Yes, Somebody's Here

She's Everywhere

Rosemary Harris's film Is Anybody There? will see a limited release April 17th in the USA, following its reported premier in New York on April 7th. (The film premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival under the title Is There Anybody There? The title changed for the current general release, I suppose, in an obvious ploy to save ink). The UK release will follow on May 1st. Trailer and Photos and more are available at the film's Official Site.


I Told You She's Everywhere

Recently Wendy Goodman talked to Jeremy Irons about a significant dressing room and a play whose title is most topical to this blog.

[...]His current backstage alcove is the exact same one he had in 1984 when he starred with Glenn Close in The Real Thing, for which he won a Tony. He spoke with us about the room's paint job (tomato red) and its other previous occupants.[...]
[...]this is the room I had 25 years ago with The Real Thing, and that is the door that I met, I mean everybody. The door would open and there would be Paul Newman, or Bette Davis. My autograph book [takes it out and shows it to us] has all their signatures. There we are — Rosemary Harris, Louis Malle, Candice Bergen, January 5, 1984. There we are.[...]

How gratifying to be able to provide a link that not only harks back to an earlier The Real Thing but also includes Ms Harris, The Real Deal.


More Pride

The Blu-ray edition of Pride and Prejudice continues to provide comment and discussion, including.one describing career-defining roles from Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle (For we're all aware that Ms Ehle's full name is "Jennifer Pride-and-Prejudice Ehle" just as Ms Harris's is "Rosemary Spiderman Harris") In a more comprehensive and in-depth review Stuart Galbraith IV observes "But the entire cast is terrific, especially Ehle's spirited Elizabeth"


While having some fun at Youtube, Tez (Thank you! Thank you!, Tez) found this rare footage which includes Jennifer Ehle & Colin Firth speaking about their characters, Lizzy and Darcy. Just a lovely find!





The Signs Were There All Along




Recently while viewing some older archived articles, I read one from April 21, 2000. Although it is archived at the JE fansite, as provided to the side of this blog, and therefore probably familiar to many, I was struck that we had somehow not made the connection foreshadowed by this early evidence of chickenphilia as you will note in the Fruit From the Tree section of the NY Times article .





________________________________________________________________
Footnote. Abi and Kate have not completely disappeared. I have no bodies buried in my back yard (except for Rufus, the best dog that ever lived). I'm sure many have missed them here, but let me assure you that once they have finished blotting chocolate drink spillage from their chins, you will hear from them again.

OT: Sincere thanks to everyone who contacted me here and elsewhere to express sympathy for the loss of my sister. I know there are really no words that can take the pain away, but it is nice to receive them.

Pigs, Pennies and Mantras

Greetings all!

• Firstly today, Heidi Benson of the San Francisco Chronicle talks to a prominent member of the JASNA (Jane Austen Society of North America) about all things Pride and Prejudicial:

First on the agenda are unhappy thoughts about the 2005 version. It seems that the 1995 adaptation not only has Ms Ehle, but has greater historical veracity than its revamped counterpart:

[...] It wasn't the sex in the sexed-up, big-screen version of "Pride & Prejudice" that bothered Virginia Solomon: It was the pig in the parlor. "It was historically and culturally inaccurate ... The filmmakers exaggerated the class difference between Lizzie and her love interest, Mr. Darcy ... They portrayed her as dirt-poor, the daughter of a farmer," she says, and depicted a threadbare Bennett estate, "with peeling paint and battered furniture and pigs running in the house." [...]

The article also gives an insight into the 'other' lives of JASNA members:

[...] On Sunday evening, Solomon, with her husband, William, and son David, all wearing Regency regalia of her design, joined 20 members of the society - who range widely in age (16-80) and background (lawyer, event planner, stay-at-home mom) - in an elegantly appointed meeting room at San Francisco's Four Seasons Hotel, where they sipped tea and viewed on a wide-screen TV the version of "Pride and Prejudice" they favor. ...That would be the Emmy-winning 1995 BBC production, starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. [...]

Evidently though there is some Austen overspill into everyday life, as another member explains:

[...] "We have a mantra - WWJD - what would Jane do? ... In tough situations, we can look back at the ethics of a time when honor and loyalty and respect meant something ... Fundamental human relations and morality don't change." [...]

See the rest of the article for quotes by various JASNA members about why they love the Society, why they adore Jane and what indeed they wear for these capital occasions!

For more information, visit some of the JASNA equivalents, such as societies in the UK, Australia and Argentina.

• If the P&P part of you is still not satisfied, Jane Austen's World have an excellent piece on Pride and Prejudice Economics, complete with currency converted table, which usefully makes Austen figures digestable for us modern readers. (For example, Mr Darcy goes from a man of £10,000 a year to a man of £339,600 a year!) Also see the AustenBlog for some nice glimpses of a P&P first edition.

In terms of other bits and bobs:

• Variety very briefly report Metrodome's full acquisition of the UK rights to Before the Rains, noting the company is 'eyeing a summer theatrical release'.
• The lauded series Holocaust (1978) - starring Rosemary Harris as Berta Palitz Weiss - can now be pre-ordered on Amazon. (Region 1 only). It will be released on May 27. Also now available on Region 1 is Alpha Male, to be released by Amazon on March 18.
• Also rouble-related, eBay have a programme of the 1992 Chichester Festival Theatre production of Breaking The Code, which starred Jennifer Ehle as Pat Green.

In terms of Utopians:

• The New York Times have an amusing chat with Mr Hamilton and Ms Plimpton about collaborative and independent projects of the past, present and future.
• TheaterTalk meanwhile have a preview video of their interview with Tom Stoppard, which was broadcast on February 8. The UK Times also converse with Sir Tom on the art of screenwriting. On play-to-film adaptations, he explains:

[...] Many people have asked me to adapt my own plays for film. But one seems to fall between two equally awkward stools: you film the play and end up not satisfied with the film, or to make the film you leave out two thirds of the play, so why make it as a film in the first place? [...]

And, interestingly:

[...] People have often wanted to make The Real Thing into a film, but I’ve resisted because I have no appetite to do it myself and I couldn’t bear to have anyone else do it. [...]

Alright then, Coast of Utopia: The Movie, anyone?! WWJD?

Stoppard in the Game of Love

Going back seven years this April, here is what Logan Hill of NY Magazine had to say at the time of The Real Thing's opening on Broadway:

...the downright passionate The Real Thing explodes some myths about the inner lives of outwardly brilliant people. The 'real thing' of this ferociously written play is, of course, that thing called love, and Henry (Stephen Dillane), the play's sarcastic protagonist, just happens to be an exceptionally witty and erudite playwright. Henry divorces his wife when he falls in love with a younger actress, Annie (Jennifer Ehle), who summarily dumps her overeager chump of a husband. As the play tracks Henry's life with Annie, the most insincere and ironic characters - especially Henry - somehow seem to be the most in touch with their feelings. In a way, Stoppard rips romance right out of the dopey clutches of Julia Roberts and Richard Gere and posts a valentine for the brainiacs. "Intellectuals are notorious for their untidy lives," Stoppard says. ... But don't look for more moonstruck Bards. Stoppard explains,"I never subscribed to the theory that plays become better as they become more emotional".

Meanwhile, the aforementioned Charlie Rose interview with Mr Stoppard should be airing at 22.30 tonight (ET). Utopia is the topic!

Craft or no craft - that is the question....

As you may already know, the American Theatre Wing has been conducting a round of seminars annually since 1980. All the panellists that contribute are distinguished in their field, resulting in several hours of wonderful, invaluable discussion of many different subjects under the theatre umbrella.

Videos of all seminars are available on the ATW website, but in case you prefer literary to visual material, here are a few excerpts from the seminar Ms Ehle took part in back in Spring 2000. For the video itself, click here.

Ms Ehle discussing the concept of 'craft':

I think it has come about through doing things. And I think it shifts
from part to part. Its a bit like what Cherry [Jones] was saying about absolving yourself into a character. I think the part teaches you, and the play teaches you.

Ms Ehle talking about craft in relation to The Real Thing:

With what I'm doing at the moment, you feel really awful if you bring any craft on stage...and so we don't really. And that has become the craft of this particular piece - that there isn't any. So there's no blocking...we just kind of do what we want to do. ... The freedom of that is a craft in itself - to stay that open.

Patrick Stewart is full of praise for The Real Thing and the way in which it is performed:

It is extraordinary, because when the play began, I had the feeling that I shouldn't be there watching. There was something so private and exclusive about it...you drew us into your experience. I don't think I've seen a company working in quite the way that this company works. It is as though you're permitted to be a little fly on the wall, observing what is happening inside these rooms. It is thrilling.

A book has also been published, called Acting: Working in the Theatre, edited by Robert Emmet Long. It is a fabulous compilation of quotes from ATW seminar participants. It includes two quotes from Ms Ehle.

Nothing to see here, officer

These are not vids of the Lasting Impressions and An Impromptu Walkabout extras from the Pride and Prejudice boxset. And these are not the direct links to said videos (rather large filesize). Perish the thought.

And here's the full text* of the NYT article on The Coast of Utopia mentioned below. Quotage from Ms Ehle:

As each actor agreed, others followed. Mr. O’Brien got just about everyone he asked for, including Billy Crudup, Martha Plimpton, David Harbour, Richard Easton, Josh Hamilton and Jennifer Ehle, who is playing three different roles in the plays. (“At first, until I saw the schedule,” she said, “I thought that it was really inconceivable that I could do this.”) [more]

Philip Boroff of Bloomberg previews Voyage:

Previews begin next week at the Vivian Beaumont for the first installment of Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia," a prestige Broadway production with this season's most daunting running time.

The trilogy, 8 1/2 hours in all, has a cast of 44, including Billy Crudup, Ethan Hawke, Brian F. O'Byrne and Amy Irving. The director is Jack O'Brien, an experienced Stoppard hand who also staged "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "Henry IV."

The three parts cover three decades in the lives of Russian intellectuals and philosophers, including Vissarion Belinsky (Crudup), Alexander Herzen (O'Byrne), Michael Bakunin (Hawke), and Ivan Turgenev (Jason Butler Harner).

Bernard Gersten, Lincoln Center Theater's executive producer, promises that the plays are accessible.

"It's about real Russian people," he said in an interview. "We hope they spring to vivid life."

"Utopia" was first mounted in 2002 at London's National Theatre. Stoppard was still writing part three, "Salvage," as director Trevor Nunn staged part one, "Voyage." O'Brien, who previously staged Lincoln Center Theater's brilliant productions of Stoppard's "Hapgood" and "The Invention of Love," -- was in the audience.

"I felt that I was seeing this great, awkward, monster novel drunkenly move across the stage," he said in an interview posted on Lincoln Center Theater's Web site. "No one knew what they had birthed until long after the event was over."

Leavened
Stoppard has since trimmed and tinkered with the trilogy. "It's like a loaf of bread that has had time to rise," Gersten said. "We assume it will work to the benefit of the play."

Broadway has not always been hospitable to serious plays of late, and so those in search of them have already bought up most of the good seats for `Utopia.' There are about 27,000 tickets left for the three shows, almost a quarter of the total.

Yet even if every seat sells, the company expects to lose about $7 million on the three-part production. Gersten said it's art for art's sake...and, if all goes well, art for Tonys' sake, too.

"You win awards, you take pride" he said. "The board is proud. The actors are proud. Everything isn't measured in money."

Yowser, who knew non-profit was literal. Also, there's a newly minted Coast of Utopia Livejournal community, with a few wallpapers based on the Vanity Fair photo.

At eBay, a couple of interesting items: an agency headshot from Paradise Road and The Real Thing Playbill autographed by both Jennifer Ehle and Stephen Dillane.

*PS. Here's the legal version of the NYT article.

Alpha Male DVD etc

Tesco and Screen Select seem to have Alpha Male for rent already, which is weird.

A meh kinda review by Jason Solomon from The Mail on Sunday (not online):

Be careful what you wish for, runs the old saying. For years, British film-makers gave us either gangster movies and council-estate dramas or posh people and period pieces. I've spent many columns begging for films about the middle classes. Now, in Alpha Male (15) **, one arrives and it's, well, dreary.

On the eve of Jack's 21st birthday and his mum (Jennifer Ehle) has persuaded her son to return to their country home for a lavish party. In flashbacks we see a happier time when the kids played in the garden and Dad earned a fortune making drink cartons. But then cancer strikes and the family splinters in grief. In the intervening years, Mum's got herself a new man, a new young son and a whole new set of problems.

In his debut as director and writer, Dan Wilde has attempted an intimate family saga, painting in the emotional landscape with detailed sketches of past remembrances and present troubles. It's like piecing together a smashed ornamental plate.

A drama about love, loss and repressed emotion, Alpha Male suffers from a lack of tension. This stuff works on telly on Sunday evenings but on the cinema screen it feels out of place and short on thrills; too polite and awkward to let rip. How very British middle class, I suppose.

Hands up who's not in The Coast of Utopia? Another bunch of actors sign up. Press release here.

Ain't It Cool has a review of Michael Clayton from a test screening. Watch out for spoilers. Llephen's verdict in a nutshell is that it's good but needs editing. Also, a Myspace account from the screening as well. No review though.

YouTube has an interview with Jeremy Northam about Possession.

Another meh review, from Peter Whittle of the Sunday Times:

A family fails to face up to the trauma of a father's death in this ponderous and inept British drama from the director Dan Wilde. The fact that it's a wealthy black-tie type of family doesn't make its woes any more interesting, other than the opportunity it affords to gawp at beautiful country houses and luscious lawns.

Jennifer Ehle plays the widow who falls for a new man (Patrick Baladi), thus earning the disapproval of her arrogant twerp of a son (Mark Wells) and causing her weird daughter (Amelia Warner) to spend much of her time chasing foxes. The problem is that this simple story is confused by baffling editing and an overuse of disorientating flashbacks -an attempt, perhaps, to jazz up the thin material.

Ian Johns of The Times modifies his earlier review a bit:

This is a slow-burn British film that charts the family tensions underlining the return of a prodigal son for his 21st birthday. Through flashbacks we discover the father’s terminal illness and the resentment caused by the mother remarrying. It’s not Festen, more a portrait of repressed British emotions.

An oppressive air hangs over the film that not even Ehle’s luminous stillness as the mother can lift. The tone remains too aloof to keep us interested in the agonies before us in a film in which even the pauses seem to have been scripted.

One more from BBC Movies' Mark Stevens:

A melancholy story of bereavement and family breakdown, Alpha Male takes itself seriously but quite never finds the emotional weight necessary for us to do the same. Jennifer Ehle (Wilde, This Year's Love) heads the cast as Alice, widow of Jim (Danny Huston). Left on her own, she tries to cope as children Elyssa (Amelia Warner) and Jack (Mark Wells) feel the loss of the family's alpha male. The resulting drama proves a dream-like evocation of death and dysfunction.

Ehle excels as Alice, capturing the reserved shellshock of a woman who knows she can't afford to indulge her grief. Despite doing everything she can to ease her children through the painful transition, she watches helplessly as Jack (played brilliantly by Arthur Duncan as a child, less convincingly by Mark Wells as an adult) begins to blame her for everything. Told by his father that he needs to become head of the family, young Jack is totally unprepared for such a challenge and the film keenly observes this boy's muddled attempts to play man.

Hints of sexual tension between mother and son come to little as does daughter Elyssa's gradual mental breakdown. Debut writer/director Dan Wilde eventually relies on some trite third act plotting to deliver a climax, but it feels falsely tacked on, too convenient to ring true. What sticks in the memory is the evocative cinematography and creepy score; both turn the family's beautiful country mansion into a haunting, haunted place where choked up despair and adolescent angst simmer towards disaster.

Autographed Donmar The Real Thing program on eBay. Here's a scan of the signed page with photos and biogs of her and Stephen Dillane.

Film blogger Tim R gives Alpha Male a B and rates the screenplay as one of his top 5.

Aux armes, citoyens!

Agent E has suggested that we storm the New York Public Library with requests to film Macbeth for the archives. So it is the 11th hour, but what do we have to lose?

Here are the generic contact details:

Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10023-7498
Phone: (212) 870-1630
performingarts@nypl.org

And e-mails for relevant collections - tis always more effective to write to real people rather than generic addresses. Their phone numbers are at the above link.

theatrediv@nypl.org (Theatre Collection)
rtaylor@nypl.org (Robert Taylor, curator of the Theatre Collection)
phoffman@nypl.org (Patrick Hoffman, director of Theatre on Film and Tape Archive)

The Real Thing can be seen at NYPL's archives as well as a tape from the Neil Simon benefit.

The Real Thing review snippets

Theatremania

Jennifer Ehle makes Annie an open, fresh-faced woman who, nevertheless, can become steely when she thinks she's being conned--or when she's conning.

WPKN

The British cast offers some fine performances, especially in the two female roles with Sarah Woodward as the calm sophisticated first wife and Jennifer Ehle as the lithe, beautiful Annie.

NY Metro mag

Jennifer Ehle has the right stuff for Annie, but also an odd way of standing around, for which I blame the director, David Leveaux.

Our cup runneth over

Yep! Even more photos from Josie. 16 stills this time: Summerfolk, The Real Thing, Bedrooms & Hallways, Paradise Road, This Year's Love and a rare Pleasure one.

MORE photos!

Josie has sent in six more photos from The Real thing and Summerfolk. All but a couple are new to me.

The Real Thing report

Today I saw Tom Stoppard's "The Right Thing", this year's Tony's for best revival of a play, and for its leading couple. Jennifer Ehle is pure energy on the stage, even from the far mezzanine I could feel her character's intense love, and intense contradiction. Tom Stoppard is such a good writer that he wastes the beginning of the play with traditional but great jokes and lines. But it is in the intensity of the dilemma of Max, by the extraordinarily versatile Stephen Dillane, that Stoppard's talent and ideas are revealed. What you do when your love has a lover, but still loves you? How love can support sharing the loved body, even when knowing that is not sharing the love? Whoever hasn't lived through this, in reality or wish, have not lived life, and the play plunge us in the convulsive waters of love, and jealousy, and its harder brother, betrayal. The great survivor is my love for theater, fueled by all this great acting and writing

Claudio Pinhanez writes about his summer in NY.

The Right Honorable Ms Ehle

A cute story from a Yahoo fan club (like EhleNews, but smaller). This dates back from The Real Thing.

Tonight I met Jennifer Ehle.

I waited by the stage door and out she came...I couldn't move. Finally I ran over to her and got her to sign my program and asked if I could shake her hand. She laughed and said, "Of course you can! My...I'm beginning to feel like I'm running for office!" Mine was not the only hand she'd been asked to shake that night. :) Oh my God, I could die right now. :)

She'd have my vote! Citizenship be damned.

Warm fuzzies

In an article from The Guardian (April 23rd 2004), drama students talk about their inspirations and aspirations.

Rosalind Porter

I've always wanted to be an actor but I didn't have the guts to go for it until I was at university and I went to see The Real Thing with Jennifer Ehle and Stephen Dillane. I was blown away, and I wanted to be able to move people the way I'd been moved.

She's ours!

Winston-Salem native gets British film academy honor
24 April 1996
Greensboro News & Record
(Copyright 1996)

North Carolina native Jennifer Ehle won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for her performance in the TV miniseries "Pride and Prejudice."

The Winston-Salem native, who now makes her home in Great Britain, won the BAFTA award, the British equivalent of the Oscar, for best television actress for her portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine of "Pride and Prejudice."

Ehle, 26, is the daughter of Winston-Salem author John Ehle and English actress Rosemary Harris. "It's a great honor, and I am so pleased and so proud," said John Ehle, who was with his daughter when she won the award Sunday night. "It was a wonderful surprise. Her mother, of course, was very moved when she won, too." Harris could not be there for the ceremony, which fell on opening night of her latest show in New York, "A Delicate Balance."

Ehle was born in Winston-Salem, where she also attended elementary and high school. She received part of her acting education at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Her father said she left Monday for Malaysia and Australia to act in a new feature film, "Paradise Road."

vs

Emma Thompson wins Britain's best actress award
22 April 1996
Reuters News
(c) 1996 Reuters Limited

U.S. imports won many of the television awards, with hospital drama "ER" taking the prize for best foreign television programme.

The "people's vote" for best TV programme went "The X-Files".

But Briton Jennifer Ehle, who played Miss Elizabeth Bennet in another Jane Austen adaptation -- television's "Pride and Prejudice" -- won best television actress.

Stars in the alley

Playbill covers the "Stars in the Alley" event in May 2000.

The 2000 Stars in the Alley, peppered generously with plugs for the upcoming Tony Awards, had more than a few of the 2000 nominees. Eartha Kitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Karen Ziemba, Laura Benanti, Cherry Jones and Jennifer Ehle were among the performers and presenters at the Stars event, held at 11:30 AM in Shubert Alley.
...
Jennifer Ehle, the star of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, connected revivals like her play and long-established pieces by Anton Chekhov and Noel Coward with the new "classics": Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and The Phantom of the Opera.

Tonys speech

Click on either the little "dialup" or "broadband" buttons on the NY1 page about the Tonys to see a short clip from The Real Thing, as well as a shot of Ms Ehle embracing her mum and thanking her parents in her speech. Her bit starts about 52 seconds in.

[edit: apologies, intelligence malfunction. Copied the wrong link by mistake. The video from the awards ceremony is here]

NY1 also has an article about the Tony nominations, but the videos don't work for me. You can try your luck.

Hors d'oeuvres

There's been a surprising lack of articles about The Philadelphia Story even though previews started yesterday. Perhaps more will come out after the press night on May 10th. Meanwhile, whet your Ehle appetite with these tiny, grainy, scratchy multimedia offerings.

Clips of The Real Thing and award shows on this Stephen Dillane site.

Trailer for This Year's Love dubbed in Spanish.

Clips from the audiobook Witch Child, written by Celia Rees.

Clip from The Tempest audiobook.

Jennifer Ehle takes part in the American Theatre Wing's round-table seminar on working in the theatre. [edited: wrong link changed- thanks to Robb Perry]

Possession trailer.

There have been several articles about Kevin Spacey's run so far as the artistic director at the Old Vic, mentioning The Philadelphia Story. The latest is the Times' "Has Spacey lost the plot at the Old Vic? No, it's only act 2". Unfortunately no mention of Jennifer Ehle.