I saw this film for the first time years ago, but I revisited it recently. While it definitely shows its age, it’s also an interesting story about a fascinating time in theatrical history.
In the 1660s, London’s leading lady onstage is Ned Kynaston. He’s renowned for his Shakespeare performances and is currently bringing the house down as Desdemona. But his dresser Maria upends the entire theatre scene when she plays Desdemona (illegally) in a ramshackle production at an impromptu theatre. Her performance, along with shifting attitudes and a mistress who has the king’s ear, is poised to allow women on the English stage, while in turn cutting off the careers of “pretty boys” like Ned.
Although the major players here were all real people and the story aligns with basic history, the film is heavily dramatized—for instance, while Ned Kynaston was working as an actor when the first actress graced the London stage, I’ve seen nothing to suggest that she was his backstage dresser. I’m assuming most of the story itself is made up, keeping the beats of historical fact while prioritizing its own themes and narrative twists.
But with that in mind, it’s still an interesting film. I like seeing the ecosystem of the theatre scene at this time: actors chasing fame, actors pursuing craft, aficionados hungry for theatrical innovation, socialites attending plays largely to be seen in the audience, and a king whose word can make or break a production. Although women perform onstage in other countries—one naysayer derisively points out that it can’t be moral if the French are doing it, for heaven’s sake!—it’s so revolutionary at the time in England that people are perplexed and a little scandalized by the very word “actress.”
However, women are eager for the chance to show what they can do on the stage, and the very same religious leaders who used to argue that women onstage were “harlots” are now insinuating that it’s “queer” to have men play the women’s roles. In other words, while Ned once benefited from the judgment and policing of women’s bodies, those same suspicious eyes are now being cast on him, and women in the theatre are now viewed as the “moral” option.
There’s a lot in the film about these larger debates and shifts in society, but understandably, much of the drama remains centered on the personal lives of Ned and Maria. We see Maria creating a sensation on the stage but struggling to know whether she’s actually any good as an actress or if people are just eager for the novelty of seeing a Real Live Woman!! onstage. Meanwhile, Ned, who was trained from his youth to speak, move, and act like a lady, is told in no uncertain terms that, if he wants to keep acting, he’s going to need to learn how to play men. He feels betrayed by Maria, who in turn resents the way he tries to gatekeep the stage from her. The very nature of events has them at odds for much of the film, but the latter part of the movie sees them coming together for a dramatic third act.
Billy Crudup plays Ned, and I’m of two minds about his performance. Parts of it feel very artificial, and while some of that is intentional—onstage, Ned performs his idea of what it means to be a woman, not what a woman actually is—it holds the character a bit at arm’s length for me. There are scenes where Crudup/Ned drops the artifice and I’m able to connect with him, and I wish I could’ve seen more of that throughout the film. Claire Danes does a nice job as Maria, a determined young woman who acts just as much in her “performance” of moving through the upper echelons of society as she does onstage. The film also features Rupert Everett as King Charles II, Tom Wilkinson, and Hugh Bonneville, and there are brief appearances from Fenella Woolgar and the late Richard Griffiths.
Warnings
Sexual content, violence (including attempted rape,) blackface (in the context of onstage performance of Othello,) language (including sexist and homophobic slurs,) drinking/smoking, and thematic elements.
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