rarefied verbal antics in genuine emotional substance. Yes, the play, which takes a cartoonish turn involving giant husband-and-wife lizards, may disappoint with its all too metaphysically ponderous second act. But Grizzard and Sternhagen are so persuasive they make conversation with chatty reptiles seem as natural as brushing your teeth.

“4:48 Psychose,” UCLA Live. Laurels, finally, must go to Isabelle Huppert for embodying the death-desiring consciousness of Sarah Kane’s last play before her suicide (translated into French with only spare English supertitles). Combining the physical minimalism of Beckett with the linguistic compression of Racine, the production might have been too bleakly claustrophobic. But Huppert’s solidarity with the play’s haunted spirit was exemplary in its depth of feeling, uncompromising intelligence and lack of vanity.

The worst

“As You Like It,” Ahmanson Theatre and BAM, and “Henry IV,” Royal National Theatre. With all the jukebox musical junk these days it might seem perverse to focus on two Shakespeare productions. But most of us don’t go to the Beach Boys’ shindig “Good Vibrations” or the Yoko Ono-approved “Lennon” with heightened theatrical expectations.

That decidedly isn’t the case when Sir Peter Hall casts his daughter, actress Rebecca Hall, as Rosalind in “As You Like It” or the Royal National Theatre’s artistic director, Nicholas Hytner, entices the great Michael Gambon to don Falstaff’s fat suit in “Henry IV.” Too bad both directors allowed Shakespeare to ramble on without color, emphasis or restraint.

Alas, these productions turned out to be long and lugubrious enough to confirm every schoolboy’s not-so-secret hatred of the Bard. Never did Shakespeare’s most poised romantic comedy seem so dismally lacking in laughter. Hall encouraged his daughter to draw out her delivery in a way that extended her stage time but had the unfortunate effect of suggesting a hitherto unthinkable reason for Rosalind’s banishment -- who could bear to hear her speak another word?

Gambon as Shakespeare’s delightful incarnation of vice seemed reason enough for the transatlantic flight. And, yes, the actor had his share of virtuosic moments with Falstaff’s all-encompassing wit. But Hytner’s otherwise weak staging (featuring “Pride & Prejudice” star Matthew MacFadyen’s flaccid Prince Hal) often brought out the campy worst in Gambon’s scene-chewing.