On Broadway

They called it the Broadway event of the year, and they weren't wrong.

From the moment that producer Geoffrey Falcon announced that Jeremy Simmons and Alyce Connolly would be starring in Lawrence Waltman's latest, "The Last Days of Our Marriage," the entertainment industry buzzed with anticipation over the first-time pairing of the two stars in a limited engagement. Simmons and Connolly--with four Oscars between them--had dominated movie screens for most of the past fifteen years; the thought of both acclaimed actors sharing a stage was enough to guarantee sold-out shows, even for the previews.

Simmons and Connolly were fans of each other's work, and were fascinated by the play's premise: Raymond Steele (Simmons), an African-American New York Senator, suffers professional shame when it is revealed that he has had an extramarital affair with a staffer which resulted in a pregnancy--and personal pain when his white wife, Elizabeth McDonough Steele (Connolly), wounded by the discovery of her husband's infidelity, announces that she wants a divorce. "I never thought I'd get this sort of role when I was starting out," Steele told the New York Times. "When I graduated from Juilliard back in the early '90s, all I got offered was 'Pimp #1' and 'Junkie #2.'"

In the same interview, Connolly noted that when she attended the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, "being on Broadway was a total fantasy. I'm still pinching myself!"

After four weeks of rehearsals with director Michael Drake, previews of "Last Days" began on February 10 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, two weeks prior to its official premiere. The preview audiences were struck by the obvious chemistry between Simmons and Connolly, and how effectively both actors portrayed a couple that clearly still loved each other, but whose relationship could not survive one partner's infidelity. Falcon and Waltman were thrilled by the reaction of the preview audiences, and knew they had a potentially massive hit on their hands.

"Last Days" officially opened on February 24 to virtually unanimous raves in the New York press. Robert McKay of the Post hailed the play as a "monumental work...if you put the best parts of August Wilson, David Mamet and Neil LaBute into a blender, you'd get this great play." He praised the work of Simmons and Connolly, writing, "With his commanding voice and imposing, six-foot-five frame, Simmons is compelling as the senator who has given his pride and career a self-inflicted wound, and Connolly--the pale, blonde, regal Aussie--is every bit his match as his cheated-on spouse. They're both so good that we don't see two Oscar winners portraying partners in a failing marriage--we see a real marriage falling apart."

Marguerite Miller of the Times was even more enthusiastic, proclaiming "Last Days" to be "the best play of the year so far" and predicting that "Connolly and Simmons will be adding Tonys to their award shelves." She further wrote that the two stars "...are convincing as a couple whose love cannot save their damaged marriage...there are moments in this play that are so uncomfortably real that we feel that we are eavesdropping on real arguments, watching real fights, enduring real truths."

Both McKay and Miller cited as a highlight of the play a portion of Act II in which Raymond and Elizabeth discuss a miscarriage that occurred very early into their marriage, and how that miscarriage nearly drove the couple apart. In her review, Miller noted that "...the pain Connolly summons as she discusses how much it hurts Elizabeth to know that Raymond has fathered a child with another lover is vivid and palpable."

What the reviewers could not have known--what even Waltman did not know when he wrote this scene--is that the ability of Jeremy and Alyce to express the truth of a damaged relationship went far beyond their great acting abilities. After all, they weren't there when Alyce met Jeremy at a casting call in New York just a few weeks after she moved to America. They weren't there to see them at dinner or in the balcony seats at the games. They weren't there the night they spent the weekend in his room...or the day when the test came back...or the day the she made the appointment to go to Bleecker Street...or the day they decided, all those years ago, to keep things quiet, and to keep their distance.

At the end of the play, Raymond and Elizabeth stand in front of each other, having agreed to the divorce. They shake hands and embrace for the final time, tears covering their faces. Every time, the audience applauded, not knowing these two stars were crying the sort of tears no acting class can teach.

"Last Days" closed on April 3, and in June, as Miller predicted, Jeremy and Alyce both won Tonys for Best Actor and Best Actress, with "Last Days" itself winning Best Play. Both actors, however, turned down lucrative offers by First Fleet Pictures to star in the film adaptation. "We both decided there's no way we can top what we did on Broadway," Alyce told Variety. "It was certainly the sort of experience we'll never forget."