"Shines"

Alpha Male review from Emily Govan of the Tottenham Journal:

DAN Wilde's first feature-length film ALPHA MALE (15) is a thoughtful if bleak look at the modern family.

This Ferris family seem to have everything: health, wealth and happiness. But when the husband dies, the family's paradise falls apart. Wife Alice struggles to hold the family together; son Jack takes his new-found responsibilities seriously as the man of the house; meanwhile his sister is resentful of the jealous and money-grabbing visitor who comes to stay.

Years later, when all the characters are reunited for Jack's 21st birthday party, how will each one react when all the old wounds are reopened?

This is a smart film which is both moving and honest. Mark Wells is impressive as the brooding Jack who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders; Jennifer Ehle shines as the mother fighting to keep her family united while the direction is intelligent and original.

An interesting and unsettling look at relationships and how fragile they are.

David Jenkins of Timeout is more critical:

Jim Ferris (Danny Huston) is an affable packaging tycoon whose sudden demise strands his doting wife (Jennifer Ehle) and two children in a purgatory of loneliness and suffering. ‘Alpha Male’ then assesses the willingness of each character to accept his or her new role within the family. It’s a well-intentioned, Bergmanesque drama about paternal anxieties amongst the nouveaux riches, and contains some fine performances and an articulate script. The tone is perhaps a little too frivolous to supply the film with any kind of lasting emotional depth, but there are some delightful moments, such as Mark Heap’s comic cameo as a bashful gardener with a penchant for relieving himself on the grounds of the family mansion, and Tariq Anwar’s editing conveys a pervasive air of melancholy. But the modern- day setting is totally out of sync with writer-director Dan Wilde’s distinctly old-fashioned views on male totemism in the modern family unit, and overall, the film feels too thin to warrant a cinematic release.

The film is going to be showing at Vue cinemas in Leeds, Plymouth and Shepherds Bush. See LondonNet for London cinemas.

At IMDB there's a rumour that the producers cut the film to make it more commercial, against the director's wishes.

There's also a preview of Michael Clayton at Moviecrazed:

A phone tapper and a hit man are just two of the bad boys who may feel at home at the prestigious New York law firm where attorney Michael Clayton (George Clooney) works. Clayton himself, the divorced father of a troubled boy, has conceivably schmoozed with these and other thugs during the 15 years he has performed legal miracles for his slippery, high-profile clients. One thing he learns for sure: more than one of these clients have not told him the entire truth about matters of life and death. And now, at a time of personal peril, Clayton is probably wondering why the lovely young attorney (Jennifer Ehle) with whom he’s been having a clandestine affair is asking him so many deeply probing questions about his unlovely work history. This thriller marks the directorial debut of writer Tony Gilroy, whose screenplays include “The Bourne Supremacy,” “Devil’s Advocate” and “Proof of Life.”

And look, this is cool. Martha Plimpton, one of the Coast of Utopia cast members, has a blog.

...Number one, in September I'm starting rehearsals on a new trilogy of plays by Tom Stoppard at Lincoln Center (TheCoastofUtopia.com) here in New York. It's a huge undertaking and I'm going to Russia with some of the other actors at the end of the month to do some research and see a lot of men with bed head stumbling around drunk. I've never had any interest in Russia as a travel destination but since the plays are about a bunch of crazy Russians in the 19th century I figured I'd go. Also, one of the actors asked if I wanted to go, and I had nothing else to do so I said yes. Kurt Vonnegut said, "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God." He then burst out laughing at how queer he sounded.
...
Anyway, these Tom Stoppard plays are called "The Coast of Utopia" and I'm beyond excited about them. There are 37 actors playing 70 roles in a story spanning some ridiculous amount of time and we'll be performing them in repertory from October 17 to March 10, 2007. The last three Saturdays of the run, people will be able to come and see all 3 in marathons starting at 11 am, which is terrifying because I haven't seen 11am since I was fourteen. The cast is, in part, Josh Hamilton, Ethan Hawke, Billy Crudup, Jennifer Ehle, Jason Butler Harner, Brian O'Byrne, Amy Irving and Richard Easton. Some of them I've worked with before, some are old friends, and some of them I've never had the chance to meet or work with because there's 37 of us and I can't know everybody, people.

I hope anyone who likes long, epic trilogys about Russia will come and see it. I think it will be an incredible experience for anyone who doesn't fall asleep.

Yeah come, with us!

Shaw thing

G-roan. Anyway, BroadwayWorld reports that Rosemary Harris has promised to take part in the Players Club's Project Shaw. All of George Bernard Shaw's plays are being staged as concert readings over two years.

Utopia tix prices & December jamboree

Telecharge (search "Utopia") has ticket prices for the marathon performances on February 24, March 3 and March 10: orchestra and loge rows A-C are $300 while rows D-E are $195. For single plays prices are $100 and $65. See the seating chart. On marathon days Part 1 begins at 11am, Part 2 at 3:30pm and Part 3 at 8pm.

So, who wants to go see The Coast of Utopia with some fellow fans? We're* planning a meetup for the weekend of December 9-10 to see a Saturday evening performance of Voyage and matinee of Shipwreck the following day. E-mail jenniferehle@gmail.com if you're interested. You needn't come to both days if you don't want to. Let us know before September 1st, since we might book tickets as a group to sit together and cheer at inappropriate moments. Don't be shy, it'll be fun! Even if you can't come then, how about a group read/discussion of the plays? Drop an e-mail to the same address above.

PS. Controversy already! All That Chat members report that there were long lines in the morning, LCT phones rung off the hook and Telecharge crashed due to demand for Utopia member tickets. Apparently they even screwed up and tickets were available to the general public between 10am and noon. LCT does reserve tickets for single ticket sales so we have some chance, but get ready for a stampede come September 10.

*"we" = Kerry, Tess, Ann, Kimiko, Abigail & yours truly.

Odds and ends

The Pittsburg Post-Gazette says that The River King will be showing on "SHO" at 7.15pm Wednesday.

Youtube music videos of Pride and Prejudice to "Nothing else matters" (Apocalyptica strings version), "She" (ta, E) and "Sacrifice".

An astrological profile- apparently she's got the same personality and character as Harry Potter.

Coast of Utopia member tix are available from 10am on Monday.

In the print edition of Total Film magazine out today there should be an Alpha Male review. The Barbican has a snippet of the 4-star review, already posted before.

A brief review of Alpha Male in the Sunday Mail:

This rather dull domestic tale follows the moody lives of a pair of spoiled little rich kids resenting their mother (Jennifer Ehle) for remarrying quickly after father Danny Huston dies. It's told in flashbacks from a 21st birthday party but the childhood sequences are cleverly done and get the mood of the bitter kids just right.

And an even briefer preview in the Guardian.

An interesting essay on The Coast of Utopia in the Oxonian Review by Brad Henderson. There's some quotage from the plays.

LCT launches Utopia site

The official Coast of Utopia site is up with all sorts of goodies! Thanks LY.

Tickets: member tix go on sale this Monday, August 7th; the rest of us must wait til September 10th. StudenTix subscriptions are closed at the mo but you can sign up for the waiting list.

Cast: the entire list of who plays what in which part. Jennifer Ehle is Liubov Bakunin in Voyage, Natalie Herzen in Shipwreck (huzzah!!) and Malwida von Meysenbug in Salvage.

Blog: there's only an introduction up so far by Brendan Lemon, but definitely worth keeping an eye on.

New interview with Jack O'Brien: compare to the 2003 interview. Here are some of the "in a nutshell" bits:

BL: What is the shaping idea behind the Stoppard trilogy?

JO: Perhaps the most important idea of this play is: Who has the map in history? Where are we? There is no map. When I pulled my personal camera back into a long shot and tried to figure what the hell I was approaching here, I came back to "the coast of utopia,"which is of course Stoppard's title. When you think about that, and you should think about that, utopia is an impossibility. There is no coastline, because you can't get there.

BL: There is a sense in the play of the characters trying to have an impact on history, yet history hurtles on without them.

JO: That's very Stoppardian. In the zigzag of humanity that he talks about, the question is raised: Are you the cause or are you the effect? Personally, I think we think we're the cause, and too often we're the effect. These guys, this gang of five, this posse of Russian individuals -- Herzen, Belinsky, Turgenev, Bakunin, and Ogarev -- did in fact know each other that entire period of time. They are both affected by, and affecting, the history of their time. Sometimes they're the doers, and some they're the receivers. What is mystifying and thrilling about our lives is that we sometimes have the mistaken feeling that we're doing it while truly it's being done to us. And I think that's a lot of what these evenings are about. Putting things in connotations that don't have connotations, but not enough to assure us that we're on the right foot. Because we sort of aren't.
...
BL: How would describe the basic story for people?

JO: This is at first a Chekhovian story and a story that really happened, and a story about a huge wrong that needed to be righted. To put it in fairy-tale terms: Once upon a time, in a country very far away, there were privileged people and great unwashed masses who were hopelessly, hopelessly poor. And some people thought that was not fair. That people shouldn't own people, that people shouldn't measure their wealth in terms of slaves but in terms of enlightenment. And these relentlessly intellectual guys struck flints against an impassive problem until they started a fire. The trouble with fire is, you can't control it. What they tried to do, for the best possible reasons, ended up, in 1917, with murder and cruelty and unbelievable unhappiness. That was the eventuality of revolution, which some people say has to happen. They say that without a revolution of some kind, you can't really effect change.

BL: How do you characterize each play generally?

JO: The first story in many ways is the wittiest, and the most charming, and most romantic, and the prettiest. The second story, gets a little deeper and a little darker. And people die. The third has a kind of intense intellectual brilliance. The trilogy is a marathon, but a very enjoyable one.

FAQ: mildly useful.

Calendar: there's a fancy Flash version of the performance dates on the site's sidebar, as well as a downloadable PDF. Below are jpgs of the latter - click to enlarge. Didn't know that they would repeat earlier parts later on in the run as well (so double huzzah!).

Random reviews

Oops, sorry about the missed day yesterday everyone! Misdated this post to August 2005.

First up, a mini-review of Summerfolk by Clive Barnes of the New York Post on October 3rd, 1999.

I was a little less enthusiastic over the National's new staging by Nunn of that darker-toned companion piece to Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard," Maxim Gorky's "Summerfolk."

Not much helped by Nick Dear's new and glibly modern translation, it missed that crepuscular Gorky magic achieved by David Jones' production for RSC a couple of decades back. But some performances - especially, again, Roger Allam and, as a young, lost and bewildered wife, Jennifer Ehle - shone out between the omnipresent birch trees of Christopher Oram's setting.

And a late review of Macbeth by librosopher:

I recently saw this play performed in Central Park in NYC. It was a post-modern production with Liev Schreiber as Macbeth and Jennifer Ehle as Lady Macbeth. They each did a fantastic job but I think the director was being a bit overambitious and overwrought with the imagery and overall look. The witches looked more like raggedy homeless soldiers rather than supernatural creatures…perhaps that was Moises Kauffman’s intention, but it just did not seem to fit the play. Yes, Macbeth is a story about war, but it is more about Macbeth’s internal conflict fueled by power and ambition manifested onto the world and how this blurs his sense of reality and imagination. I did like how the murder of Macduff’s family was juxtaposed with the scene in which Macduff finds out about it, though it could have been paced a little faster. I also like how at the end, the back curtain was drawn back to reveal the trees of Central Park, standing in as the forest of Birnam advancing on Dunsinane…very clever. I even almost expected them to move and a slight breeze did make them rustle a bit.

Period drama fans might be interested in reading this bunch of reviews at raptures of folly which includes Pride and Prejudice. As a bit of trivia, it turns out that Capitol Films is distributing both Alpha Male and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

Full Shadows Alpha Male review

The Shadows on the Wall review by Rich Cline is out of embargo now:

Writer-director Wilde skilfully captures the most jarring truths of British social relationships in this insightful, creepy drama. But it's perhaps too quietly tense and ice cold to ever engage us.

Alice (Ehle) is throwing a 21st birthday party for her son Jack (Wells), who hasn't been home for three years. Jack's sister Elyssa (Warner) is in a world of her own, while Alice's new husband (Baladi) is straining to bridge a rather yawning emotional gulf. Flash back a decade to the family's upper middle class idyll, with convivial dad Jim (Huston) and much more open-hearted young Jack and Elyssa (Duncan and Knight). Even Aunt Brede (Styler) seemed more relaxed back then. So what happened to turn them all into such annoying adults?

With its emphasis on British reticence and the stiff upper lip culture, the film relies on the superbly understated performances of the cast. And everyone is excellent, although you can feel the cast struggling a bit with the huge emptiness in the script--knowing glances and surly glares fill the spaces that should contain conversation. These people just refuse to talk to each other about anything.

As the parallel timelines progress, we keep waiting to learn what horrible thing took place that caused all of this dysfunction. But there's a nagging feeling that it's simply due to the time and place, the fact that these are the idle rich--aimless people who, without a sense of purpose in life, just get on each others' nerves. The film is loaded with awkward interaction, interrupted communication and blind selfishness masquerading as polite social contact. It's pretty painful to watch.

And also frighteningly true to life. The main problem is that we have virtually no sympathy for anyone. Ehle generates a bit of pathos as the mother hen yearning to bring her family together. And Huston is the most engaging character by far, with his lively eyes and mischievous actions. But Jack is spiteful and Elyssa is freaky, so Wells and Warner never remotely earn our concern or interest. On the other hand, it's this reluctance to play it safe that makes the film worth watching.

New visitors, have a look at a video clip of Alpha Male we've posted before.

62% bint

That's Jennifer Ehle's rating in Bint Magazine, ahead of Cate Blanchett though Liz Taylor reigns supreme.

Best Known For:
A legion of bosoms heaved and hearts fluttered as we all wanted to be Ehle in her role as Elizabeth Bennet in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. She went on to win a BAFTA for her performance
8/10

Most bintish achievement:
She was plucked from obscurity to star in TV mini-series The Camomile Lawn and immediately got her kit off for the part
7/10

Least bintish achievement:
She was raised in America but adopted a British accent, Madonna-style
3/10

"With great power comes great responsibility"

Thought this was interesting.

With the June 30 release of Spider-Man 2, the Animal Welfare Institute proudly recognizes actor Rosemary Harris-Peter Parker's "Aunt May" - for her deep commitment to relieving the suffering of animals confined on factory farms. Ms. Harris, a Broadway legend and winner of a Tony, an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for her work on stage, television and in film, was a close friend of AWI's founding President, Christine Stevens, and her husband, former AWI Treasurer, Roger Stevens. A Broadway producer and Kennedy Center Chairman, Roger produced a number of the plays in which Ms. Harris starred. Recently, Ms. Harris and her husband, North Carolina author John Ehle, accompanied AWI staff to several farms raising pigs according to AWI's pig husbandry standards, which she strongly supports. She expressed her appreciation to the farmers for their willingness to raise pigs in ways that permit them to live more natural lives. Speaking in a video that AWI prepared for the Waterkeeper Summit on Sustainable Agriculture held in New Bern, North Carolina, Ms. Harris eloquently expressed her concerns for the welfare of one of the most severely and widely abused of all animals-breeding sows:

"What concerns me and moves me more than anything is the plight of the animals in these factory farms....Particularly, the predicament of the sows who are incarcerated in their crates for the duration of their pathetic lives. After all, they are mothers and not production units and machines. Please pause and think about the animals who are causing, through no fault of their own, the horrendous environmental problems that we are suffering now. Insist on products from animals raised on animal-friendly family farms. Not only for the sake of the animals but because all our troubles are rooted in the way that we raise the animals now-denied the light of day and the basic needs of movement and motherhood."

AWI is delighted to acknowledge such a distinguished and compassionate actor.

And from a 2001 newsletter:

Actress Rosemary Harris, winner of a Tony, an Emmy and a Golden Globe award and an Academy Award nominee, spoke on behalf of animals in a video presentation recorded in Los Angeles where Ms. Harris was filming the movie “Spiderman.” Ms. Harris called on consumers to insist on meat from humane, family farms, saying that it is the plight of the sows confined to crates, unable to walk or turn around, that moves her most. A North Carolinian herself, Ms. Harris urged North Carolinians to take the lead in prohibiting animal factory practices, just as Sweden has done in Europe.

Family update

Rosemary Harris

IMDB says she is currently filming Before the Devil Knows You're Dead which also stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei and Ethan Hawke.

You can watch The Royal Family via Google Video for $0.99 for a day pass ticket or download the program for $19.99.

Word is that Spider-Man 3 is going to be released worldwide on May 4th 2007, at IMAX as well.

Wireimage has a bunch of Spidey on-location photos including some of Rosemary Harris.

John Ehle

The press conference for The Land Breakers is tomorrow (Fri 28th). The book is already in stores (signed copies at Borders).

Article in the Winston Salem Journal about the book being chosen for On the Same Page reading project.

Jennifer Ehle

Go Sahila.

Summerfolk program on eBay.

TheaterPro reviews Macbeth:

Moises Kaufman sets the action not in ancient Scotland but in the early twentieth century – also a period of war, bloodshed and deception -- with the result that Mr. Schreiber and his co-star, Jennifer Ehle as Lady Macbeth, are in more intimate contact with the political environment and the audience. As the hero and his wife, Mr. Schreiber and Ms. Ehle begin as fashionable opportunists, but grow deeper and darker as Macbeth sinks into despair. He delivers the big soliloquies with an emotion that thrills and chills, but is always in control, while her sleepwalking scene combines guilt and heartfelt remorse.

The production achieves the classical aim of pity for them both and their plight, and fear of the abyss that awaits the over-ambitious.

Ehle Library 2.0

In the past, there used to be a lending library that was run through EhleNews. This collection included all of Jennifer Ehle's rarer works as well as videos of interviews and the like. Unfortunately the lending library shut down several years ago, but we'd like to resurrect it. Holdings would probably include:

TV movies: Beyond Reason, Pleasure, Self-Catering and The Maitlands.

TV appearances: Mierella Folstrup interview (1999), Late Lunch (1999), Variety awards, Tony Brunch, Charlie Rose, BBC America for Possession, BAFTA awards (1996) and Tony awards (2000).

Are you interested? There needs to be a critical mass for this project to be worthwhile.

Ehle Library 2.0 would differ in several ways from the original. Firstly, we want to get the VHS tapes converted into DVDs, since they're durable, copiable and easy to post. Secondly, we want to make the library global, not just restricted to the US as it was previously. Third, whereas the version 1.0 library lent out items on a request basis, in version 2.0 the entire collection will be circulated as a set of about 6 DVDs. The idea is that from the master set, a number of lending sets would be dispatched to each region, eg. Australasia, UK/Europe, US/Canada, rest of the world. Postage would work on a "pay it forward" fashion: each person would post the set to the next person in line from their region, within a deadline. Each region would have its own queue. As with the old library you would be required to share your views on the work.

Ok. So if you're interested, e-mail us at jenniferehle@gmail.com with the following information:

Subject line: "Ehle Library"
1. Your name or alias:
2. E-mail address:
3. City/state and country:
4. Would you contribute $5-10 USD to help set up the library, if it meant you had priority in the queue?
5. Other queries/suggestions:

This is not signing-up for library membership; we just want to find out the numbers and regions to see if the project is viable. Your answer to #4 isn't binding.

Had enough Macbeth yet?

Just say when.

TransArt:

Grade: B
A fine outdoor outing for "the Scottish play." Liev Schreiber delivers the Main Thane with the requisite angst and bombast; and Jennifer Ehle, probably best known as Elizabeth Barrett in the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, cooks smoothly as Lady Mac, though the actress doesn't completely suppress an inner sweetness that doesn't seem Lady-Mac-the-Knife-like. Or perhaps that's just the reviewer's prejudice after her flavorful Prejudice turn. The now traditional use of a nontraditional setting places us in a drab-looking circa-World War I European country, which seems arbitrary if not a miscalculation, given that that era saw the last convulsions of monarchism and Macbeth is about its early convulsions, at least as experienced on those bleak highlands.

Entertainment Weekly:

As the sleepwalking Queen, Jennifer Ehle (The Real Thing) is probably the most put-together Lady M you've ever seen — graceful, polished, and impossibly elegant in Michael Krass' haute-couture-style gowns. She's a Martha Stewart-like ice princess, and a worthy foil for Schreiber's King.

A letter to the editor at AM NY:

I beg to differ with your review of Macbeth at the Delacorte Theatre, especially with the assessment of Jennifer Ehle's performance as Lady Macbeth as a 'train wreck' because her character was feminine, ingratiating, mature, and was still so easily seduced by ambition.

Your writer missed the point of the production, which was also clarified by the depiction of the weird sisters as very aged camp followers (prostitutes).

This was that when women are whores to male aggression (and men demand that they be such), basic decency disappears and evil triumphs.

--Judith N. Newman, Manhattan

NC lit blogger Sue Kimball:

What reminded me of all this was reading today that MACBETH closed on Sunday in the park. And the female star, Lady Macbeth herself, was beautiful Jennifer Ehle, North Carolina born. Jennifer was fifteen when her father John Ehle brought her to my house, and that can't be over fifteen years ago. That means she is a quite young Lady Macbeth, but she really did get a good review full of compliments in THE NEW YORKER.

And an earlier post by Ms Kimball:

Jennifer was allowed to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, prohibited to Americans, which she is, because of her distinguished mother. About five years ago, the two of them, mother and daughter, were nominated for England's highest stage prize, the equivalent of our Oscar. And Rosemary was nominated for best supporting actress in this country.

(Actually CSSD not RADA).

Macbeth recorded

Missed Macbeth? The New York Public Library recorded the play for their Theatre on Film and Tape archives and limited access will be available. This is the same collection as the vids of The Real Thing and the Neil Simon benefit.

The Public Theater / New York Shakespeare Festival production of Macbeth starring Liev Schreiber and Jennifer Ehle was videotaped by the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT) on July 13*, 2006 at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

1) The videorecording will be available for viewing after July 26, 2006 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, by qualified researchers. If you would like to arrange an appointment to view this production, please call our screening room directly at (212) 870-1642, and we will be glad to assist you. Our hours are Tuesdays through Fridays 12 PM to 6 PM and Saturday by appointment only from 1 PM to 6 PM. We have walk-in slots available first come, first served on weekdays beginning when we open at 12 PM. If you have any further questions regarding our holdings, please email us at toft@nypl.org.

2) TOFT is a restricted archive and in order to view a tape, you must be working on specific professional or scholarly research. The Archive is available for use by theatre professionals, students, scholars, journalists, and other researchers with a valid reason to view a particular title. The videotapes must be viewed on-site, in our screening room at Lincoln Center. We do not lend, copy, sell, or distribute any of the videotapes physically or electronically in accordance with our contracts with the various theatre unions and guilds that allow us to tape live theatrical productions.

Researchers are required to have an ACCESS card to use materials on the third floor of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, where TOFT is located. To learn more about the ACCESS card and apply online, please visit catnyp.nypl.org and click on the "Access Card" icon. When you visit the Library, Copy Services, also located on the third floor, will process your card.

*Actually July 6th.

Alpha Male screenings, etc

The Curzon Mayfair is showing Alpha Male at 6.30pm and 9pm from August 11th to 14th. It's getting a longer run at the Barbican, til the 24th. Distributor Verve Pictures says that the film will also be screening at Cineworld Haymarket and Fulham Road, although Launching Films indicates that it'll be showing at "Cineworld Shaftesbury Ave. & Nationwide".

On the blogs it's back to the old chatter about Pride and Prejudice. Manasi Subramaniam on the leads:

Colin Firth as Darcy - possibly the most attractive literary character created at least until the appearance of the sordid, brooding Edward Rochester in 1847 - is so deliciously morose, that you actually forgive him, at some point, for being Colin Firth. But the stealer of the show, without doubt, is, more than Ehle herself as Elizabeth, the ever-laughing, perpetually amused pair of eyes that Ehle possesses, eyes that were alluded to by Darcy at the ball in Chapter Six. If for nothing but those eyes, Ehle is brilliant casting.

More praise for said eyes at UnNatural History, in Possession this time, though the romantic plot touches on some sore points for the author.

Continuing with the Macbeth scraps, John Heilpurn of the NY Observer gives a thumbs down. And Terry is outed.

John Ehle will be attending the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival on September 15th-16th.

PS. The Alpha Male trailer has just been rated by the BBFC so keep an eye out.

Kimiko's report

Many thanks for sharing this, K.

I saw Macbeth on Friday of the closing week. Thursday was the travel day from LA to NY. Friday, I left my hotel at 6:00am arriving at Central Park at 6:30am, There were two lines at the box office, one for the regular people and the othe for seniors. I got my ticket at 1:00pm without any problems. There were many people for both lines who were turned down. Some of the senior citizens who were in the line were so knowledgeable. I didn't have to explain about JE. One person even said that it would have been so nice if JE's mother played the mother in The Philadelphia Story. I didn't even think about it. Another who already saw the play before said that the show was wonderful and she didn't understand some negative comments. She said the play was interrupted several times because of the rain and JE's pretty dresses were wet. Leiv thanked the audience saying that he would never forget those who stayed until the end sharing the plastic rain covers.

I enjoyed the play very much. I saw Macbeth in London (the Barbican) several years ago, and in San Diego (the Old Globe) last year. Lady M. in London looked like a nun in gray costume, and the one in San Diego looked ordinary. Neither one made much impression on me. JE' Lady M. was very impressive, and I think I would have felt the same way even if I were not such a crazy JE fan. I saw Kaufman's Gross Indecency in LA and also Laramie Project in San Diego both a few years ago. I knew he was a capable director. With this director and JE and Leiv performing, Macbeth should be a first rate play, and I thought it was. But, I'm neither a theater authority nor Shakespeare purist; I'm only JE purist.

The curtain call went only once abruptly. If at the curtain calls in The Philadelphia Story Kevin Spacy made it clear that JE was the star of the play, JE made it clear Leiv was the star applauding him after her own bow. The amazing moment for me arrived when Macbeth was told that Lady M was dead. Leiv was alone on the stage sitting in the chair. His eyes welled with tears. I could see it from my front seat. His eyes glittered like diamond. And, do you know what I felt at that monent? Instead of "What an actor Leav is!" I felt "What a wonderful actress JE is making her leading man cry in his role!" I thought he might choke in his next dialogue of, "Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow---" He didn't. It was such a brief special theatrical moment for me as an audience. My disappontment was that Leiv didn't give any speech at the end. I guess he had nothing special to thank for as everything went without hitch: no rain, no interruption, no technical mishap and a full house.

I hurried to the Gate 1 stage door. JE came out, but two not-so-youg-looking guys greeted her hugging her and escorted her quickly into the crowd arm in arm. I recognized her because of her cropped hair. Others didn't recognize her because of her hair. Nobody Asked for her autograph, and I didn't dare. She was wearing a pale blue cotton blouse with matching mid-calf pants. Casual looking attire. Macbeth was worth the trip from LA, but I couldn't help feeling that this park evnt was for New Yorkers.

Kimiko

One more

From Lydia and Kevin:

Who doesn't love Macbeth? It really is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays - I suppose that's because most high school english programs make you study it inside and out - and my high school was no different. But it's even better when this show is performed outdoors at the Delacorte theater for the Public's Shakespeare in the Park.

I'm a little late in posting, and the show has already closed - but it was a nice production. Liev Schreiber starred as Macbeth and features Jennifer Ehle (from A&E's Pride and Prejudice) as Lady Macbeth. I thought the two had great chemistry - not to mention great costumes. The three weird sisters were delightful - a nice new take on some of the imagining of the sisters that I have seen before. Some of the staging could have used a little work - and more elaborate sets would have been appreciated. However, some of the last scenes, especially as Macbeth is about to die were really powerful - the director, Milos Forman, gets credit for that - but if only we had seen some of that same imagining towards the beginning of the show. Suffice to say, this was a well done production of a great play and a beautiful night in the Park.

Thought this from IMDB was kinda funny.

Stragglers

Not quite finished with the Macbeth stuff yet. Here goes.

From BroadwayWorld:

I thought the peice was brilliant, a masterpeice if you will. Leiv blew me away. Even before he became king, you could tell he was carrying so much weight on his shoulders. Completly internal. Then Jennifer as Lady Mcbeth! Wow! So....Human...I know she didnt get the strong reviews like Mr.M, but i found the character so real- Not related to other performances (RSC version and almost all others) where she is played strong with no emotions- practically another witch. I really was concerned about the couple- not just the war...>A real emotional experience....kudos to director (Moises Kauffman)-- The set- brilliant....

A great show, with great performances......at a time where it is needed....

From Catherine Elizabeth:

I read Macbeth in high school, and have never seen it, so I was very happy to let Liev Schreiber and Jennifer Ehle act it out for me.
Overall, I enjoyed the production very much. It had been edited, so it felt very fast moving. I thought both Jennifer and Liev did a very nice job. Two of the fight sequences were remarkably beautiful.
That being said, here are a few problems I had. The Public's theme for this years Shakespeare in the Park is war. I feel that there are many Shakespeare scripts to choose from that would work nicely. Macbeth isn't one of them. Yes, there is war in this play, but I feel the main themes of Macbeth are on a much more personal level (ambition, greed, destiny, consequences, etc.) It seemed unnatural to try to make it be about war.

From Glamourite:

While the cast as a whole was strong, only two members really stood out of the canvas: the incomparable Liev Schreiber as Macbeth and the graceful yet forceful Jennifer Ehle as Lady Macbeth. Acclaimed stage and screen actor Liev Schreiber has been performing in productions at the Public Theater for the past decade; in this time, he has established himself as the premium Shakespearean actor of his generation in America. According to the New York Times, Schreiber has “consistently won acclaim for the vocal beauty and subintelligence of his performances as Hamlet, Iago, and Henry V, among others.” His Macbeth was so captivating that you cannot help but sit on the edge of your sit and listen to his every word and watch his every movement. Almost as equally impressive was Jennifer Ehle as Lady Macbeth. Acting opposite Schreiber and not fading into the scenery is an incredible feat in itself; however, Jennifer Ehle succeeded in providing a credible counterpart to Schreiber’s Macbeth.

Foreign language reports: Toni in German and er, someone else in Japanese. Babelfish for the brave.

Some "saw it, liked it" reports: Cory and Annie, lobolance, eerabaum, Dona, damedroiture, DrunkBunch, Rachel, amrita, okyoufiends, Jenni Leigh (who spots Spiderman's aunt and Julia Stiles in the audience), Laughing Wild (mildly critical).

Notables but not quotable: Ed describes the show quite evocatively, Terri has a photo from behind the Delacorte, Kirstin writes about the final show (spots Voldemort)

Views from the queue: Brooks Lampe gets philosophical, Stacy blackberry-blogs from the queue.

Star-spotting: Toby Shuster went to the gala and was dumbstruck by Naomi Watts, Cindy also attended and was similarly awed by the celeb-density, Isaac describes the afterparty like so: "just imagine standing in the middle of a castle in eighty-degree heat at midnight, basically in five hundred people's way". Heh.

Janice's report

Thanks Janice.

I had a great time at the Friday eve performance of Macbeth. I always felt that the setting should give a feeling of glumness and despair. The rain and pending storm was perfect (from my perspective as a spectator). I thought your performance was excellent. I have always thought that Lady Macbeth is a juicy role but have seen other performances with weak actors, or maybe it could have been the director’s fault. I always felt that Lady Macbeth was a force to be reckoned with and really directed her husband’s actions but as we all know, the powers of the mind can afflict anyone and Lady Macbeth was not immune to that. I look forward to your future projects. Hope you’re enjoying the show.

The last time I saw Macbeth was in Seattle at their Shakespeare in the Park series last summer. My husband played Ross and Porter. It was fun to see a larger scale, more funded production, although I must admit, there are some fantastic regional productions out there!

It was silly to use jenniferehle@gmail.com for the blog, but alas, what's done cannot be undone. Mail to that address does not reach Ms Ehle but us eds, mere fans. See the FAQ for her agents' details.

PS. Sorry about Friday, confusion on my part.

Macbeth leftovers

The bad: J Gatsby.

The good: Timmy, Danika.

Drawing of the set.

The beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Oh, we passed the 1000 posts mark recently (it's up to 1020ish now). Hip hip hurrah!

PS. Minor bits on Coast of Utopia: Martha Plimpton talks about it at the end of her Downstage Center interview - not much new info, just that rehearsals start in September. There's an article about Tom Stoppard's trip to Russia in the Moscow Times. The Russian version of the trilogy set to preem in April 2007.

Hurlyburly's done

David Barbour for Lighting & Sound:

...In a production by Moses Kaufman that is both bloody and elegant, Macbeth proves to be a very, very good idea indeed.
...
The Baldwin production was almost entirely stolen by the Banquo of Liev Schreiber, who was just beginning to make his reputation as one of our best Shakespeareans; here, he provides a fresh look at the Scottish soldier king. Most Macbeths, in my experience, have been rationalizers, turning the idea of murder around in their heads, jumping through logical hoops to convince themselves that they act rightly. Schreiber will have none of this; his Macbeth goes with his gut, reaching for Duncan's crown almost instinctively--and, later, as the bodies begin to pile up, recoils from his deeds in an equally visceral fashion. At moments, he almost seems to be physically sickened by the blood he has spilled. (When he says, "Macbeth shall sleep no more," you really believe it.)

Offering the sharpest possible contrast is Jennifer Ehle's coolly beautiful, supremely rational Lady Macbeth. Every inch the political wife--dressed by Michael Krass in a white strapless gown seemingly lifted from Eva Peron's closet--she positively beams with warmth and good will, even as she plots the death of Duncan. Clearly convinced that only one violent deed will purchase her the world, she convincingly disintegrates as one murder leads to another, and then another. In one of the evening's most striking images, after the killing of Duncan, she enters, her arms stained with blood up to her elbows, looking for all the world like gloves to go with her evening dress. ...

Robert Fuller for Edge gives a so-so review:

Jennifer Ehle as Lady Macbeth also has mixed success. She has the stern and beautiful bearing of the popular girl nobody really likes; she’s the first Lady Macbeth I’ve seen who made me think of how complicated her relationships with all the other wives around town must be. But her hunger - for the crown, a child, or whatever - never seems alive to us. The character’s calculation is played so relentlessly that anything else there might be is choked off. Like all those pretty popular girls, Ehle mostly just makes us feel indifferent in the end.

Marc Pitzke for Spiegel (see Babelfish):

Dann verwischen die Jahrhunderte. Macbeth und seine stählerne First Lady (Jennifer Ehle, Tochter der britischen Theaterlegende Rosemary Harris) kommen in dieser Inszenierung als Glamour-Paar daher, wie frisch den Klatschblättern entsprungen: jung, elegant, Champagner trinkend und immer sexy, selbst mit Blut an den Händen. "Brad und Angelina geben Interviews - in iambischen Pentametern", schrieb der Kritiker Charles Isherwood dazu.

Star-spotting by Jügi and David Patrick Columbia - the latter has photos, but none of the leading lady.

What's a roundup without naysayers? Disappointment chez Helen (but from early previews), Heather and Elisabeth Vincentelli. Mixed review from Karen, who wasn't so keen on the updating thing. However, this production has succeeded in turning people on to live Shakespeare, including Britt ("It was a very powerful and thrilling performance...I was in awe through the entire five acts"), KH and Ivy. barbarienne loved it (likewise amme) and was even infected by Shakespearese. Also, there's a response to the New Yorker's review at newyorkette about the menstrual blood interpretation of the "unsex me here" speech.

So, Macbeth has now closed. What a month! No doubt there will be leftovers about it trickling in, but we'll be returning to regular programming soon. Get ready for bi-daily posting of ancient news and eBay roundups.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed reports, reviews, links, tips, photos, scans, moral support and other useful things. Special thanks to the folks at the Public Theatre for being super helpful and friendly.

PS. Looks like John Ehle's The Land Breakers will be in stores on July 21st according to Press 53. There will be a press conference at Borders.

Macbeth stills

Photographer Michal Daniel of Proofsheet has the largest collection of Macbeth production stills found so far, 27 beautiful photos.




Have a look at Film Magic's coverage of the Macbeth afterparty too. The photos including Jennifer Ehle we've posted before.

Macbeth miracle

Knew the fates couldn't be that cruel! We've found a transcript of the ABC feature on Macbeth broadcast a couple of days ago, with Jennifer Ehle, Moisés Kaufman and Lynn Cohen. Still can't find the video although it is probably lurking online somewhere via ABC's subscription video-on-demand service.

This is just the beginning, you must read the whole thing.

BILL BLAKEMORE (ABC NEWS)

(OC) Let me start with you, Miss Ehle. You look a little bit different when I saw you a few nights ago. You don't look like Lady Macbeth at all. How in the heaven's name did you prepare for this part? I don't suppose this is one of those parts were you find your inner Lady Macbeth to speak of it and bring that out.

JENNIFER EHLE (ACTRESS

Well, you follow the story. So, I guess, she does emerge. I never wanted to come at it as a applying a Lady Macbeth. I had received ideas about who she was, even though I hadn't ever really paid much attention to the play. I didn't believe in what I, I had read it and I had seen it. But, I never found her very interesting. Because, she'd always seemed like not quite a real person to me. And, then, when I knew that Moises was doing this at The Public. I sat down and read the play and found that I really, really liked her. And, that she wasn't at all who I had ever believed her to be.

BILL BLAKEMORE (ABC NEWS)

(OC) You liked her?

JENNIFER EHLE (ACTRESS

I do. I like her.

BILL BLAKEMORE (ABC NEWS)

(OC) You made, you made her very interesting, I must say. What did you, was there a psychological key to this famous monster?

JENNIFER EHLE (ACTRESS

No, well, I don't think, I mean, I think, she is a monster. Of course, anybody who kills another human being and cold blooded is a monster. But, I don't think that, you should be able to be in the room with her and not be aware that she's a monster. I think, that's a true monster, isn't it?

BILL BLAKEMORE (ABC NEWS)

(OC) That's what makes it so frightening?

JENNIFER EHLE (ACTRESS

Yes.

GRAPHICS: SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK TAKES PLACE EACH SUMMER IN NYC'S CENTRAL PARK

BILL BLAKEMORE (ABC NEWS)

(OC) There wasn't some thought like, this is one who has to be in control or just has to have...

JENNIFER EHLE (ACTRESS

She just, if they just can do this one little thing then, life would be okay.

BILL BLAKEMORE (ABC NEWS)

(OC) Ah.

JENNIFER EHLE (ACTRESS

It's just, just one little thing. And, it's a horrible thing. And, she knows it's a horrible thing. But, just, if we do this, then, for the rest of our life, we will be so happy. And, we will have...

GRAPHICS: PERFORMANCES ARE FREE

BILL BLAKEMORE (ABC NEWS)

(OC) Just a little murder. And, then...

JENNIFER EHLE (ACTRESS

Just a little murder and then, we'll be fine. And, it, unfortunately, I think she would be capable of doing that. But, he is not. And, so, since he is not, their marriage falls apart, everything falls apart. And so, she loses everything because he can't live with the guilt.

GRAPHICS: 1ST COME, 1ST SERVED BASIS

BILL BLAKEMORE (ABC NEWS)

(OC) So, she made that little mistake in logic?

JENNIFER EHLE (ACTRESS

Yeah.

BILL BLAKEMORE (ABC NEWS)

(OC) How to live a happy life?

JENNIFER EHLE (ACTRESS

And, she believed that he wanted. I mean, he's the one who first broaches it. And, she believes, she knows that he doesn't have the backbone, the spine to kill. And, so she says, 'I will back you up. I will give you the result that you need. Wherever you have gaps, I will fill it in." And, she makes that vow and she follows through and does it. And, it's a terrible, terrible mistake.

Read on, I say! We've also got a transcription of the Charlie Rose interview with Liev Schreiber, which can be viewed via Google Video for free.

To the roundup. David A. Rosenberg of Backstage sees the Macbeths as a "chic power couple", modelled on the Bushes. Theatrescene's Jenifer Braun also picks up on the "smooth, WASPy" element. The Playgoer thinks the politicising of Macbeth is appropriate, cf the NYT review. But he's ambivalent about the glam approach to Lady M. In contrast, Robert Cashill of Live Design finds that "the hair color, and the pink and purple gowns designed for her by Michael Krass, softened the actress in a surprising way, and made her turn toward plotting and conspiracy all the more chilling". He calls her an "iron butterfly". longdeadturkey liked her "deliberately odd" interpretation, though opinions among his companions varied. astamate admires both leads' "nuanced performances" though he would've liked more spookiness, while Boulon Jones says that this Macbeth was "by far the best Shakespeare production" ever seen, and gives a lovely description of the ambiance. Finally, darklyscarlett's review is too good not to quote:

Lady Macbeth always reminded me of a calculating society wife who feeds her husbands ambitions then is completely ill-equipped to handle the violent practicalities of political scheming, mayhem and murder. She expends so much energy throwing a rug over abyss of his madness in public that it's inevitable that she falls into her own with a wail. In a PR sense, they're pretty savvy, but not too astute.

On stage, Lieve Schrieber and Jennifer Ehle did look the consummate power partnership; Charles Isherwood of The New York Times, in his review, compared them to a highly-groomed Hollywood golden couple, "Brad and Angelina granting interviews in iambic pentameter."

Absolutely loved her. Thought that, especially during an uneven first act, she blew Liev right off the stage. Though this was a very different portrayal; there wasn't an undercurrent of malevolence and rage in her character as she goes insane ("Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!" comes out in grief and disbelief, more than anything). But in the end, it didn't matter. She's got an indelible stage presence, no pun, and a beautiful delivery. Didn't hurt that, with the strawberry-blond hair in gorgeous gowns, she looked like an amalgam of Kate Winslet, Gillian Anderson, and Meryl Streep.

Oh yeah, up-and-coming Canadian actress Laura Regan is one of us.

Last chance

Only two more performances of Macbeth left! Don't miss out. Sunday's performance is Sign-interpreted by the way.

Macbeth and miscellany

Broadway.com has photos from Macbeth's opening night. Jennifer Ehle's in the first with Liev Schreiber and the 13th photo with Julianna Margulies. Thanks Kate!

Writing with Zest has a handful of Livejournal icons from Macbeth production stills.

Limmy's World Tour has a couple of photos, one of the stage and one of singleted Liev Schreiber.

Gawker has a sweet stagedoor story with Liev Schreiber.

Early buzz for The Coast of Utopia in the Poughkeepsie Journal:

Coming in October: Put Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia" on your calendar for the fall. This is his three-part epic that spans a 30-year period as it tells the panoramic story of a group of Russian writers who strive to create a new political system using only their minds as weapons. You'll be able to see the show in three separate showings or in an all-day marathon — if you can stand it.

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.

Barbican Alpha Male tix

You can now book tickets for screenings of Alpha Male at the Barbican, running from August 11 - 24.

They've got this blurb from Anton Bitel of Total Film:

"Subtly written, beautifully performed, and moving without being mawkish... it’s 'Three Birthdays and a Funeral' but without a trace of Hugh Grant's comic bumbling"

Can't wait!

Oh yeah, the Google HTML cache of El Interview is back up (original's in PDF format). Here: Part 1 (career & profession), Part 2 (specific works), Parts 3-5 (motherhood & family; geography, nationality & accent; interests & personality), Parts 5-6 (misc & silly questions; Colin Firth/Kevin Spacey fangirl questions). The formatting's still funky though.

Google provides

Voila, the Charlie Rose interview with Liev Schreiber is online thanks to Google Video. It's not very dialup-friendly but apparently has two clips from Macbeth. Word from ATC is that it's repeating at 1.30pm today (Thursday).

Still can't find the ABC feature for free anywhere, so you might have to sign up for a trial subscription. Only for Windowsers though, curses.

To the roundup - nothing very exciting. Reviews from Village Voice and blogger Jaime aren't very enthusiastic. Elsewhere in blogland, chelseagirl147 digs the Macbeths' chemistry and is surprised at Ms Ehle's American accent while delancey reckons Mr Schreiber's accent goes Deep South when he's emoting.

Whatever, you have only a couple of days left to make up your own mind about Macbeth! It closes on July 9th.

ABC TV feature

Have just received word from the Public Theatre that there will be a 22-minute segment on Macbeth featuring Jennifer Ehle, Lynn Cohen and Moisés Kaufman. It's airing at 7.35pm EST "tonight" on ABC's digital cable - not sure if that means Wednesday night or Thursday night. If the former and you've missed it, it will also be on broadcast ABC stations from 3.05 to 4.30am EST. Apparently it can also be watched online at the ABC site but can't find it.

Sorry about the late notice.

[edit: crapola, there was an interview with Liev Schreiber on Charlie Rose as well, Wednesday night. Hopefully it'll go up at Google Video]

More Macbeth video and reviews

Check out WCBS-TV's video from Macbeth. It has a little less yak than the NY1 so that we get to hear a bit of the "all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" speech (and an impressive yowl). The review is a little lukewarm though. In contrast, Hilton Als of the New Yorker finds freshness in the gender-bending theme and depiction of the Macbeths as a "fractured political family".

In Ehle, [Kaufman] has a willing collaborator. At the start of the play, Lady Macbeth receives a letter that her husband, a legendarily fierce Scottish general, has sent from the front, where he has helped save Scotland from a hostile takeover by the King of Norway. Macbeth tells her of the Weird Sisters’ prophecy that he will one day be king. As she reads, Lady Macbeth finds herself dreaming of the blood yet to be spilled—of the rivers that will flow if only she can guide Macbeth to power. The blood that will stain her husband’s hands is less offensive to her than her own menstrual blood—the symbol of her femininity. “Unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty!” she says. “Make thick my blood; / Stop up th’access and passage to remorse, / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose.”

While delivering this speech, Ehle runs her fingers lightly up and down her midsection, in order to make it clear to us that she is speaking of Lady Macbeth’s womb. This graphic, almost cartoonish gesture passes in a flash. And yet it manages to stick in the viewer’s mind, if only because of its awkward charm: Ehle’s interpretation of the role stresses not Lady Macbeth’s cold focus but her odd vulnerability. Dressed like a nineteen-fifties sitcom mom—her skirts are big and full, her blond curls clean and tight—Ehle is the very image of sweetness. As Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC version of “Pride and Prejudice,” and as the star of István Szabó’s underrated 1999 film “Sunshine,” she projected a similar flowerlike tenderness. While Ehle’s Lady Macbeth is a stretch—and an act of defiance against the standard casting of the role—you root for her, if only because Kaufman is rooting for her, too. Rather than downplaying Ehle’s decency and beauty, he folds that honey into Lady Macbeth’s malevolence and bile. Ehle, in the role, becomes the kind of old-fashioned woman who is happy to step back and pass the canapés because she knows she’s got her husband by the balls.

There are sure a lot of bloggers in NY. Bethany is starstruck from opening night, having had the opportunity to meet the whole cast "including the gorgeous and so supremely nice, Jennifer Ehle", while redhotchilli007 squees at meeting fellow Hampshire alumnus Liev Schreiber. A Gawker rep was also at the opening. Pisicutsa spotted Rosemary Harris the night she went and greatly enjoyed the show, as did tiburon512. trueoriginali and Amy liked it too, despite some problems in the queue and with synopsis-glued acquaintances. Trinityvixen likes pre- but not post-breakdown Lady Macbeth.

Good and bad news

Ann from EhleNews says that the show was rained out on the night she went (Sunday?), but received ample compensation. Membership of EhleNews is required to read the message.

Meanwhile, to American readers, happy 4th of July!

Macbeth video, Utopia books

Malcolm Johnson of the Hartford Courant gives descriptive report of Macbeth. In CurtainUp's review Les Gutman admires the leads' elocution but finds their marital passion lacking, and William Wolf doesn't feel it either. But look, there's video! NY1 has a RealPlayer-format review with clips from the play. Roma Torre doesn't get Ms Ehle's interpretation though. Luckily Michael Criscuolo of nytheater.com does:

As for the performances, Liev Schreiber is a blessing as Macbeth. His is not a flashy performance, just a solid, grounded one, in which he reveals a deep understanding of the role. His Macbeth is not ambitious or power-hungry—he's just a good soldier who makes a bad decision (albeit, one that triggers a domino effect from which he cannot extricate himself). Schreiber plays him as a once strong man who breaks himself. Indeed, the Thane of Cawdor shall sleep no more, as Schreiber uses Macbeth's foretold insomnia to escalate his deterioration.

He's the perfect antithesis to Jennifer Ehle's businesslike, social-climbing Lady Macbeth, who urges her husband on to bloodshed. She turns ruthlessly practical after Duncan's murder, dismissing her husband's grief as if he were an overwrought child, while Macbeth starts falling apart immediately. When he is crowned king, Macbeth looks fearful and small, while she, on the other hand, looks radiant and luminous; as if that were the moment she'd been waiting her entire life for. It isn't until her final scene, when she proclaims “What's done now cannot be undone,” that Lady Macbeth realizes the gravity of her actions. It's a moment that Ehle nails perfectly, capping a splendid performance.

I should add that what's best about Schreiber and Ehle is that they don't rush. They take their time with everything—the language, their scenes together, the play's big moments. They invest in them, make sure everything's clear, and make playing Shakespeare look like the easiest thing in the world. Inspiring.

Naysayers will, no doubt, have something snarky to say about this Macbeth (as all Shakespeare snobs usually do). Don't listen to them. Led by Kaufman's commanding direction, and Schreiber—who is one of the great Shakespeareans of our time—this production of Macbeth is Shakespeare for the people, not the critics or scholars. Just as the Bard would have wanted it, I'm sure.

Amen to that. And here are the views of some of those people. April, a friend of a cast member, got to go to the gala and rub shoulders with the beautiful people. Zak and Devon find the show "incredible". Chance1729 more or less concurs with the NYT reviewer and thinks the leads carried the play well. tyger finds parallels between Lady Macbeth and Volumnia in Coriolanus. Aaron Riccio says the play's not to be missed.

Looking ahead to The Coast of Utopia, Google Books has previews of all three plays which you can browse through. Amazon has hardcover and paperback versions of the omnibus, and also sells the plays singly: Voyage, Shipwreck and Salvage. In the acknowledgments Tom Stoppard talks about The Romantic Exiles by E.H. Carr and Russian Thinkers by Isaiah Berlin, which might be worthwhile background reading.

Macbeth bits

Press:

Toby Zinman for the Philadelphia Inquirer

Blogs:

Jenn: initially digs the show, then changes her mind.

AnnLynn: digs the Macbeths' chemistry.

thelineofeld: digs.

teddyann: digs Mr Schreiber's hotness.

Alpha Male production notes

Verve Pics now has full production notes on Alpha Male on their website in PDF and Word format. It includes a synopsis, cast/crew biographies and full credits. Here's the synopsis with spoilers.

Alpha Male is a story of family life. It is a film about the force of personality, about family politics, repressed emotions, great love and devastating loss. Jim Ferris is the archetypal “alpha male”. Warm, charismatic, ambitious and successful, he is the driving force of his business and the linchpin of his family life. He is the consummate provider for his wife Alice and for his children, Jack and Elyssa, both in terms of material comfort and emotional support. It feels as though nothing can touch the idyllic world he has created, so that his sudden illness and death come as the most profound shock. Alice and the children are left stunned and adrift in the limbo of bereavement and loneliness.

The young Jack, charged with the task of being the man of the house, takes his new responsibility very seriously. Elyssa, already a sensitive and perceptive girl, becomes increasingly withdrawn and derails in a myriad of disturbing ways. Alice, lost in her grief and relying too heavily on the support of her envious sister Brede, seems to give up all influence over the household. Finally Elyssa reaches crisis point, and only then does Alice pull herself together and resume her role as caring mother. Brede is sent away, and Alice does her best to cope as a single mother.

When Alice meets widower Clive Lamis, she finds in him a steady companion and someone she imagines can share the responsibility of bringing up her children. But Clive finds himself cast in Jim’s long shadow and struggles to emerge from it as the family’s new patriarch. Jack is indignant and takes an instant dislike to this pretender in his house. Openly disdainful of Clive, and feeling betrayed by his mother, Jack embarks on a course of grim silence and obstinate refusal to accept the new household arrangements. Instead, he focuses all his energies on studying hard, preparing his escape to university. When Alice and Clive have a child of their own, Nathan, Jack cuts himself off completely.

When Jack turns 21, Alice somehow manages to persuade him to return home so that she can throw him an extravagant birthday party. All the family are brought together once again, their conflicts and deep resentments all still fresh and ripe for expression. Jack, Alice, Clive, Elyssa and Brede – even Jim’s presence is felt over this hot Summer weekend. In a climax of mounting tension and complex emotional interplay, all the old wounds are reopened and everything that has been simmering for so long finally comes to a head.

On the site there are also extremely high-res photos from the film including a couple with Jennifer Ehle. They're the same as those on Nicola Dove's site (in fact there are more on her site).

PS. The Lincoln Center site says that non-member tickets for The Coast of Utopia will be for sale on September 10th, member tickets on August 7th.

Macbeth print reviews

Excerpts contain summaries of the review and bits about Ms Ehle.

David Rooney of Variety:

The complexities behind Macbeth's surrender to evil and to overpowering destiny are compellingly embodied in Schreiber's contained performance but less so in other aspects of Moises Kaufman's intermittently forceful Shakespeare in the Park production. It takes more than a commanding lead to make this most brutal and brisk of tragedies resonate fully.
...
The doomed antihero has a glam ice queen in Jennifer Ehle's Lady Macbeth, and the sexual chemistry between her and Schreiber adds spark to their scenes. Looking like she's stepped out of the pages of a vintage movie magazine, Ehle works hard to override her natural softness; she plays the role about a decade later than Kaufman's time frame, coming across like a steely '40s film noir manipulatrix. The approach works even if Ehle is more persuasive when summoning "direst cruelty" to galvanize her wavering husband to action than when later succumbing to her own demons.

Joe Dziemianowicz of the NY Daily News:

Director Moisés Kaufman ("The Laramie Project") takes a largely straight-forward route, shunning anything too experimental, which, in the past, has hobbled some productions in the park.

The result is a fine time up at the old castle, marked by a few creative tweaks.
...
As Lady Macbeth, Ehle is too measured and mannered to register deep impact. Her fever for the throne seems low-grade, which undermines her push for power and her descent into madness after the murders. Her choice? Director's orders? Ask an oracle. But she might have borrowed some heat from Florencia Lozano, who boils a bit too high as the doomed Lady Macduf

Elysa Gardner of USA Today:

If you're up for less dainty, more seasoned turmoil, the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park series is presenting Macbeth through July 9, with the excellent Liev Schreiber in the title role. Jennifer Ehle, eschewing the sweetness and light she has lent to other stage and screen roles, makes a coldly efficient Lady Macbeth. Teagle F. Bougere, Sterling K. Brown and others add rigorous support.

John Simon of Bloomberg:

"Macbeth" is Shakespeare's shortest play, yet its Central Park production by the Public Theater seems, even with considerable cuts, overlong.
...
Moises Kaufman, an inconsistent director at best, has elicited performances that only rarely rise to mediocrity. Liev Schreiber, as Macbeth, displays none of the hero-villain's charisma, or even much conviction in his line readings. His baritone roams from shouts to whispers arbitrarily situated.

As his Lady, the inveterately charming Jennifer Ehle plays a modern society hostess whose careful finishing-school upbringing hardly allows her cultivated soprano to stray beyond the limits of good breeding.

Frank Scheck of NY Post:

Unfortunately, there's little to distinguish this production other than the presence of its starry leads. This is Kaufman's first attempt at staging the Bard, and it feels a little tentative.

Although filled with ominous touches, including portentous sound and lighting effects, there's little dramatic urgency - no small detriment, considering that is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy, and his most breathless work.
...
His co-star is equally disappointing. Although Ehle has proven herself wonderfully capable of comedy in such stage productions as "Design for Living," her Lady Macbeth lacks the fierceness of a woman bent on murder. Although she well conveys her character's ardor for her husband - you can really feel the heat between these attractive performers - she's less successful at making her machinations believable.

Terry (!) Teachout of the Wall Street Journal:

...Yet Mr. Kaufman, for all his political preoccupations, is also a true showman, and he has somehow managed to turn these week-old leftovers into a thriller full of sumptuous pageantry and drenched in buckets of stage blood.

Liev Schrieber's too-mellifluous Macbeth reminded me of the similar performance he gave three years ago in Mark Wing-Davies's Shakespeare in the Park production of "Henry V." Now as then, I found him boringly smooth in the first half, passionate and convincing in the second. Jennifer Ehle, by contrast, was wonderful from start to finish. Though she is chiefly known in the U.S. as the best of all possible Elizabeths in the BBC's "Pride and Prejudice" miniseries, Ms. Ehle's theatrical quiver contains other equally sharp arrows, and her Lady Macbeth -- now venomous, now terror-stricken -- is worth standing in line to see.

Broadway.com excerpts reviews from various sources, all of which we've covered here. Today's NY Sun has an article by A.L. Gordon about the opening night revels:

"Bad Shakespeare in Central Park would be great. But great Shakespeare? What a fantastic night," real estate developer Joseph Rose said after the opening night performance of "Macbeth." The play had ended, and Mr. Rose and a few hundred others had climbed up to Belvedere Castle for the cast and crew party, an event full of Falstaffian mirth for those who could handle the humidity.

Also, in the NYT, artistic director Oskar Eustis discusses the Public's war theme for this season. There's a profile on him in NY Magazine.

Bloggers and LJ'ers too must have their share of the conversation. In general, they dig the park experience but many are unimpressed with the production. Open Firefox and go: apythia, milkdropcoronet, WTF NYC, Sam, Sammy, sixandthecity. The latter gets points for calling Ms Ehle's Lady M "flawlessly flawed" and us a "rather intense fan blog". (US, INTENSE?!?!?!! NO WAY!!)

Brainwashing works

Ok not really, Factiva works. The press review onslaught continues and will be blogged later, but for tonight read Jennifer Ehle's intentions for her Lady Macbeth in Women's Wear Daily.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY
Elisa Lipsky-Karasz
27 June 2006
Women's Wear Daily
English
Copyright 2006 Fairchild Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved

NEW YORK - Jennifer Ehle is one of those rare creatures whose ethereal beauty almost blossoms more from having her head shaved. But though her high cheekbones and sparkling blue eyes may benefit from the crop - for a part in the upcoming film "Pride and Glory" - it's probable her self-effacing personality doesn't appreciate the extra stares that result. For Ehle, despite her many accolades, is shy. So shy, in fact, that when she was a drama student in England in the late Eighties, the North Carolina native adopted an English accent "to camouflage myself," she says.

Ehle is not one to shy away from a challenge, however. So after a nearly four-year break from acting, she finds herself in front of a nightly audience of 1,800 as Lady Macbeth in Moiss Kaufman's production of the play for The Public Theater's annual Shakespeare in the Park, opening Wednesday. It's a role that not only has been performed by "thousands of women," as Ehle notes, but is also one that portrays one of the most loathed characters in the history of theater.

"I had never been very interested in the play," Ehle admits softly, "or in the received ideas I had about Lady Macbeth. I always thought that she was sort of this Elvira vamp, and an evil, manipulative, melodramatic, ball-busting creature. But then I read it and I didn't see any of those things in her at all."

So a wig-wearing Ehle (no stranger to fake hair, she jokingly dedicated her 1996 BAFTA for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC's "Pride and Prejudice" to her wigs) takes the stage at the Delacorte opposite Liev Schreiber and humanizes what is one of Shakespeare's best-known, if briefest, female leads.

"I saw her as an incredibly greedy, determined human being who, if she has any real insanity, has sort of an obsessive love for her husband. I don't think the play has any interest if she is capable of killing someone at the beginning," Ehle says. "Unfortunately, you only have about two pages to become somebody who can kill. It's fascinating to do - like a puzzle."

Acting has not always held such interest for her. Though it runs in her blood - Ehle's mother is actress Rosemary Harris, and her father is author John Ehle - she has until recently been on hiatus, living a quiet country life in Dutchess County with her husband Michael Ryan, her son George and her dog, Joe Pie.

"Even when I was at drama school, I was thinking, 'This isn't what I want to do, this isn't what I want to do,' but I never stopped," says Ehle. "When I was 30, I just thought, 'As soon as my schedule is clear, I'm going to not do this anymore and see how it goes.'

"I'd always wanted to see if I would miss it," she continues. "And actually I didn't really miss it."

She eventually decided to stick her toe back in, however, and headed off to London last summer for "The Philadelphia Story." "I felt that our wee family was ready, and I was very, very curious," the 36-year-old explains.

Now she's in up to her neck. Besides "Pride and Glory," there's "Michael Clayton," costarring George Clooney, due out later this year, and come September she'll star in Tom Stoppard's trilogy "The Coast of Utopia" at Lincoln Center alongside Billy Crudup, Ethan Hawke and Martha Plimpton.

"I really was not planning on doing any more theater this year," she says. "I'm torn. Part of me just wants to be a mom and stay at home. It's daunting to look ahead and think that I am going to be working until next March. I should really probably be doing movies and trying to make money.

"But what are you going to do?" she laughs, shaking her head. "They are three beautiful parts, and it's awfully hard to walk away."

Must dash

But look, new photos from opening night! and blog from someone who went to the gala.



Thanks to Josie for these!

Suxors and roxors

There's no pleasing some people. Michael Sommers of the Star Ledger hardly likes anything about Macbeth. But it's ok, he hasn't liked any other production of it either. Jacques Le Sourd of The Journal News only sees black as well.

However! From Writing with Zest:

The short review: OMG It r0x0rs! Why I feel the need to type bad L33T: No clue.

I have seen some bad Shakespeare in the Parkin my time. Just becase some big, famous actor or actors are in it doesn't mean the thing is oing to be any good. Twefth Night 4 years ago? Worst. Production. Evar. Where is John Carroll when you need him? Anyway, I didn't get my hopes up too high even though Liev Schreiber and Jennifer Ehle play Macbeth and his Lady. It might still have been bad Good thing it SO wasn't. It was the opposite of bad times ten. So, so good.

Read on to see why her loins go "HELLO, Dolly!".

Over at Press 53 they've got the proof of John Ehle's The Land Breakers ready. Check out the info about the launch at On the Same Page.

Mad hot

Pictures from opening night are up at Getty Images and Wireimage. If those links don't work, just go to the Getty and Wireimage home pages and search for Ehle. Will try to get some without watermarks. Check out other photos from the event as well, mega star wattage in the audience as onstage.



And lo! The Charlie Rose interview is now available for free at Google Video, thanks to some sponsorship thing. Here's the transcript.

[edit: Playbill has a photo call, none of her but there's a shot of Julianna Margulies and others]

[subliminal message]Please buy Tuesday's Women's Wear Daily and share![/brainwash]

Open captioned Macbeth

The Public Theatre's site says that there will be an open-captioned performance of Macbeth on July 2nd. The Sign-interpreted one is on the 9th.

"Brangelina Gone Bad!"

The New York Times review is out, written by Charles Isherwood. The Brangelina reference can be read in the full text.

The meticulous craft of their performances comes, therefore, as no surprise. Mr. Schreiber and Ms. Ehle speak Shakespeare's verse with a natural grace and clarity, a seduction to match their looks. (Ms. Ehle is seriously ravishing in her chic dresses by Michael Krass.) Drawn into an intimate relationship with their characters by means visually glamorous and aurally alluring, we should shudder all the more at the contrast between good looks and bad acts, verifying the doomed King Duncan's observation, "There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face." The problem is that in Moisés Kaufman's elegantly wrought production set in the tumultuous early 20th century, the Macbeths' murderous rampage unfolds at an oddly stately pace. Blood flows regularly, but as if dispensed from silver taps. In the end neither Mr. Schreiber nor Ms. Ehle seems fully to inhabit the darkness of their characters, despite — or maybe because of — the fastidiousness of their interpretations.

A dense thoughtfulness has always been a hallmark of Mr. Schreiber's Shakespearean turns, and it is here matched by Ms. Ehle's nuanced delineation of Lady Macbeth's gradual disintegration. But together and separately they remain cool customers in a play that demands something closer to ferocious heat. The play's dark vision should colonize our imaginations with terrifying images of the havoc wrought when man's baser nature unleashes its darkness, making unnatural all that it touches. Spooky sound effects notwithstanding, this production never really gets under your skin.
...
Lackluster performances in most of the supporting roles compound the problem. Varying from competent (Mr. Foster's Duncan and doctor) to bland (the Banquo of Teagle F. Bougere) to strident (Florencia Lozano's Lady Macduff), the actors rarely command attention, leaving Mr. Schreiber and Ms. Ehle to provide virtually all of the dramatic firepower.

That they don't quite deliver enough has less to do with their talents than with matching actors to roles. Mr. Schreiber and Ms. Ehle offer finely detailed portraits of complex people breaking apart as their murderous acts reverberate in their minds and in the world around them. But at no point do these fine artists seem possessed by their slightly supernatural characters. We leave impressed by the dedication of actors to their craft, not hollowed out by a hair-raising encounter with two of Shakespeare's darkest and most disturbing creations.

Click to see the large version of this photo by Sara Krulwich. There's also a photo of Liev Schreiber you might want to see, ladies.

Hold on, the NY Sun also has a review by kill- Joy Goodwin.

Far less ominous is Jennifer Ehle's unprepossessing Lady Macbeth. With her porcelain complexion and golden curls, Ms. Ehle looks uncannily like a young Meryl Streep. When she first appears, in a World War I-era bright pink gown, it's hard to imagine that venom could be lurking beneath those rosy cheeks. (She couldn't be further from Judi Dench's iconic Lady Macbeth, she of the dark head scarf and shift.)

Playing against all that pink might have proven an interesting choice, but Ms. Ehle seems to have trouble building steam.Lady Macbeth is expected to work some angle on her husband - to seduce him, to ridicule him, to question his manhood. But there's no clear intention here. Ms. Ehle's performance gives no strong of Lady Macbeth's conflicted interior life; just a sort of basic mercenary instinct. Without some sort of duality to work with, the sleepwalking scene - usually the piece de resistance - makes no sense.

Opposite Ms. Ehle, Mr. Schreiber finds himself in the awkward position of a man trying to start a fire with steel and no flint.The play's intimate domestic world - which ought to be so full of frisson and danger - is flat in this "Macbeth." Only when the world of men and deeds comes into the domestic world - at the ill-fated banquet - do husband and wife snap to life.As the drunk Macbeth leaps onto the table, knocking off glasses, dazed by visions of the ghost of Banquo (the dear friend he's just had murdered), Lady Macbeth defends them both with uncharacteristic vigor.