I fully understand the difference between stage and screen acting, but JEJ is just not pulling off the accent, nor Courtenay Vance for that matter. Half of the words he's saying are in very unnatural and forced vernacular ("axe" in particular) and half are in his crisp theater diction. Just sounds very odd.
Yeah "axe" is coming off super sluggish for them both. I'm thinking they aren't used to doing it with mics in the production and are just used to having to make it a little more loud and obvious.