Rosmersholm at the Almeida – Review

On May 23, 2008April 30, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Spellbinding Performances

by Michael Billington | May 23, 2008 | The Guardian

The Ibsen boom continues. And it is a measure of our theatre’s confidence in dealing with the old Norwegian ironist that even a dark, difficult late play like this can be bathed, both in Anthony Page’s production and Mike Poulton’s new translation, in such physical and psychological light.

More than most of Ibsen’s plays, this one is about the weight of the past. Rosmer, a former pastor, is oppressed by a whole series of factors: his conservative ancestry, guilt over his wife’s suicide and loss of religious faith. But, aided by his companion, Rebecca West, he believes he can set out on a new path of missionary idealism. This, however, turns out to be a fond dream as he alienates his allies, becomes a subject of scandal, and as Rebecca turns out to be haunted by incestuous demons.

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Damian Lewis Flashbacks of a Fool Interviews Personal and Family Life Print Media Rosmersholm

Helen McCrory: The Importance of Being Sex

On April 12, 2008May 13, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Helen McCrory likes to speak her mind. A lot.

by Maureen Patton | April 12, 2008 | Daily Mail

Helen McCrory

Hold on to your hats as the natural heir to Judi Dench and Maggie Smith spells out exactly why she won’t do stage and screen nudity.

“I don’t want to sign for a job that I have to have a bikini wax for,” says Helen, who persuaded the director of BBC’s 2003 drama series Charles II to ditch the full-frontals before she would agree to play the sexually voracious Countess of Castlemaine.

For as she puts it, “sex is all in the brain”.

Life’s not all froth for award-winning actress Helen McCrory. Married to handsome actor Damian Lewis, she appears to have it all…

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As You Like It Print Media Reviews

As You Like It at Wyndham’s Theatre – Review

On June 22, 2005April 30, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Call off the phones : Sienna Miller as Celia and Helen McCrory as Rosalind in As You Like It

Michael Billington | June 22, 2005 | The Guardian

Hymen sings of “most strange events” and this is certainly one of them: a piece of star-driven, West End Shakespeare full of whimsical absurdities and coarse acting. Yet I can forgive almost everything for the sake of a Rosalind as vibrant and compelling as Helen McCrory.

But let’s start with the bad news. David Lan has chosen to set the action in France in the 1940s. This means the show starts with accordions and berets, though mercifully without an onion-seller on a bicycle. Rosalind and Celia (Sienna Miller) exchange court news while sitting in the kind of cafe supposedly frequented by Jean-Paul Sartre. And, when the action moves to the country, we discover the banished Duke has gone into exile with a four-strong musical combo as if he were on leave from the Café de Paris rather than a political refugee.

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As You Like It

As You Like It at Wyndhams Theatre – Review

On June 21, 2005October 25, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

As I like it

By Nicholas de Jongh | June 21, 2005 | The Evening Standard

I like to be nicely shocked at the theatre, and David Lan duly satisfies by giving As You Like It a sharp but appropriate Gallic make-over. Here in high heels, highish humour and a slinky, little black dress, comes Shakespeare’s wittiest heroine, Helen McCrory’s flirtatious Rosalind.

She is first seen sipping red wine with Sienna Miller’s bland, blonde Celia, in a Parisian café and, judging by the girls’ Hollywood hair, the post-war Forties. Lan has hit upon the brilliant notion of transporting Shakespeare’s sexually ambiguous comedy of love and misunderstanding to France and post-war Paris.

The notion fits like a sleek, fashionable glove. Shakespeare after all peppers the play with French place-names. The post-war Paris of Jean Paul Sartre, Simone Signoret and Edith Piaf revelled in an atmosphere of philosophical speculation, melancholia and bitter-sweet romantic songs.

As You Like It

Mad About The Girls

On June 15, 2005October 25, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Forget Juliet: Shakespeare’s real women are in ‘As You Like It’, as Sienna Miller and Helen McCrory will prove

Paul Taylor | June 15, 2005 | The Independent

Rosalind in As You Like It is the longest female part in Shakespeare, and once the character gets into the Forest of Arden and into male disguise, she acquires a freedom of emotional manoeuvre far greater than that of any of the other cross-dressed heroines in the canon. She has been called the “consciousness” of the comedy, a compliment that would never be paid to Viola in Twelfth Night, say, or Portia in The Merchant of Venice.

The androgynous focus of desire when in masculine mufti, she also offers the supreme instance in Shakespeare of the way that men should rely on the superior emotional intelligence of women. It’s a plum role but clearly also a daunting one. In the courtship game that Rosalind, in her alias of Ganymede, plays with Orlando, she has somehow to be up to her neck in the scenario she stage-manages and at a critically perceptive remove from it.