The early 1660s were a crucial period in the history of the English theatre. The London theatres had all been closed by the Puritans in 1642, and did not reopen until the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660. At this period women were still forbidden from acting on the public stage, so all female parts were played by male actors, just as they had been ever since Shakespeare's day. In about 1662, however, the law was changed to allow women to act in public, and the day of the "boy player" taking female parts was at an end.
One of the two main characters in "Stage Beauty" is Edward Kynaston, who was a real-life individual. Kynaston was an actor of the period, who was said to have been a young man of exceptional beauty and was famed for his portrayal of female roles such as Desdemona in Shakespeare's "Othello". The other main character is his stage-struck dresser Maria, who harbours secret ambitions to go on the stage. When the King alters the law, under the influence of his mistress Nell Gwyn who herself has ambitions to become an actress, Maria gets her big chance. Soon, however, a further change in the law forbids men from playing women's parts, and Kynaston finds his livelihood under threat. A further complication is that he and Maria fall in love, even though he has previously been homosexual.
This plot involves a few liberties with the historical facts. Kynaston implies that he has been trained all his life to specialise in female parts, rather like the onnagata of classical Japanese theatre, and that he will lose his livelihood if he is forbidden to do this. In fact, Kynaston was born around 1640 and would only have been a young child when the theatres were closed, so would not have received any specialised training in acting. The normal convention in the theatre of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was that female parts were played by adolescent boys who normally graduated to playing male roles in their late teens. During the period 1660-62 the real Kynaston played both male and female roles, and after 1662 had a long and successful career playing male characters only. He would have been around 20 years old in 1660, much younger than Billy Crudup who was 36 when the film was made. (The film takes a generally cavalier approach to the ages of historical characters: King Charles II, 30 years old at the time of the Restoration, is played by the 45 year old Rupert Everett, and the poet Charles Sedley, only 21 in 1660, is played by the 57 year old Richard Griffith!)
There is, of course, a reason for these liberties. The film is ostensibly a light-hearted, bawdy Restoration romp, but it does try to raise some Big Questions, about social class, about the relationship between acting and real life, and about sexuality and gender roles. The main idea it explores (which will be a controversial one in some quarters, particularly among the gay community) is that sexual orientation is not an innate part of one's character but rather a social construct, something forced on one by the culture and conventions of one's society, and because the known facts about the seventeenth-century theatre do not altogether accord with this thesis, they have to be altered to make them fit. The suggestion is that Kynaston's homosexuality is connected with his feminine on-stage persona, that he is essentially acting out a role off-stage as well as on. When a change in the law forces him to act out a male role on-stage, his off-stage personality also changes and he finds himself falling in love with a woman for the first time.
I never found this aspect of the film convincing. Much of the reason for this lay with the casting. Claire Danes was rather dull as Maria, and I could never believe in Crudup as Kynaston. He is handsome enough, but in a rugged, masculine way- not the sort of man who could ever convincingly impersonate a woman. The role called not only for a younger actor but also one with a more androgynous, almost feminine beauty. The attempt to explore serious themes was never well integrated with the more comic aspects of the film; "Carry On" type romps are not the best vehicles for an exploration of gender issues.
There are certain similarities with "Shakespeare in Love", which dealt with the London theatre of the 1590s and also featured a woman acting on stage, and also with "Singin' in the Rain", which dealt with an equally momentous period in the history of the cinema, the coming of sound. It is not, however, in the same class as either of those films. As a mildly bawdy historical comedy it is amusing enough, but as serious historical, psychological or sociological analysis it never succeeds. 5/10
One of the two main characters in "Stage Beauty" is Edward Kynaston, who was a real-life individual. Kynaston was an actor of the period, who was said to have been a young man of exceptional beauty and was famed for his portrayal of female roles such as Desdemona in Shakespeare's "Othello". The other main character is his stage-struck dresser Maria, who harbours secret ambitions to go on the stage. When the King alters the law, under the influence of his mistress Nell Gwyn who herself has ambitions to become an actress, Maria gets her big chance. Soon, however, a further change in the law forbids men from playing women's parts, and Kynaston finds his livelihood under threat. A further complication is that he and Maria fall in love, even though he has previously been homosexual.
This plot involves a few liberties with the historical facts. Kynaston implies that he has been trained all his life to specialise in female parts, rather like the onnagata of classical Japanese theatre, and that he will lose his livelihood if he is forbidden to do this. In fact, Kynaston was born around 1640 and would only have been a young child when the theatres were closed, so would not have received any specialised training in acting. The normal convention in the theatre of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was that female parts were played by adolescent boys who normally graduated to playing male roles in their late teens. During the period 1660-62 the real Kynaston played both male and female roles, and after 1662 had a long and successful career playing male characters only. He would have been around 20 years old in 1660, much younger than Billy Crudup who was 36 when the film was made. (The film takes a generally cavalier approach to the ages of historical characters: King Charles II, 30 years old at the time of the Restoration, is played by the 45 year old Rupert Everett, and the poet Charles Sedley, only 21 in 1660, is played by the 57 year old Richard Griffith!)
There is, of course, a reason for these liberties. The film is ostensibly a light-hearted, bawdy Restoration romp, but it does try to raise some Big Questions, about social class, about the relationship between acting and real life, and about sexuality and gender roles. The main idea it explores (which will be a controversial one in some quarters, particularly among the gay community) is that sexual orientation is not an innate part of one's character but rather a social construct, something forced on one by the culture and conventions of one's society, and because the known facts about the seventeenth-century theatre do not altogether accord with this thesis, they have to be altered to make them fit. The suggestion is that Kynaston's homosexuality is connected with his feminine on-stage persona, that he is essentially acting out a role off-stage as well as on. When a change in the law forces him to act out a male role on-stage, his off-stage personality also changes and he finds himself falling in love with a woman for the first time.
I never found this aspect of the film convincing. Much of the reason for this lay with the casting. Claire Danes was rather dull as Maria, and I could never believe in Crudup as Kynaston. He is handsome enough, but in a rugged, masculine way- not the sort of man who could ever convincingly impersonate a woman. The role called not only for a younger actor but also one with a more androgynous, almost feminine beauty. The attempt to explore serious themes was never well integrated with the more comic aspects of the film; "Carry On" type romps are not the best vehicles for an exploration of gender issues.
There are certain similarities with "Shakespeare in Love", which dealt with the London theatre of the 1590s and also featured a woman acting on stage, and also with "Singin' in the Rain", which dealt with an equally momentous period in the history of the cinema, the coming of sound. It is not, however, in the same class as either of those films. As a mildly bawdy historical comedy it is amusing enough, but as serious historical, psychological or sociological analysis it never succeeds. 5/10