Take Two Films October 19.qxp_Layout 22 18/09/2019 10:40 Page 1
CINEMA | HIGHLIGHTS
Take two: films
The Little Theatre Cinema has two film offerings this month which illustrate how life on the stage can lead to bleak moments and sometimes tragedy, says Georgina Southam
Judy The life of Judy Garland is one of Hollywood tragedy. It saw the breaking down of a Minnesota teenager and her reinvention as the American sweetheart as she was fashioned into the industry’s self-image. Judy is more than just a biography; it is a study of Hollywood imagemaking at its worst, highlighting in this case how celebrity erodes, ultimately destroying the woman underneath. Garland was damaged by drug addiction, overworked and publicitystunt romances. So it only seems right that 50 years after her death, we get an insight into the last year of her life. Adapted from Peter Quilter’s stage play End of the Rainbow, by Tom Edge, the focus is on the tragedy of the late career of Garland (Renée Zellweger) through a series of sold-out concerts in London in 1968. These performances are a last-ditch effort to make money so she can settle down with her two young children over whom she is in a custody dispute with ex-husband Sidney Luft (Rufus Sewell). Battling the men from her past, her
Wise Children Filmed live for the cinema screen at York Theatre Royal in March 2019, this is the critically acclaimed stage adaptation of Angela Carter’s 1991 novel Wise Children, from multi-award winning director Emma Rice, whose company – also called Wise
38 TheBATHMagazine
|
ocTober 2019
|
iSSUe 205
addictions and a lack of recent success, she is a broken and lonely woman whose voice is no longer what it used to be. With no money coming in, and practically homeless, the opportunity of a steady income through these appearances is intoxicating for Garland. Her performances are often quite frail and tipsy, but with flashbacks to her tumultuous time on the set of The Wizard of Oz, there are moments where that old magic flits into view, and we see the woman that she could have been. This has been reviewd as one of Zellweger’s best career performances. In the words of the Hollywood Reporter, “she captures sides of Garland’s personality that not everyone acknowledges”, such as her self-deprecating humour. Zellweger is certainly an inspired choice for portraying Garland because of her own battles against the Hollywood machine and the media scrutiny she has endured about cosmetic surgery and her personal relationships. Zellweger’s renditions of Garland’s classics, I’ll Go My Way by Myself and Come Rain or Shine are electrifying. She doesn’t match
Children – is based in Bristol. This music-infused, raucous and ultimately heart-warming adaptation. Is glorious – full of the kind of mad magic and mayhem that Rice’s years directing Cornish travelling company Kneehigh instilled in her. Carter’s novel is about making your way, finding your own family and brushing off adversity with a touch of rouge, a bit of glitter and a soupçon of Champagne. It is Shakespearean in its sense of real life and love and in its bawdy humour. It follows two ageing showgirls, now 75 and living in a crumbling house in Brixton, London. They tell their life stories in flashback, from the point their madcap naturist Grandma Chance took them under her wing to their time on stage, in Hollywood and beyond. Rice has created a colourful, exuberant adaptation, playing with gender and race in her cast, with characters changing sex, colour and age in the blink of an eye. Following a tale of theatrical dynasties, illegitimate children and sordid affairs, the production explores, through a brand of high-energy comedy, the idea that acting can sustain you. So we see Nora and Dora split from their father, who never publicly acknowledged them, and find their own path as showgirls on the ‘wrong-side’ of London Thames.
Garland’s vocal abilities in her prime, but by the end of Garland’s career she couldn’t either. It is through Judy’s musical interludes where we see her attempt to connect with the audience in other ways, highlighting her innate need for the show to go on even when she is at the point of breaking.
The production is charged with a talented cast and some breathtaking dancing. Characters include a lepidopterist (someone who collects butterflies and moths) who strides about in yellow tartan trousers and thespian Sir Melchior Hazard who stands out for managing to transition from barrow-boy to upper class plum accent in his Shakespearean deliveries. This production explores the idea that acting is a way of surviving. Nora and Dora experienced their life through show business. They live and breathe it, often quoting lines from famous Shakespearean plays. Rice has pulled together an engaging ensemble, a dazzling combination of songs and dancing, with an undercurrent of tragedy swirling beneath. n
SHOWING TIMES Judy 1 – 10 October, see website for times Wise Children 3 – 4 October, see website for times Little Theatre Cinema, St Michael’s Place; picturehouses.com/cinema/The_Little