Stage Beauty Movie Streaming
Lundi, mars 29th, 2010 |
Stage Beauty Movie Streaming.
Movie Title: Stage Beauty Stage Beauty is available for streaming or downloading. |
Perhaps thought patterns are changing and prejudices against gay characters are indeed abating. At least hearing the audience delight after viewing STAGE BEAUTY makes a case for more mainstream male actors to shed the fear of taking on roles that feature gender and sexuality variations: Russell Crowe, Colin Farrell, Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Antonio Banderas, Javier Bardem, Rodrigo Santoro, Gael Garcia Bernal, et al have all performed sensitively as gay men despite their macho image - the once small list is now respectably large. And now add Billy Crudup and Ben Chaplin to that ever-growing list. Bravo to that change.
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STAGE BEAUTY (in the screenplay version of his own play ‘The Compleat Female Stage Beauty’ by Jeffrey Hatcher) is set in the mid 17th century with all the frills and foibles of British dandies and ladies visually intact. This is the time when female roles were assumed by male actors (the theater was simply no place for ladies to participate) and we are introduced to Mr. Kynaston (in a brilliant, multifaceted performance by Billy Crudup!) as he portrays Desdemona in Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’. He is attended by a dresser Maria Hughes (Claire Danes, another superlative acting achievement) who longs to act and steals away after performances in the theater run by actor Betterton (Tom Wilkinson) to a tavern where she assumes the memorized roles Kynaston performs on the royally approved stage.
Kynaston has been raised to portray women on stage (and indeed in life) and responds to men as a woman (his lover is the Duke of Buckingham - Ben Chaplin). King Charles II (a thorough-going hilarious fling for the gifted Rupert Everett) is convinced by his tart du jour to allow women to play women’s roles on the stage, thus dethroning Kynaston as the actress of the time, driving him into tawdry masquerades in pubs after a severe beating from thugs beckoned by the bloated Sir Charles Sedley (Richard Griffiths). Maria Hughes thus becomes the first ‘compleat female actress’ and this transition between Kynaston and Maria results in desperate tutoring lessons before Maria can play Desdemona for the King. For the first time in his life Kynaston must examine his own sexuality and his successful final curtain after playing Othello to Maria’s Desdemona gratefully leaves that choice up in the air.
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The script is a delight, the actors are all first rate, especially the wholly immersed Crudup and Danes who could well be part of the Royal Shakespeare Company, so fine is their British sound, demeanor, and Shakespeare! The supporting cast is a kaleidoscope of jewel-like performances from Everett, Wilkinson, Edward Fox, Hugh Bonneville among others. The mood is appropriately British - all dark, candlelit stagecraft and foggy marsh vistas - and the music matches the overall picture. Richard Eyre has directed a film that deserves many kudos, but the main glory should shine on his ability to explore the spectrum of gender and sexuality with dignity, intelligence, and tremendous sensitivity. A welcome delight!
I saw this film the evening after seeing Being Julia and thoroughly enjoyed both. Much of Stage Beauty is based on historical material which Helen Wilcox examines in Women in Literature in Britain, 1500-1700. Jeffrey Hatcher’s screenplay is based on his own Compleat Female Stage Beauty, a play first performed in 1999. We know that Edward (Ned) Kynaston (1640-1706) was among the last and reputedly the best of the male actors of female parts in dramas performed prior to the Restoration period. Following his coronation, King Charles II decreed that females would be permitted to appear on stage in roles previously performed only by males. For many male actors, the subsequent transition was very, very difficult. There are certain parallels with the difficulties that stars such as John Gilbert had during the transition from silent films to “the talkies.”
What we have in Stage Beauty is a delightful presentation of that age and, more specifically, of Kynaston’s struggles (brilliantly presented by Billy Crudup) to salvage his career in juxtaposition with those of his dresser Maria (Claire Danes), an unskilled but aspiring actress, who seeks Ned’s tutelage to advance her own career. Frankly, I did not immediately recognize the always-superb Rupert Everett in the role of Charles II. Others in the supporting cast include Ben Chaplin (as George Villars, Duke of Buckingham) and Tom Wilkinson (as Thomas Betterton). Historically, Betterton was once highly praised for his performance in Shakespeare’s Othello…in the role of Ophelia. In Stage Beauty, Kynaston plays Ophelia to Betterton’s Moor of Venice. After Kynaston rejects the advances of the lecherous Sir Charles Sedley (Richard Griffiths), Sedley hires thugs to beat Kynaston so severely that he can no longer perform until his wounds have healed. Maria sees an opportunity, organizes what I guess could be called an “underground” performance of the play, and assumes the role of Ophelia herself. After seeing her performance, Charles II issues his proclamation and then….
Credit director Richard Eyre with obtaining superior results from his talented cast and crew. Simulating London in the 1660’s was indeed a major task, achieved brilliantly by cinematographer Andrew Dunn, production designer Jim Play, and art directors Keith Slote and Jan Spoczynski. Of course, many of the comic devices in both Hatcher’s play and in this film can be traced back to classical Greek and Roman comedies, with the female roles in all of which performed by males. For example, all manner of mischief is achieved through mistaken identity, role and gender reversals, double entrendres, elaborate disguises, no sequitors, etc. The highly literate screenplay invests the nimble narrative with style and grace as Ned and Maria proceed to the inevitable, indeed obligatory resolution. Great fun! Those who share my high regard for this film are urged to check out Victor/Victoria and Tootsie (in 1982) as well as Shakespeare in Love (1998).
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