Stage Beauty (2004)

Director:

Richard Eyre

Writers (WGA):

Jeffrey Hatcher (play)
Jeffrey Hatcher (screenplay)

Release Date:

3 September 2004 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

She was the first of her kind. He was the last of his.

Plot:

A female theatre dresser creates a stir and sparks a revolution in seventeenth century London theatre by playing Desedmona in Othello. But what will become of the male actor she once worked for and eventually replaced?

Plot Keywords:

Theatre | Actor | Gender | Homosexual | Play

Awards:

3 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Derek Hutchinson	...	Stage Manager
Mark Letheren	...	Male Emilia / Dickie
Claire Danes	...	Maria
Billy Crudup	...	Ned Kynaston
Tom Wilkinson	...	Betterton
Ben Chaplin	...	George Villiars, Duke of Buckingham
Hugh Bonneville	...	Samuel Pepys
Jack Kempton	...	Call Boy
Alice Eve	...	Miss Frayne
Fenella Woolgar	...	Lady Meresvale
David Westhead	...	Harry
Nick Barber	...	Nick
Stephen Marcus	...	Thomas Cockerell
Richard Griffiths	...	Sir Charles Sedley
Zoe Tapper	...	Nell Gwynn

Also Known As:

Compleat Female Stage Beauty (UK) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for sexual content and language.

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

UK | Germany | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Brazil:16 | Australia:M | Argentina:16 | Iceland:12 | Germany:12 | South Korea:18 | Netherlands:AL | Singapore:M18 | Spain:13 | UK:15 | USA:R | Canada:14A (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Hampton Court Palace, East Molesey, Surrey, England, UK

Company:

Qwerty Films

Trivia:

King Charles II, played by Rupert Everett, speaks of the Puritan revolt and his father's, Charles I, execution, during dinner at the Palace. Everett played Charles I a year previously in To Kill a King (2003).

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Pepys is telling Kynaston to play a man's role, Kynaston's lips are out of sync with his speech in some shots.

Quotes:

Ned Kynaston: See what comes out of rehearsal?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Daily Show: (2004-10-21)" (2004)

Shakespeare in Love with brains. And acting.

We sat for the first few minutes wondering whether we'd come to the right film (expecting a formulaic period romp). And for a little while I was prepared to spend the rest of the evening apologising to my partner for the slowness and oddness of the film. But once our disbelief had been suspended and we'd got used to the cramped feeling of the film (more like a staged version than cinematic at times), we both loved it.

I agree that Claire Danes acted well (though the hyperventilation happened once too often) and Billy Crudup brought a complexity to the role that I rarely see in films. The reference to Shakespeare in Love is an affectionate comparison: I enjoyed the light snack of Gwinny, luvvies and Fiennes and have sat through the DVD time and again. But that film had a predictability that Stage Beauty lacked. We didn't know that Stage Beauty's 'love element' would ever work out.

I do not see the development of the relationship between Danes and Crudup as a conversion from gay to straight. Instead I see a problematic progress from an imposed gender identity (perpetuated through sexual fantasy by Buckingham) to an un"knowing" but more satisfying state, where it's being yourself (whatever that is) not performing a role that counts. I think that this is relevant to all of us as we perform the roles that we and those who've influenced our upbringing have created for ourselves. We can't easily escape them (and some are more hammy than others in their performance) but the knowledge that life is performative and complex is, for me, liberating.

And all that from a costume drama!