When acting gods collide

Philip Seymour Hoffman. Elizabeth Marvel. On the same stage. Has your head exploded a little with joyful anticipation? Playbill reports, after Variety, that these two fearless performers may indeed share board in Michael Weller's 50 Words. Don't know much about the play, and no dates have been fixed, but this is the most exciting casting news I've heard since...well, PSH in Long Day's Journey Into Night (with Redgrave, Dennehy and Robert Sean Leonard) or EM getting doused with V8 in mad, deconstructing Ivo von Hove's Hedda Gabler...or trading Kondoleon quips with Marian Seldes in Play Yourself. Marvel is the sort of actress that you just use, almost reflexively, as magic-bullet casting for any range of projects. As in, "Damn it, what idiot cast this show? If only Elizabeth Marvel had played [INSERT ROLE HERE], it would have been 10 times better." As for Hoffman, the fact that he almost saved his scenes with mopey moppet Natalie Portman in Mike Nichols' forgettable Seagull in Central Park makes one wonder what he can do opposite a real talent. Both actors excel at a kind of jagged, edgy, let-it-all-hang-out naturalism that belies the physical and vocal precision of their craft. They're both insanely watchable, combustible, cunning stage animals. Apparently, 50 Words is a portrait of a contemporary couple in trouble. Let's hope the marriage plans proceed.