Stage Beauty
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Movie Reviews of Stage Beauty
Movie Review: A perfectly well rounded movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one you will have to see. You will either like it or not. It's pretty much that simple. I thought it was one of the best movies I have ever seen. Wonderfully acted. Funny and sad all at once.Movie Review: Riveting Masterpiece!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I adore period pieces and this is by far exceptional!!! Evokes a spectrum of emotions and definitely keeps you guessing as to what will happen next!!! Highly recommend this one!!!Movie Review: A film about cultural versus biological identity
Summary: 5 Stars
Stage Beauty is an excellent story about the cultural influences on gender identity. Billy Crudup and Claire Danes give tremendous performances.Movie Review: I thought she really died during the play.
Summary: 5 Stars
Great movie, very funny and at the same time it's a bit Disturbing(the Ned "guy" got some serious issues).Movie Review: Restoration Themes tainted by Hollywood Formulas
Summary: 4 Stars
Are masculinity and feminity "natural" categories that provide individuals with stable identities, or are masculinity and femininity fictional roles that individuals are socially coerced to perform?
These are interesting questions but really STAGE BEAUTY is not really interested in entering into any kind of debate or causing anything resembling controversy so it contents itself with examining one man's identity crisis and buries the notion that all of the genders and sexualities portrayed might just be socially coerced performances. No one in STAGE BEAUTY seems to be perfectly comfortable with their gendered identities and the politically correct sexuality that goes along with it, however, everyone (except Kynaston played by Billy Crudup)is fairly good at acting like they know just who they are sexually and just what they desire in a mate.
To its credit STAGE BEAUTY is interested in transgression but it is also interested in being an entertainment and so its moments of transgression are (cleverly or cowardly, depending upon your point of view) almost always presented as moments of comedic trespass.
For instance, the pair of giggling young society girls can be attracted to Kynaston so long as "he" stays in character as a woman and they can veil their sexual interest in "him" by pretending to believe that he really is a "she" and that their interest is strictly social. When this veil of propriety drops away, as we know it inevitably will, and the girls openly admit that their interest is more than just social the scene is still recuperable as just a couple of sexually curious girls having some laughs. Just what the young girls curiosity/fantasies might be (it is not certain whether Kynaston being a man or a woman would prove the bigger turn on) is anyone's guess. In any event the gender confusion is diffused in laughter and as a result the real issues (nature of gender, desire, fantasy) get buried within the comedy. And whatever thoughts/confusions we may have about this encounter are compounded by the entrance, at the tail end of this scene, of the fop (a stock character in Restoration comedy known for his extravagnt dress, wigs and affected speech; and also for his indeterminate sexuality)who propositions all three "ladies" and whose sexual interest in Kynaston does not abate when he discovers that "she" is really a "he". Later in the film there will be real repercussions for these transgressions but while they happen they are played for laughs. At times the film promises to delve into gender and sexuality issues but it repeatedly shies away from these themes each time it brings them up.
In Restoration comedy the extravagant rake and fop (stock characters in many Restoration comedies ) can show an interest in both sexes but they only do so (at least in this film) so long as their interest in males is veiled as an interest in females. In other words Kynaston's lover, the rakish Duke of Buckinghman (played by Ben Chaplin), despite his love affair with the male actor, still perceives himself to be straight (to use a contemporary designation) because he is only interested in Kynaston while Kynaston is acting the part of a woman. Whether this is true or whether the Duke is simply performing in private one identity and in public another (and whether either of these can be said to be "real" or "natural" or "authentic")is debatable. What is not debatable is the fact that sodomy was a hangable offense in the 1670's ( a fact that the film never mentions), and even though the rakish libertine or celebrity actor or actress might be above the law in certain respects the courts were not the only arbiter of "moral" justice--the mob was less reluctant to punish a transgressive aristocrat or stage celebrity than the courts. Thus even if one takes the view that all identity (public or private) is a performance, some performances can be viewed to be coerced by convention, by law, and by public opinion. This was a time in which transgression held an irresistable allure and danger and one in which noble women as well as prostitutes often wore masks when attending the public theatre (and it was often difficult to tell which was which). It is also a period in stage history when the actresses on stage often were considered to be little more than prostitutes. In order to present Claire Danes as an innocent spectator just absorbing the ambience of the theatre until she gets her big chance the film has to steer clear of a lot of interesting and lewd history. Nell Gwynn, the Kings mistress, would become one of the most famous actresses of her day. Though Kynaston was a real person, Maria (played by Claire Danes), the dresser and would-be actress, is an invention--scholars still cannot determine who exactly was the first English stage actress. And this character never really feels like anything but an anachronism. Claire Danes is a fine actress but her bright and cheery manner, her confident though subdued sexuality, and her super-sensitive and wholesome womanliness, feel like she is just there to keep things in the realm of the safe and the familiar. If she can understand and sympathize with the self-aggrandizing, vain, and narcissistic Kynaston (the filmmakers seem to say) then so can we. Though some representations of masculinity and femininty are presented for critique, the notion of feminity that Claire Danes represents is offered as a natural version of femininity. Even though he is arguably not quite the right actor (I don't think anyone is going to mistake Crudup for a lady) for this role Billy Crudup does a terrific job with the part and though we never quite like Kynaston as a person we can't help but want to see him through his dilemna.
This is also a period of time in which the public and the private were beginning to be viewed as separate spheres. And each of the characters in this play view the stage and the stage version of "self" and/or "beauty" in their own way. Betterton (played by Tom Wilkinson), the lead actor and leader of the company, has no problem distinguising between his public and private persona. And the King (played whimically by Rupert Everett) and his mistress are apparently fond of donning each others clothes on a private stage for fun. Kynaston, however, has a hard time making the distinction between his on-stage and off-stage selves. He does view his "femininity" as an act and yet it is an act that he has played in public for so long that, by force of habit, this performance has become a reality or identity for him. And when we see him in private he is never certain what or who "he" is. Therefore when a law is passed by the King that men shall no longer play women on stage, Kynaston experiences not only a professional but a personal identity crisis as well.
Kynaston's dresser Maria shows a sexual interest in him from the beginning and, eventually, she will become the first woman to play a woman's part on the English stage and she does so, ironically, by expropriating Kynastons affected femininity. I think the fact that Claire Danes is copying Billy Crudup's verion of femininity is funny to contemporary audiences for obvious reasons but that interesting thesis evident in so many early scenes (that gender may well be an act; that all people may not be all feminine or all masculine but an interesting blend of both) gets lost when the film ceases to be about anything but a romance between two attractive stars, Danes and Crudup. The formulas of the entertainments of our own day (love interest a necessity to have a hit in a Hollywood production), therefore, are always competing and interfering with this films attempt to examine the gender and entertainment formulas of another time period.
And the final scene where Kynaston attempts to play that most masculine of male roles, Othello, to the dresser's Desdemona transgresses in another way. Restoration drama was all about theatricality and the theatricality on the stage commented on the theatricality of society. The stage was a place where the constraints of social norms and forms, as well as the eternal battle between reason and the passions, could be examined. In keeping with the theme of the film it would seem that what we should get in this final perfomance of Othello is some comment about socially coerced gender roles. STAGE BEAUTY,in this final scene, however, forgets what its about and it forgets what time period it is examining and instead of socially and theatrically embedded characters and performances we get a comment on the relationship between fake violence and real violence (it would seem that when you really try to kill someone it is much more real than when you just fake it). You could argue that this scene is meant to be a comment on the realtionship between real life and the stage (and it is to a certain extent that) but if it is that then the film is saying that men should play men parts and women women parts because only then can the stage approach the "realism" to which it aspires. But then that really solves nothing because it just means that what audiences want from a theatrical performance is just a simulation of the real and not a comment or critique on the nature of the real (or the fact that what we experience as "natural" or "real" is mediated by culture and society). By most accounts the audiences of the 1660's were a very sophisticated coterie of aristocrats and wealthy citizens and we can presume that they were interested in more than just the thrill of simulated death scenes. Anyway "realism" and/or "naturalism" have never been the aristocrat's forte. What the arsitocrats presumably wanted were penetrating, albeit theatricalized for effect, glimpses of themselves. And for the most part that is what restoration playwrites gave them. Shakespeare was not particularly respected by Restoration playwrites--they perceived his naturalism to be coarse and vulger and much preferred their own artful affectation (wich they considered to be a "second" and superior nature)-- and so they rewrote his plays to "improve" them and make them suitable for (what they perceived to be) their own much more sophisticated tastes. The new ending of Othello, however, provided by Hatcher/Eyre seems more geared toward Hollywood tastes and expectations than geared toward a Restoration audiences tastes and expectations. Restoration audiences were not immune to the allure of melodrama and sensual demostration but the melodramatic acting technique displayed by these actors, the realism or raw emoting, or whatever Hatcher/Eyre were going for does not fit the period's ideas about acting and the role of the actor. The trumped up Hollywood death scene/murder scene that is not a death scene/ murder scene destroys any period specific integrity the film may have had and erases what the film purported to be about. And the fact that these two characters faun over each other after the real onstage violence is inexplicable. I am still uncertain with my own interpretation of the ending.
To give the film every benefit of the doubt I would say that the ending is meant to show that Kynaston finally learned to find the beauty in playing a man (or found the beauty in the role of Othello as well as in the role he formerly played, Desdemona). But this is a problematic ending which resolves nothing of Kynaston's own gender and sexual confusions--unless it means that he has finally become comfortable playing either male or female roles. However, reading the ending this way does not explain the onstage violence (unless we view it as an act of generosity to his co-star and the audience: the real violence generated a real response from his co-star who otherwise could not act, a performance to which the audience responded positively). But that seems a ridiculous and implausible explanation. I think the movie wants us to believe that Kynaston was carried away by the moment and that he was working out his own issues while playing Othello. This reading of the ending would suggest that Kynaston's style of acting was a kind of psychodrama. And it would also suggest that he has finally found a part that he can really sink his teeth into, and it would suggest that the reason he can sink his teeth into it is because it is a male role. But this would not be consistent with earlier claims in the film and so it would make the film thematically inconsistent. Or, you could read the ending to mean that Kynaston can only be a person on stage and that no matter what part he is performing that is who he becomes. This sounds absurd but at least it has the merit of remaining consistent with earlier claims about the performative nature of identity made in the film. And it also remains consistent with Kynaston's final statements about still not knowing who he is. Maybe on the stage-in the heat of a performance--is the only place where he can find beauty and identity.
Another interpretation of the ending might go like this: Kynaston has confused life and art; as well as confused his private and public identity. In murdering Desdemona he is murdering his former self or attempting to. The murder would thus be a symbolic act, a ritual purging of his former role/self-- perhaps in an attempt to be reborn, publicly, on stage, as a male actor capable of playing men. If he doesn't actually kill her it is because he finally realizes that there is a difference between life and art and between public and private performances. But if this is the case then it would seem that Claire Danes' character is ok with the fact that he had to almost kill her to arrive at such a revelation. The audience's final gasp is one of relief that Maria is still alive and exasperation at this brilliantly acted new ending of the play that was, for once, a total surprise.
In real life Kynaston made the adjustment, changed with the times,and enjoyed success in male roles (at one point he played a female lead in a play one week and the male lead in the same play the next week).
The film is so unusual and this period is so interesting that I would recommend it even with its peculiar failings and anachronisms.
Whatever interpretation you come up with, the ending is vague at best. Perhaps it is the result of trying to wrestle with both Restoration era credibilty and Hollywood market realites.