theatricality

The play’s spry theatricality has no trouble accommodating Leon’s 21st century vision of Grover’s Corners.

“It was important because through the theatricality of the church, as I’ve said, you understand what they want to say,” she says.

It has a pantomime theatricality to it, featuring shots of the audience and including moments when the actors corpse - a term used to describe breaking character and laughing - and ad-lib on stage.

Amid a new wave of movie musicals, the lighthearted theatricality of this 1997 production, now on Disney+, offers a thoughtful model for the genre.

Her first Oscar nomination was for playing Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier’s Othello and her subsequent nominations were all for characters whose theatricality was a mode of existence.