The Ides of March

Photos:

• Playbill has posted this adorable photo of Ms Ehle with Richard Easton at the unveiling of Jack O'Brien's caricature at Sardi's Restaurant. There is also a photo of Amy Irving with Tom Stoppard. (Must have been a fun mini-Utopian reunion!)
• You can also see larger versions of the photos we posted last time (courtesy of Wire Image) by going to Getty Images (search "Jennifer Ehle").

News:

• This is just hearsay at the moment, but the folks at silksoundbooks have told us that they hope to record more audiobooks with Jennifer Ehle later in the year. That would be fabulous! (If you've listened to Washington Square, pray tell us your thoughts at the forum).

Before the Rains:

• The sad news is that yesterday would have been the release date for Pride and Glory had it not been postponed until 2009. The good news is that Before the Rains is scheduled to be released in the US in May. According to Screen India:

  [...] Films with Indian themes shot on Indian locations and tinged with an international flavour are gaining cross-over acceptance. Taking the lead here is top-rated cinematographer turned director Santosh Sivan’s fifth film, Before The Rains . . . Roadside Attractions will release Before The Rains on May 9th in New York and Los Angeles and then expand over the subsequent two weeks into over twenty US cities. [...]

• India Glitz reports more of the same. Let's hope that it makes it to a theater near you and me!
• Also, there is an interview clip with director Santosh Sivan at Film Catcher (from when Before the Rains was being shown at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September '07). Apologies if this has already been posted.

DVD:

• Just a reminder that Alpha Male will be released on DVD in Region 1 format on March 18. It is currently available for pre-order at Amazon.com.
• Mole Underfield, from the livejournal realm, watched Jennifer Ehle's deleted scene on the Michael Clayton DVD:

  [...] Basically, the scene depicts the two talking shop in her apartment (apres liaison) while she prepares dinner . Although the scene is about ten minutes, Jennifer's acting is, again, top notch . . . Though it was unnecessary for the movie, the deletion of that scene was a pity. To have kept it in would have added a pinch more spice. [...]

Miscellaneous:

• NPR dedicated a piece to A Streetcar Named Desire's tragic heroine, Blanche DuBois, and there is insightful quotage from Rosemary Harris about what it is like to play the character on stage:

[...] Actress Rosemary Harris remembers one thing in particular about Blanche DuBois.

"It's the loneliest part to live through that I've ever played on the stage," she says.

Harris played Ophelia opposite Peter O'Toole in the Hamlet that inaugurated the Royal National Theatre in 1964. Summer-blockbuster fans know her as Peter Parker's Aunt May in the Spider-Man movies. She starred as Blanche in the 1973 Lincoln Center production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

"Most people, even if they're unsympathetic characters like Lady Macbeth or somebody, at least she has ... Macbeth rooting for her," Harris says. "But there is nobody rooting for Blanche. And you go through that night after night, and it begins to get to you. It's very, very lonely up there."

What saves Blanche, and makes her tragedy more bearable, says Harris, is her humor. Harris says too many people fail to see that parts of the play — especially some of the exchanges between Blanche and Stanley — are meant to be funny.

"They're very witty," she points out. "They're very funny with each other; they spar. They strike sparks off each other. And it's obviously sexual — right from the beginning, too. But it's a sexual thing with wit." [...]

• Remember that Jennifer Ehle made her theatrical debut in this production of Streetcar. See El Interview Part 1, Question 6:

My first public performance was as part of the ‘birthday party’ that passes-by in A Streetcar Named Desire. I was less than 2 years-old, but remember it —remember going across the back of the stage during one of the performances and seeing Mum in the quick-change room (that was supposed to be the bathroom where Blanche was having her bath) and her waving and smiling and putting her finger to her lips to remind me not to say her name aloud.

And I remember the feeling of all those hundreds of people sitting out there in the dark on the other side of the set. It was an awesome feeling but not a scary one; oddly comforting. [...]

• The Independent has a nice article about Tom Stoppard.
• And finally, I couldn't resist posting these worshipful words about Jennifer Ehle from a livejournaler's review of Possession:

  [...] Jennifer is, in my humble opinion, one of the most beautiful, talented women on the face of the Earth. Her portrayal of the fictional poetess Christabel LaMotte was so surreal. It was almost if she were not made up at all! I half expected to be able to find books about her, biographies, when I searched for her name on Amazon.com. [...]