STAGE BEAUTY
Directed by: Richard Eyre.
Produced by: Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal & Hardy Justice.
Written by: Jeffrey Hatcher, based on his play Compleat Female Stage Beauty.
Director of Photography: Andrew Dunn.
Edited by: Tariq Anwar.
Music by: George Fenton.
Released by: Lions Gate.
Country of Origin: UK. 105 min. Rated: R.
With: Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Rupert Everett, Tom Wilkinson & Ben Chaplin.

In the last scene of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen predicts her love story will be the subject of ballads and the boards: "Antony shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness i' th' posture of a whore." She is referring to the young male actors who portrayed women on the Elizabethan stage. For a male actor playing Cleopatra in her death scene and making a joke at his and other actors' expense, he must have been more than convincing as a woman. Otherwise, not only would the joke have backfired, but to break character at that tragic moment would not have been desirable.

Billy Crudup portrays actor Ned Kynaston, who won acclaim for his beauty and talent from diarist Samuel Pepys. Set during the Restoration, Kynaston's career is curtailed when King Charles II lifts the ban on women performing on the stage and forbids men from playing women (this is not quite historically accurate). Adding insult to injury, Kynaston's dresser Maria (Claire Danes) steals his moves (as well as his clothes), becoming the first actress of the London stage. Perhaps film is too literal a medium for an earnest comedy/drama about a gender bender (Jaye Davidson and Hilary Swank exempted). As played by Crudup with a high-pitched, faltering voice, Kynaston's actual gender is never in question. Intriguingly, he is the favorite of the Duke of Buckingham and is pursued by the ladies, who are even more aroused by Kynaston when he is in drag. But unfortunately, the film turns into a conventional romantic comedy as Kynaston and Maria must work together to save each other's careers. More hopeful than determined, Danes is unconvincing as the toast of London.

Stage Beauty should appeal to fans of Shakespeare in Love. There is even a climax where the show must go on. But unlike Shakespeare, there isn't as much at stake. Instead, Kynaston and Maria introduce the Stanislavsky's Method to Restoration audiences, with Kynaston as Othello and Maria as Desdemona. Taking a cue from A Double Life, Kynaston becomes so unhinged that the audience fears he may actually kill his Desdemona. Dangerous and indulgent behavior, not illusions, save the day. Kent Turner
October 6, 2004