The Smell Of The Greasepaint

[poliphilo]

I've never been much of a theatre goer. If I'm honest I find theatre disappointing. 

I wish I'd seen Olivier on stage. I really do. Maybe then I'd have understood why he's supposed to be so great. 

I saw Alec Guinness in one of Alan Bennett's plays about spies. It was awfully talky. I remember the verbal music and a wonderful twitchy, mini-nervous breakdown thing he did at the end.

I saw Antony Hopkins as Lear. Not very good. Hopkins admitted afterwards he really didn't understand what he was doing. The best thing in that production was Anna Massey's Goneril.

 Dorothy Tutin and Alec McCowen as Antony and Cleopatra. Both of them woefully miscast. That's the nearest I've come to falling asleep during a show.

Charlton Heston in the Caine Mutiny, Lauren Bacall in Sweet Bird of Youth:  just because you can fill the screen doesn't mean you can hold the stage.

Good experiences? David Warner's Hamlet- and a sexy, greenwoody As You Like It in Manchester with Janet McTeer as Rosalind.

Comments

[sculptruth.livejournal.com]

Do you think the actors who have successfully crossed from one to the other had previous theatre experience before starring in movies? I'm thinking of Ian McKellan and Catherine Zeta Jones, as examples; but I don't know McKellan's history for certain.

Film is simply an entirely different medium. I wish I went out to see more plays...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes- McKellen was a star of the British stage long before he broke into movies. He's generally regarded as the best Shakespearean actor of his generation.

Can I recommend the film of Macbeth with the young McKellen and Judy Dench? It's a record of an RSC stage production and- to my mind- just about as good as it gets.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

I agree about McKellen. I saw him do Richard the III at the National when I worked there he was awesome in that as well.
And now he triumphs in Panto - What a guy!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And- from all I've read about him- a delightful personality. He did a charming turn- making fun of himself- in Ricky Gervais's TV show Extras.

[sculptruth.livejournal.com]

I will take you up on that recommendation, absolutely!