Stage Beauty
- Synopsis
- Feature film. London in the 1660s, and a declaration from King Charles II (Rupert Everett) legalising female actors puts the girl-boy specialist Ned Kynaston (Billy Crudup) out of a job. His former dresser and aspiring actress Maria (Claire Danes) now becomes a star while Kynaston is reduced to appearing in dingy drag clubs. Maria asks Kynaston to coach her and they make a triumphant comeback in a production of Othello. A heavy handed, and unsubtle romp described by critic Philip French as ‘Tootsie with a periwig and without the jokes’.
- Language
- English
- Country
- Germany; Great Britain; United States
- Medium
- Film
- Technical information
- Colour / Sound
- Year of release
- 2004
- Duration
- 110 mins; 9,912 feet
Credits
- Director
- Richard Eyre
- Producer
- Hardy Justice; Jane Rosenthal; Robert De Niro
- Cinematographer
- Andrew Dunn
- Screenplay
- Jeffery Hatcher
- Music
- George Fenton
- Costume
- Tim Hatley
- Art Direction
- Jan Spoczynski; Keith Slote
- Cast
Billy Crudup Edward ‘Ned’ Kynaston (Othello) Claire Danes Maria (Desdemona) Rupert Everett King Charles II
Additional Details
- Production type
- Fiction Films
- Historical period
- 17th Century
- Plays
- Othello
- Subjects
- Drama
- Keywords
- gender representation; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); All-male casts; Elizabethan stage
Notes
- Reviews
- Reviewed by Philip French in The Observer (5 September 2004) and in Sight and Sound, vol. 14, no. 10, October 2004, p. 67-8.
Burt, Richard ‘Backstage Pass(ing): Stage Beauty, Othello and the Make-Up of Race’ in Burnett, Mark Thornton & Wray, Ramona (eds) Screening Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. pp53-71.
Production Company
- Name
Tribeca
How to cite this record
Shakespeare, "Stage Beauty". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/shakespeare/search/index.php/title/av36803 (Accessed 18 Sep 2024)