The supporting performers fare better.
The supporting performers -- for that matter, the entire ensemble -- radiate a happy, crazy confidence.
But more than half of the supporting performers have been jettisoned since the show ended its West End run.
Mr. Carrey has some good moments, as do a few of the supporting performers, notably Bradley Cooper as Carl's best friend and Rhys Darby as his socially maladroit boss.
His chilly elegance and Mr. Owen's morose precision are balanced by touches of eccentric humor and by the vulgar warmth of the supporting performers, especially Jamie Foreman as the dead man's best friend, who becomes Will's unlikely sidekick (Scott).
Indeed, having seen this "Hamlet" in London last fall, I was astonished by how much the supporting performers have grown in their parts while holding on to a spontaneity that must be hard to achieve after months of touring.
Writing in The New York Times in 1986 about the 1951 film noir "Cry Danger," Howard Thompson said Mr. Erdman's "earthy, funny con man, a Marine veteran with a wooden leg" was "the role you'll remember". Mr. Erdman was one of the supporting performers in Marlon Brando's first movie, "The Men" (1950), cited for their "excellent" work by Bosley Crowther of The Times in his review.
While there's clearly a cable-broadcast divide in the nominators' minds, there's also, at a more basic level, a groupthink in which a handful of shows — AMC's "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad," HBO's "Game of Thrones," PBS's "Downton Abbey," ABC's "Modern Family" – vacuum up the major nominations, down to the supporting-performer categories, while shows outside that clique have little chance.
In fairness, you can sense that these supporting performers, perhaps following Mr. Kline's cue, have worked hard at rethinking the psychology of well-worn roles.
There's a looseness to the key supporting performers, who include Paul Benedict and Ruth Williamson as the blustery mayor and his bossy wife, that creates a distracting diffuseness.
Before the war he was a supporting performer in lighter fare, perhaps best known for delivering the first screen kiss to the young Deanna Durbin in his debut, "First Love," in 1939.
