THICK AS THIEVES

SPOTLIGHT

Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jon Bernthal open up to JENNY LUMET about reimagining her father's New Hollywood classic Dog Day Afternoon

JENNY LUMET

Dog Day Afternoon is the third rail of male love and loneliness—a primal scream from the sweltering streets of a stone broke New York City. My dad, Sidney Lumet, directed the 1975 film and his heart cracked for its antiheroes, Sonny and Sal (played by Al Pacino and John Cazale): "They're like open wounds up there," he once said.

Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jon Bernthal will try to channel that energy on Broadway this spring in a stage adaptation written by Pulitzer winner Stephen Adly Guirgis and directed by Rupert Goold. Bernthal plays doomed Sonny, who's hoping to pay for his lover's gender-affirming operation; his longtime pal and costar on The Bear plays volatile Sal, the loneliest guy in the world. Both characters feel like meaner cousins of Willy Loman: left-behind men who have failed their partners, failed their children, failed themselves. "Sonny's desire to take care of people is so intrinsic, it's worth fighting and dying for," says Bernthal. "He is unheard. That's why he's screaming so loud."

He and Moss-Bachrach are barely able to contain their excitement about taking this journey together. "I believe in him with every fiber of my being," says Bernthal. Moss-Bachrach returns the favor: "Jon is the hardest-working actor I've ever worked with. He's relentless."

With this production, the actors want to create something as new, bold, and explosive as American filmmaking in the 1970s. Are they nervous, though, about inhabiting two of the most kinetic American stickup men for eight shows a week?

"It's great to be terrified," says Bernthal. "If you're not, something's deeply wrong."

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