FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
STAGE BEAUTY
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
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