STAGE BEAUTY Cross the artistic integrity of Shakespeare In Love with the bawdy behavior of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and you might come up with Stage Beauty, a movie that recognizes the poetry in both Shakespeare and Benny Hill. Set during the reign of King Charles II (Rupert Everett) in 17th century England, the movie continues the recent trend of mixing and matching fact and fiction, with Billy Crudup cast as Ned Kynaston, the most celebrated actor during a period in which women were forbidden from performing on the stage. Making his mark solely in female parts -- his latest triumph is portraying Desdemona in Othello -- Ned finds his livelihood cut out from under him when the King issues a decree stating that, effective immediately, women are now allowed to act and men can only play male roles. So while Ned wallows in self-pity and sexual confusion (he only knows how to "act" feminine), his dresser (Claire Danes), who's long had her eye on the stage, suddenly finds herself regarded as the community's top new talent. Director Richard Eyre and scripter Jeffrey Hatcher (adapting his own play, Compleat Female Stage Beauty) fare best when they tackle the issue of gender identification while also debating its theatrical implications ("Where's the trick in that?" bellows Ned when learning that women will play women, hinting that the art comes from the mimicry rather than the shared experience between actor and role); they have less success in curtailing the piece's anachronistic tendencies. 
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CURRENT RELEASES
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