| Many people have compared Stage Beauty to Shakespeare In Love with quite good reason. Both involve period costume and the role of women in acting society. However, I personally fell, that is where most of the similarities end, unless you count the leads sleeping with each other in both. Stage Beauty is set in the reign of Charles II and more specifically when it became legal for women to act on the stage. The film centres on Ned Kynaston (Billy Crudup) and his dresser Maria (Claire Danes). Kynaston is an actor who plays women on the stage. The specific play within the film is Othello; with Kynaston playing �the most beautiful� Desdemona Samuel Pepys has ever seen. Maria adores Kynaston, but has aims of becoming an actress herself, despite its illegality. It is from her performance of Desdemona in a pub, that the new law enabling women to act is put into action.
What follows in the film is both comical and sad by parts. Kynaston is beaten up by disgruntled nobles, and proceeds to lose his job on the stage. Throughout its runtime, the film remains entertaining and engaging. The settings and costumes are sumptuous and the supporting cast of English actors wonderful. Rupert Everett makes a fantastic Charles II. This film is well worth watching.
|
