Stage Beauty( with short story from wikipedia & Roger Ebert's criticism ) click the under line name & click when link is appeared ) this is not commercial blog &it is informating blog
Stage Beauty: Stage Beauty A female theatre dresser creates a stir and sparks a revolution in seventeenth century London theatre by playing Desdemona in Othello. But what will become of the male actor she once worked for and eventually replaced?
Stage Beauty ( it is free from copy wright act as it is only non commercil and informating blog )
Roger Ebert
Stage Beauty ( it is free from copy wright act as it is only non commercil and informating blog )
Stage Beauty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Stage Beauty | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
| |
| Directed by | Richard Eyre |
| Produced by | Robert De Niro Hardy Justice Jane Rosenthal |
| Screenplay by | Jeffrey Hatcher |
| Based on | "Compleat Female Stage Beauty" by Jeffrey Hatcher |
| Starring | Billy Crudup Claire Danes Rupert Everett Zoe Tapper Tom Wilkinson |
| Music by | George Fenton |
| Cinematography | Andrew Dunn |
| Edited by | Tariq Anwar |
Production
company | |
| Distributed by | Momentum Pictures (UK) Lionsgate |
Release date
|
|
Running time
| 109 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom United States Germany |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $2,153,070 |
Stage Beauty is a 2004 British-American-German romantic period drama directed by Richard Eyre. The screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher is based on his play Compleat Female Stage Beauty, which was inspired by references to 17th-century actor Edward Kynaston made in the detailed private diary kept by Samuel Pepys.
Plot[edit]
Ned Kynaston (Billy Crudup) is one of the leading actors of his day, particularly famous for his portrayal of female characters, predominately Desdemona in Othello. His loyal dresser, Maria (Claire Danes), aspires to perform in the legitimate theatre but is forbidden because of a law enacted by the Puritans prior to the restoration of the House of Stuart. Instead, she appears in productions at a local tavern under the pseudonym Margaret Hughes. Her activity aided by the novelty of a woman acting in public, which attracts the attention of Sir Charles Sedley (Richard Griffiths), who offers his patronage. Eventually she is presented to King Charles II (Rupert Everett).
Nell Gwynn (Zoe Tapper), an aspiring actress and Charles II's mistress, comes upon Kynaston ranting rabidly about women on stage and literally seduces Charles II into banning men from playing female roles.[1] Kynaston, having gone through a long and strenuous training to play female roles finds himself without a guise by which to keep the attention of his lover, George Villiers (Ben Chaplin), the Duke of Buckingham, as the latter never had intentions to lead a homosexual life and Kynaston has lost the acceptance of London society which started to circulate rumors about their association. He is reduced to performing bawdy songs in drag in music halls, while Maria's career thrives, although her ability to emulate that of Kynaston falls short because, as she says, Kynaston never fights as a woman would do.
Called upon for a royal performance, Maria panics and her friends implore Kynaston for coaching during which she coaches him to develop his ability to regain a theatrical career in male roles. He agrees with the proviso that he replace the company head Thomas Betterton in the role of the titular protagonist. Maria evolves as an acclaimed theatrical star.
Cast[edit]
- Billy Crudup as Ned Kynaston
- Claire Danes as Maria / Margaret Hughes
- Tom Wilkinson as Thomas Betterton
- Rupert Everett as King Charles II
- Zoe Tapper as Nell Gwynn
- Richard Griffiths as Sir Charles Sedley
- Hugh Bonneville as Samuel Pepys
- Ben Chaplin as George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham
- Edward Fox as Sir Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon
- Alice Eve as Miss Frayne
- Stephen Marcus as Thomas Cockerell
- Tom Hollander as Sir Peter Lely
Production[edit]
While the film is rooted in historical fact – the first English theatre actress, although her name is unknown, is believed to have performed the role of Desdemona[2] – some liberties with the truth were taken. Nell Gwynne is represented as a mistress of the King who subsequently becomes an actress, but in reality she already was a noted theatre personality when Charles II met her. The sequence in which Maria and Kynaston discover naturalistic acting is anachronistic, as naturalism was not developed until the 19th century.
Interiors were filmed at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich and Shepperton Studios in Surrey. According to commentary by production designer Jim Clay on the DVD release of the film, because so little English Restoration architecture remains in London, and documentation of the period is minimal, he was required to use his imagination in creating buildings and back alleys on sound stages.
In the DVD commentary, several cast members recall the film was shot during the hottest UK summer on record (2003), and the temperature under the lights usually hovered at 46 °C (115 °F), making performing in the heavy, layered costumes a grueling experience.
The Costumes were designed by Tim Hatley. Twelve costume houses were involved in the production, including The Royal Shakespeare Company, The National Theater, and Angels & Bermans, as well as the Italian houses Sartoria Farani, Tirelli, Costumi d'Arte, E. Rancati, G.P. 11, and Pompei.
The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in May 2004 prior to its general release in the UK. It was shown at the Deauville Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Dinard Festival of British Cinema in France before opening in New York City.
Release[edit]
Critical reception[edit]
In his review in the New York Times, A.O. Scott said, "At times, the movie feels like a fancy-dress version of A Star Is Born . . . Mr. Crudup's fine features, which flicker between masculine and feminine as the lighting changes and the mood shifts, are well suited for the role, though his sinewy, birdlike frame suggests Hollywood anorexia more than Restoration curviness . . . Stage Beauty is both timorous and ungainly, words that might also describe Ms. Danes's performance. Trapped in an English accent and in a character who must appear conniving and warmhearted in turn, she veers from teariness to brisk indignation like an Emma Thompson doll with a jammed switch. The British actors in smaller roles handle the material better . . . George Fenton's Sunday-brunch score, on the other hand, is an indigestible dose of good taste ladled heavily over even the film's witty and delicate moments."[3]
David Rooney of Variety called the film "an intelligent and entertaining adaptation . . . skillfully acted, handsomely crafted" and added, "Eyre's spry direction of the refreshingly literate, witty drama shows a pleasingly light touch and a genuine feel for the bustle, backbiting and rivalry of the theater milieu . . . In a delicately measured performance that favors graceful subtlety over campy mannerism, Crudup conveys a nuanced sense of a man struggling to know himself . . . Put in the unenviable position of playing second fiddle to her male co-star in terms of feminine allure, Danes is lovely nonetheless . . . George Fenton's rich orchestral score enlivens the action with an occasional rousing Celtic flavor."[4]
In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers rated the film three out of a possible four stars and called it "bawdy fun . . . . the gender role-playing puts spine in this period piece that is vital to the here and now."[5]
Carla Meyer of the San Francisco Chronicle said, "The film rarely matches Crudup's performance, appearing confused itself about whether it's farce or drama. But its palette of burnished browns and reds pleases the eye, and at its best, Stage Beauty captures the tensions and electricity of backstage dramas."[6]
In The New Yorker, David Denby observed, "Second-rate bawdiness – that is, bawdiness without the wit of Boccaccio or Shakespeare or even Tom Stoppard — is more infantile than funny, and I'm not sure that the American playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, who concocted this piece for the stage and then adapted it into a movie, is even second-rate. Stage Beauty might be called the spawn of Shakespeare in Love, and, unfortunately, this is a Shakespeare that lacks the graceful spirit and breathless narrative drive of its progenitor."[7]
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly rated the film C+ and described it as "an odd amalgam of high spirits, lively ambition, and botched execution."[8]
Awards and nominations[edit]
The film won the Cambridge Film Festival Audience Award for Best Film, was cited by the National Board of Review for Excellence in Filmmaking, and was named the Overlooked Film of the Year by the Phoenix Film Critics Society.
Roger Ebert
"Stage Beauty" opens in a London weary of Puritan dreariness. The monarchy has been restored, and Charles II is a fun-loving king whose mistress, Nell Gwynn, whispers mischief in his ear. They take a lively interest in the theater. Women are not allowed to perform on the stage, so all the women's roles are played by men -- chief among them Ned Kynaston (Billy Crudup), who Samuel Pepys described in his diary as the most beautiful woman on the London stage.
Ned is most comfortable playing a woman both onstage and off. But is he gay? The question doesn't precisely occur in that form, since in those days gender lines were not rigidly enforced, and heterosexuals sometimes indulged their genitals in a U-turn. Certainly Ned has inspired the love of Maria (Claire Danes), his dresser, who envies his art while she lusts for his body. We see her backstage during one of Ned's rehearsals, mouthing every line and mimicking every gesture; she could play Desdemona herself, and indeed she does one night, in an illicit secret theater, even borrowing Ned's costumes.
Word of her performance reaches the throne, and Charles (Rupert Everett) is intrigued; a courtier tells him the French have long allowed women on the stage. His adviser Sir Edward Hyde (Edward Fox) observes, "Whenever one is about to do something truly horrible, we always say the French have been doing it for years." But Charles, nudged by Nell, decrees that henceforth women shall be played by women. This puts Ned Kynaston out of work, and turns Maria into an overnight star. "A woman playing a woman?" Ned sniffs. "What's the trick of that?"
The film, written by Jeffrey Hatcher and based on his play "Compleat Female Stage Beauty," is really about two things at once: The craft of acting, and the bafflement of love. It must be said that Ned is not a very convincing woman onstage (although he is pretty enough); he plays a woman as a man would play a woman, lacking the natural ease of a woman born to a role. Curiously, when Maria takes over his roles, she also copies his gestures, playing a woman as a woman might play a man playing a woman. Only gradually does she relax into herself. "I've always hated your Desdemona," she confesses to Ned. "You never fight, you only die."
Like "Shakespeare in Love," which is set half a century earlier and also centers on men playing women (and on a woman playing a man, and a woman playing a man playing a woman), "Stage Beauty" explores the boundaries between reality and performance. The difference is, the Gwyneth Paltrow character in "Shakespeare" knows she is a woman in real life, while Ned Kynaston (based on a real actor), knows he is a woman on the stage but is not so sure about life.
It is a cruel blow when he finds fame and employment taken from him in an instant, and awarded to Maria. Yet Maria still has feelings for Ned, and rescues him from a bawdy music hall to spirit him off to the country -- where their lovemaking has the urgency of a first driving lesson. Like the couple in the limerick, they
Argue all night
As to who has the right
To do what, and with which, and to whom.
As to who has the right
To do what, and with which, and to whom.
Claire Danes is as fresh as running water in this role, exhibiting the clarity and directness that has become her strength; her characters tend to know who they are, and why. That makes her a good contrast to Crudup, playing a character who is adrift between jobs and genders. Life for him is confusing, as men like the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Chaplin) court him as a woman, forgiving him the inconvenience that he is not one, while saucy women delight in rummaging through his netherlands on a treasure hunt.
The movie lacks the effortless charm of "Shakespeare in Love," and its canvas is somewhat less alive with background characters and details. But it has a poignancy that "Shakespeare" lacks, because it is about a real dilemma and two people who are trying to solve it; must Ned and Maria betray their real natures in order to find love, or accept them?
The London of the time is fragrantly evoked, as horses attend to their needs regardless of whose carriage they are drawing, and bathing seems a novelty. I wonder if the court of Charles II was quite as Monty Pythonesque as the movie has it, and if Nell Gwynn was quite such a bold wench, but the details involving life in the theater feel real, especially in scenes about the fragility of an actor's ego. Poor Ned. "She's a star," the theater owner Thomas Betterton (Tom Wilkinson) tells Ned about Maria. "She did what she did first; you did what you did last."
Note: Our best record of this period, of course, is Pepys' Diary (if you do not have six months or so to read it all, try the audiobook abridgement by Kenneth Branagh, or look at the daily entries at www.pepysdiary.com). Pepys was a high official in the British navy, with access to the court, and is the source for some of what we know about Ned Kynaston. We often see him at the edge of the screen, busily scribbling (when in fact, he wrote at home, in code). "Mr. Pepys," he is asked at one point, "who do you write down all those little notes for?"
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