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DVD Stage Beauty
Edward "Ned" Knyaston (Billy Crudup) is a beautiful man, and as an actor in 17th-century London that means he's quite popular portraying women, since females are forbidden to tread the boards. His mischievous air of entitlement, unfortunately, soon sets in motion a chain of events that will see King Charles II (Rupert Everett) lifting the ban on actresses, allowing Ned's devoted dresser, Maria (Claire Danes), to become the city's reigning theatrical diva. Director Richard Eyre (Iris) is still best known for his stage work, and it shows: Stage Beauty is rich in character and attention to detail, yet it doesn't have a popcorn-and-soda pop ease. Jeffrey Hatcher's well-observed script, based on his own play, romps a little self-consciously in Eyre's hands--you can tell it would like to be Shakespeare in Love if it could only relax. The gorgeous Crudup and dewy Danes don't quite click here, but the supporting cast is having a good time going way over-the-top, so if you're hungry for an elaborate historical confection there's enough here to satisfy your taste buds. --Steve Wiecking
Whether you're a Shakespeare buff, or a fan of the theatre in any period, you can't afford to miss this one! Comparisons to Shakespeare in Love are inevitable, down to the framework of a Shakespearian play-within-a-play, and the central role of an appealing blonde actress struggling against societal mores to claim her dream of taking the stage. I am not in accord with those reviewers who regard Stage Beauty as Shakespeare in Love-lite, however. It's `compleatly' the other way around . . .with its darker tone & far more complex screenplay, Stage Beauty tackles ground which the earlier film dreamt not of. Whereas Shakespeare in Love was rather like a jolly Disney ride through Shakespearian London, Stage Beauty reflects a much grittier, often unflinching, portrait of what life was like in the thespian milieu, circa 1660.
`Stage Beauty is set some 60-odd years after the action of Shakespeare in Love-the Bard, long gone, is a voice in the film only through his play Othello. Billy Crudup (in a tour-de-force performance) is Edward `Ned' Kynaston, the reigning `leading lady' of the London stage. Bringing the house down night after night as Desdemona, Ned revels in his life as the top celebrity diva in town. He is attended by his faithful dresser, Maria (Claire Danes), who longs to act herself, and has memorized his performance as she watches every night from the wings. Ned and Maria have a complicated relationship; he treats her like a servant, yet seems to have more tender feelings for her as well, feelings which she secretly shares. Further complicating matters is Ned's homosexual relationship with the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Chaplin). Even though Ned has sex with men, and has been trained from boyhood to project a feminine demeanor, he can't live his life offstage as a woman. And even though a `manly' mode of being feels unnatural, his underlying masculinity is always showing through his mask of painstakingly cultivated femininity. The world `pansexual' could have been coined for him. One of the strengths of the film is how it captures the fluidity of sexuality prevalent at the time . . .Ned is a man who plays women, yet women respond to the person under the costume. Ned sleeps with a man who rejects him for a `real' woman, and yet at the same time, Ned finds himself attracted to his female dresser. At this time, dressing in drag was thought to be the height of hilarity, and even the King could wear a dress to the vast entertainment of his guests. In this overheated atmosphere of sexual confusion, and blurring of gender identity labels, this time seems not a great deal different than our own.
Ned tumbles from the pinnacle of success to the dregs of society almost overnight as a number of misfortunes pile up at once: Maria's performance as the first female Desdemona in an underground theatre production catches the attention of the Court, leading the King to grant permission for women to perform on stage. When Ned inadvertently insults the King's mistress, this leniency hardens into a ban against male actors playing any women's parts. Suddenly unemployable in the only field he knows, Ned is severely beaten by thugs hired by Maria's patron, and starts to slip into alcoholism. Rejected by the stage for not being a `real' woman, he is rejected by his noble lover for the same crime. When he has reached bottom, redemption comes from an unexpected quarter-an opportunity to return to the stage in Othello, this time playing the man's part . . . opposite the woman who stole his livelihood, and in his eyes, his very life. Once again the lines between stage and reality blur, as the Moor and Ned have both been wounded deeply by women they love, and both have `cause' for revenge. The scene where Maria & Ned are reunited on stage is as breathlessly compelling for us as it must have been for the first audiences witnessing naturalistic performances on the stage.
I really can't rave about this film enough. Billy Crudup carries the film in a multifaceted and grueling part. He does make a pretty girl, too, though I prefer him as a guy. Claire Danes hits the right note as Maria . . .low-key and in the background when that is called for, and then radiant or petulant by turns when that is called for. She does not swan about self-assuredly like the lady of noble birth slumming on the boards like Gwneth Paltrow's Lady Viola in Shakespeare in Love; Maria is a commoner, someone who has had to survive a hardscrabble existence by hard work, her wits and by her loyalty to her employer. When she betrays that loyalty and sets the events of the movie in motion, it is for her deeply-felt conviction that acting is more than a lark or a hobby, it is something she must do, even if she does it badly. An all-star cast lends support, including Hugh Bonneville as an endearingly befuddled Samuel Pepys, perpetual diarist (One of my favorite lines is when Ben Chaplin as the Duke of Buckingham tells Ned: `If two mice were in a nutshell screwing, Pepys would find a way to squeeze in and write it down'), and Rupert Everett, in a wry, campy performance as Charles II, looking rather like he wandered over from the Three Musketeers set, but having a wonderful time. Tom Wilkinson plays Mr. Betterton, the owner of Ned's theatre and his co-star, an enthusiastically bad Othello. Also deserving mention is newcomer Zoe Tropper, who is a delightfully bawdy and pulchritudinous Nell Gwynn. Asked about her parentage, Nell responds, cheerfully, "Me mum was a whore; me dad was in the Navy . . .that's why I don't do sailors!"
If watching Stage Beauty isn't as addictive as chocolate (I watched it twice in two days), and if it doesn't make you want to go out immediately and get your local library's copy of Othello so you can revisit Desdemona's death scene, then tack a mustache on me and call me a boy!
"Saturday, Othello...the other one..."
Comparisons between "Stage Beauty" and "Shakespeare in Love" are inevitable, but this 2004 film does not suffer much by the contrast. Both films deal with the conventions of the English stage that dictated the roles of women be played by men and while both have a woman who wants to play a woman's role, this one has a man who wants to play only women's roles. Both films conclude with a live performance in which the focal character ends up playing the opposite of their original role. Both films are intricately involved with the Shakespeare plays being performed to such an extent that it goes beyond life imitating art. But whereas "Shakespeare in Love" was about writing and love, "Stage Beauty" is about acting and love, and I think this one is ultimately more about its primary artistic focus than about love.
When it comes to performing the classical plays of Shakespeare or the tragedies of the ancient Greeks, I believe in realistic nee naturalistic acting rather than following the acting conventions of those periods. I enjoy those conventions, but I also think that if you can break the poetic constraints of the dialogue you can make those texts come alive for contemporary audiences. So one of the reasons "Stage Beauty" resonated so strong for me was that it not only endorses but also celebrates the idea that such realism can have much more of a profound impact on an audience that the stylistic
Half the inspiration for the original play "Compleat Female Stage Beauty" was when playwright Jeffrey Hatcher came across an entry in the diary of Samuel Pepys (Hugh Bonneville) that the actor Ned Kynaston was the most beautiful woman in the house when he was portraying one upon the stage. The other half was the decision of Charles II (Rupert Everett) to not only provoke the prohibition of women acting on stage, but to declare instead that henceforth only women would play on stage. Thus we have the story of the most famous female impersonator of his day suddenly thrust into a world where he is no longer allowed to do what he does best.
Billy Crudup plays Kynaston and his success as a woman on stage hinges in part on the acting conventions of the time. He has studied the affected mannerisms demanded of the women characters on stage and if you would fault Kynaston's realism as Desdemona you can level the same charges against the Othello being played by Betterton (Tom Wilkinson). That is what acting was during the Stuart Restoration. A pair of women with aspirations towards acting on the stage doom Kynaston's career, one being his dresser, Maria (Claire Danes), who has memorized each inflection and gesture of his Desdemona and performed it in a tavern (which is technically not a theater). The other is Nell Gwynn (Zoe Tapper), the king's mistress, who has more than the king's ear when it comes to persuading him to change the way things are in the theaters of London.
There is, as you would suspect, some sexual tension between Maria and Kynaston, although it is more ardent on her part for most of the story. She loves him, but he loves acting. His argument against women playing women is that there is no "trick" to it. I was going to say that he means no skill to such performances, but he really does mean trick. Kyanston has studied his craft and literally suffered as his training stripped him of every aspect of acting masculine. He has the trick of creating the illusion of a perfect woman (for example, the five positions of feminine subjugation), without the skill of acting the part, and he is offended by the very idea that being born a woman would give Maria any advantage. It is only when Maria and Kynaston discuss the tricks of being a woman versus being a man, after his life has been taken away from him, that he not only sees her as a woman but begins to see himself as a man. For her the key is her admission that she has never been able to do his Desdemona, not because it is mimicry, but because she disagrees vehemently with his premise that the character would not fight back.
This sets up the grand finale and for me the last act of "Stage Beauty" when we get to the rehearsal and performance of the play is totally captivating. In one of the DVD features director Richard Eyre ("Iris") describes what we are seeing as the birth of naturalistic acting, which is exactly why I was so absorbed and why I know that those who have acted or directed actors, will respond to those scenes and this movie in different ways from those whose vantage point has always been as members of the audience. Crudup gets special mention, not only because his role is the pivotal one in the story and because he gets to play both Desdemona and Othello, but because his character is put through the wringer and has to evince two different styles of acting.
When theatre had the attraction that the internet has today.
This film is really pure entertainment but also a delightful window on Shakespearian theatre in the 17th century. Its a story of the sexism and disempowerment, of the transience of fame, its a wonderful historical account of a colorful time in history when theatre had the attraction that the internet has today, and its a love story. But its a love story about one's profession and about unrequited love, and there's plenty in there for straight and gay men alike to enjoy this film. It's also about competition, admiration, inspiration and friendship. A truly enjoyable and charming film with a real story line.
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