Mostly written off as a lesser version of Shakespeare in Love, Richard Eyre’s Stage Beauty, based on Jeffrey Hatcher‘s play (he also wrote the screenplay), is a singular criticism on celebrity and the lengths performers go to inhabit their roles that stands out in its own right. It’s also a somewhat bold examination of sexuality and what it means to be sexual, whether it be homo or hetero.

Billy Crudup stars as Ned Kynaston, a marquee performer on the 17th century London stage. Kynaston’s fame comes from his portrayal of women characters, most of them tragic Shakespearean beauties. His current star turn is as Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello. His femininity is admired by all, especially Maria (Claire Danes), Kynaston’s dresser. In fact, Maria admires Kynaston’s performance so much that she stars as Desdemona herself, in secret, on the stage of an underground theater essentially mimicking Kynaston’s mannerisms.

A woman playing a woman is unheard of, until Maria is exposed that is. Instead of being arrested, however, the king (Rupert Everett) is impressed by the feat and, with some convincing from his ambitious mistress, decrees that women, from now on, will play women on the stage. In one fell swoop, Kynaston is out of a job.

But, of course, it’s not just losing a job for Kynaston. It’s losing a sense of identity. Picked off the streets by a theater owner years before, young Kynaston was taught to be a woman, act like a woman, cry like a woman, love like a woman. Supplicate and suffer like a woman. With all this has come a homosexuality in Kynaston built from nurture rather than nature. His lover, the Duke of Buckingham George Villiars (Ben Chaplin), ignores him after his role is taken away. When Kynaston confronts Villars, the explanation is simple: “when we were together, we were on a stage and you were in a wig… I always thought of you as woman.” Kynaston is hurt and confused by this assured rationale. He’s perhaps most hurt and confused because he sympathizes with his ex-lover – who is Ned Kynaston if not the women he plays on the stage?

Crudup offers the kind of exciting, ambitious performance that is praised on the stage and considered overwrought on the screen. This schism is a strange one, something of a victim of the introverted, method style popularized by Brando and De Niro and Pacino in the 60s and 70s and now upheld by the Goslings and Daniel Day-Lewis’s of the world. That said, Stage Beauty, as a whole, is something more comfortable on the stage than the screen. It lacks the general comedy of Shakespeare in Love or the populist tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. This is a film that, much like Crudup’s Kynaston, is obsessed with the stage, excited by the innocence of female against the brutality of male and interested in exploring what it means to be stuck between the two.

Danes’ Maria, in trying to pick up where Kynaston left off, soon realizes that she is not a talented actress, but merely a celebrity. Only because she is the first woman performer is she awarded a curious audience. As the two leads clash, so do the two themes (celebrity and sexuality) and, unfortunately, both suffer in terms of exposure. And as the chemistry between Ned and Maria develops, Eyre loses focuses in the questions already asked. That said, the climax, a penultimate performance of Othello, brings everything back to the forefront, confirming the beauty of Shakespeare’s words and the talent of Crudup and Danes.

The film, upon its release, was criticized for its treating homosexuality as something to be cured. And while this is a controversial character arc, the context must be remembered. Kynaston is a man trained to be feminine, not born to be so, just as Danes’ Maria is not born to be an actress but tries at it anyway. The difference between the two conflicts comes through in the final scene: good acting can be taught, sexual preference cannot.

Let the debating begin.

Have you seen Stage Beauty? What do you think of its message? Execution?

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