Where My Girls At? International Stage Edition
Saturday, August 15, 2015 at 2:05PM
Here’s Murtada checking in with a few of our favorite ladies treading the boards across the globe.
A kiss from Keira on this month's ELLEKeira Knightley in New York
What to do after securing your second Oscar nomination and having your first child the same year you turn 30? Why, make your Broadway debut of course! Starting in October Knightley will star in the Roundabout Theater’s production of Therese Raquin. The play is based on the Emile Zola novel about family, illicit love and murder. Lets hope it’s juicier than DOA recent screen adaptation, In Secret. In that version Elizabeth Olsen played Therese, but despite a stellar supporting cast - Jessica Lange and Oscar Isaac - it vanished quickly from screens.
more Keira and two Oscar winners after the jump...
For this stage adaptation there’s reason to to be hopeful. The cast includes the always fantastic Judith Light - so good on TV in Transparent - as Knightley’s mother-in-law and nemesis. And of course the main draw herself who reached a career high last year with the double punch of Begin Again and The Imitation Game. After singing gloriously on screen and stealing Game from its lead with her open hearted performance, she is ready to conquer the stage.
Pure Theatrical ViagraNicole Kidman in London
Kidman keeps busy. We’ve already seen her in one movie in 2015, she has five more in the can and plans to shoot a TV series (perhaps two) in the next few months. However it has been 17 years since she’s been on stage. In 1998 she triumphed in David Hare’s The Blue Room, so much so that the London Telegraph’s theater critic famously dubbed her “pure theatrical viagra”.
And so back to the West End she goes. In early September she reunites with director Michael Grandage for whom she just worked on film in Genius with Jude Law and Colin Firth. In Photograph 51 she plays real life British scientist Rosalind Franklin who identified how DNA is structured. The play, by writer Anna Ziegler, is about the sexism and hostility that kept Franklin out of the limelight and won her male colleagues the Nobel. Sounds like crackling material that Kidman can sink her teeth into.
Another Stoli Martini?Cate Blanchett in Sydney
Blanchett wowed us at Cannes with her superior sartorial choices. She’ll soon make us swoon, as she did the critics at Cannes, in Todd Haynes’ Carol. Currently, though, it’s curtain call time for her illustrious career at the Sydney Theater Company as she's planning a move to the US at the end of the year. And she's going out with a bang.
She opened this week in The Present, an adaptation of Chekhov's first and mostly ignored play Platonov. The part was hand crafted for her by her husband, playwright Andrew Upton, who moved the setting from the 18th century to 1990s Russia. Blanchett stars with Richard Roxburgh (Moulin Rouge) in what is being billed as a tale of “yearning, vodka and shattered dreams”. The director is Jon Crowley, of the upcoming Saoirse Ronan starrer Brooklyn, who amusingly was once attached to Carol.
Blanchett got her usual raves. The last time she performed Chekov on stage with Uncle Vanya, the production toured New York and Washington. So far there are no plans to tour, but if her last few plays are an indication, an international tour is assured.
Are you lucky enough to be seeing any of these productions?
Reader Comments (15)
I am so pleased for Knightley who proved everyone wrong.
Also Saoirse Ronan who might be up in best actress next February will be opening in the latest revival of The Crucible the day after the academy awards. The production also will star Ben Whishaw, Sophie Okenedo and Ciaran Hinds.
I will be in London for the last 10 days in November and was able to get tickets for Photograph 51's closing night. I'm f$#%*&g excited
Yep, I'm watching Kidman on 10th September.
It better be her and not the understudy or I'll hunt her down.
I'm sorry - I'm still not on board re. Knightley. I can see how she's trying, poor thing, really trying to prove she has something interesting to show about Humanity and Acting. But no matter how hard I look, I just see nothing there. In fact I'm still not convinced there's any there there. I mean how many times can one extend their jaw to signal indignation and/or half-part their mouth and make their eyes glisten while keeping their good side angled toward the lens.
Yes, I know, she was 'charming' in Begin Again and allegedly in some way memorable in 'Imitation Game' (and I would sincerely discourage any fan from bringing up "Dangerous Game" or "Anna Karenina" by way of defence). I like her in interviews and (aside from the two titles in brackets) I hardly ever see her in a movie and think she's any less than adequate. But nonetheless I look at every single one of those performances and I think back to that statement Sarah Paulson made in an interview here, along the lines of - how often it is you watch some of these staggeringly famous people take on a role and you think, if they actually had to audition for it, it's unlikely they would be playing it in the first place.
Bitterness is not a good duck on any1.She is perfect in Atonement even though the dress is doing a lot of actressing at the edges,think she is wonderful & totally unstarry,people go on about Lawrence and Woodley being relatable try KK.
Is this Kidman Top of the Lake news just a rumour?
I love that cover. It's so Brooke Shields.
Already have tickets to see Kidman in mid October... so freaking excited!
Also, how did I not know that she's going to be in the second season of Top of the Lake ?!
The cover is a mix of Brooke Shields and Cindy Crawford. Great!
Because I have no money and living far far away from Australia, I can't but just read about Blanchett\s rave
But I have seen her on stage, twice. Yup lucky me right ! Both The Maids and Streetcar. To me the Streetcar performance is the best Cate Blanchett performance ever. She was just W O W
goran: I'm kind of in that boat. She's not BAD, exactly, but she definitely has some pretty hard limits. Domino, anyone?
Keira tickets ready <3
I will die if Nicole brings this to Broadway! I have a dream she'll end up reprising Satine in the Moulin Rouge! stage show some day. Sigh.
Love seeing that 3 of my favourite actresses are doing well, and picking interesting projects.
I'm a Keira fan, I just wished I lived in New York so I could see her in person.
I am so sick of people on the internet saying "stuff" about actresses, especially calling into question their talents.
Goran - for your information she was sought out 2 previous times by the director of this production for this part - so she definitely won the audition!!
I love that TFE is so generous with theater news. Thanks, Murtada!