Review of Stage Beauty (2004) by Edith N — 24 Apr 2008

No. Naturalistic acting was not used until [i]well[/i] after the death of Charles II. When depends on whom you ask. However, not during the reign of the (yes, foppish, and yes, vaguely fey) Charles II. (The bastards do get a mention; you can't really have a proper Charles without them.) And so we end our story, or perhaps begin it, with anachronism. Still, there reached a day where the English (still not quite British) decided that women should play women on the stage, and men should play men, and the two should not cross. And standing on the gap, we have Ned Kynaston (Billy Crudup) and Maria (Claire Danes)--Mrs. Margaret Hughes, though not credited as such.

When the film starts, Maria is Kynaston's dresser. She enables him to sneak off with female admirers after his performance as Desdemona, more on whom anon. Once that's accomplished, she bags some of his props and costume bits and flees to another theatre, where she herself plays the wilting, put-upon Venetian. This is, in fact, highly illegal. However, her noble admirers get Charles II to permit women on the stage, to allow women to act women's parts. Then, dangerously, Ned offends Nell Gwynne, the king's primary mistress--"the Protestant whore," she called herself once. Nell knows best how to avenge herself--she has it made illegal for this man, for [i]any[/i] man, to play a woman on the English stage.

What's interesting is that the whole thing is based on a passing mention of Ned Kynaston in Samuel Pepys' diary. There's also the creation of a difficult time for all involved--women had not learned to act, especially not in the stylized, overblown acting that was the fashion at the time. Further, the men [i]had[/i] learned all that stylized femininity, which isn't real femininity [i]or[/i] anything to pose as masculinity with. One would have hoped for the naturalistic overturn of acting, but it would not come for another couple of hundred years.

The moment that caught me involved the pair of them learning from each other what a man and a woman were in various positions. (No pun intended.) He teaches her the gestures. The poses. And then, and then, and then. He spoils it, because he still hasn't become a person. He is still an actor. He is still a [i]Desdemona[/i], and he cannot connect with another performer without talking shop, and it simply doesn't matter how intimate the moment. It doesn't matter that it's lovely, pale, lithe Clair Danes. What matters is that she might contribute to a performance--it does not, in fact, even matter that it's a performance he cannot legally give.

And Desdemona? Oh, I hate her. Maria's right. A proper woman should have fought back. I'm not saying that no woman would have so passively accepted her own death. I'm saying it [i]bothers[/i] me that she does. Desdemona's been wronged. Greatly. But she cannot convince her husband of this, and only partly because of the towering rage he's in. It is greatly because she doesn't really try. Ned plays a Desdemona who wouldn't try. Maria plays one who can't do it.