Bjørn Again

St. Vincent's new video "Cruel" is catchy and disturbing in roughly equal measure, but what caught my eye is the fine, understated actor playing her husband. The bearded fellow is Bjørn Johnson, whose work I relished in many small Los Angeles theater productions over the years, particularly at Open Fist, where he made a fine, thoroughly unsentimental Macheath in their excellent 2005 production of Threepenny Opera (using Jeremy Sams' razor-sharp translation), and at the Boston Court, in which an uncharacteristically beardless Bjørn emerged impishly from an onstage trunk (if memory serves) in Chuck Mee's Summertime. (A rather vapid description of the video shoot, courtesy the singer, is here.) Since I don't watch episodic TV much at all anymore, I no longer have the pleasure of stage-talent-spotting in that venue, so it's always nice to see some favorite thesps pop up in unexpected venues. (Speaking of which, has this ad given you pause lately?)