Swithin

*Come to the Stable* ?

Yes, Liberace is great in The Loved One, and also in that other crazy film -- South Sea Sinner -- in which he plays Shelley Winters' accompanist. The Loved One will be on again soon, but South Sea Sinner is a rarity.

O Sepia, bite your tongue! For me, the combo of Dietrich and Von Sternberg represents the height of cinematic art. Very few scenes in any movie equal Dietrich singing "Falling in Love Again" in The Blue Angel. I love the film Cabaret, though I haven't seen it in years. Of course I prefer an English Sally Bowles, and Liza has too good a voice -- Sally is supposed to be a mediocre singer in a dive. There is a great British musical from the late 1970s called Privates on Parade (later a lousy film ruined by plot changes and John Cleese), which is enjoying a revival in London at the moment. It has a great Dietrich/Berlin cabaret sendup. Here's an example.

Hibi, You just gave me an image of yourself, sitting at your desk, singing this song:

Good Morning, Miss W. Another great Canadian theater festival is the Shaw Festival. I've heard great things about that. Btw, another actor I've worked with, who is at Stratford, Canada this year, is Geraint Wyn Davies, originally from Wales. The Stratford, Connecticut Shakespeare Theater looked promising for a time, but I think it's now closed.

You seem to get no takers, apart from me and Liam! I loved working with the Stratford group -- the actors I worked with at that time included Domini Blythe, Lucy Peacock, Brent Carver, Barry MacGregor, and Stephen Russell. And separately as I've said, I worked with Brian Bedford twice.

Forgive my jumping in to answer your question. George is the male lead in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, husband of Martha. George was played in the film by Richard Burton. I think a poster confused Richard III with Richard Burton.

When I was a kid, I saw the film The L-Shaped Room, which I loved. So many interesting English (and one French) characters, but one of my favorites was Mavis, a lesbian with a cat, played by the venerable (though I did not know then how venerable) British actress/singer Cicily Courtneidge. She has a song late in the film -- "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty," during which pregnant Leslie Caron begins her labour. That's where I first heard the term "Blighty." Some years later, on one of my first trips to London, I went to see a play called Move Over Mrs. Markham, because Cicily Courtneidge was the star. She must have been in her 80s at the time I saw her on stage. Here's Miss Courtneidge singing the song in the film:

Now Dargo, had I seen you in Macbeth before I had to read the play, I'm sure it would have all come alive for me. It wasn't until I saw it on stage in 1978 -- with Albert Finney and Dorothy Tutin -- that it began to make sense. Now if they made us read one of Shakespeare's later plays like Pericles, Prince of Tyre in high school, that would have been a different story! The teacher could have introduced it as the horror story that it is, and we would have gobbled it up, incest and all! I performed in no plays in high school but was in a production of Carousel in 6th grade. Oddly serious musical for 11-year olds!

Ah, a friend of mine thought that might be the case. Sorry to hear it, he was a gorgeous creature, was he not?

We better watch out, Miss W, it sounds as if your "I am really mad" thread is on its way back!

But to your point I think having to read Macbeth in high school prejudiced me against that play for a long time!

King Billy (William III) was William of Orange, who came over to the UK from Holland, to become king. His wife became Queen Mary II. Billy is not exactly fondly remembered today by the Irish (apart from the Orangemen in the North).

Yes, the production with Alan Cumming was pretty graphic. In addition to the sex, he also had track marks all over his arms. There is also a hint of gay sex in Sally's song, "Don't Tell Mama:" "You can tell my brother, that ain't grim; cause if he squeals on me I'll squeak on him! But don't tell Mama what you saw!"

Also "orange" has another, and much more politically charged connotation in the UK -- King Billy and the Battle of the Boyne, etc.

The *Christopher and His Kind* BBC program for which I posted a link earlier today is very clear. Isherwood, meaning to set the record straight after Cabaret became so famous, comes right out and says something like this, "I could say I went to Berlin to write, or because of the politics, or whatever; but it was because of the *BOYS*. Berlin meant boys"

I think *Julie Harris* is one of those actors who is brilliant on stage and has made films once in a while to support her stage habit. She always loved both Broadway and touring the "provinces" -- just like the Lunts, or Katherine Cornell, or Eva Le Gallienne. She's of that great tradition; perhaps films don't suit her.

Well Liam, with respect I disagree with you (and Addison) a little. I think Shakespeare can certainly be appreciated by reading his plays. As well as by seeing them performed, of course, but then you have them filtered through the interpretation of an actor or director. I prefer to do it both ways. In advance of seeing a production of King Lear with Jonathan Pryce recently I read selections from the Quarto and Folio of King Lear first. Not that I would always do that, but reading, even without the performance, can be thrilling as well. Re: Stratford, Canada, I worked with Brian Bedford a couple of times, once on a Shakespeare-related event. I enjoyed working with him. Also saw him perform Timon of Athens in NYC once. I've also worked with other Stratford, Canada actors, one of whom was a lovely lady and great actress named Domini Blythe, who sadly died, far too young, in 2010.

Maybe Olivier (and others who cut it) feel it needs a big actress to do it, one who isn't that involved with the rest of the play. But if you see Margarete grow from a young French girl, through Henry VI's queen, through a warrior queen, through a woman seeing her husband and young son killed, the Richard III scene makes so much sense. And as you say it stands on its own, too. In the Spacey Richard III I saw last year, Margaret was played by Gemma Jones, a great British actress. Yes, I cut and pasted! Handy having Shakespeare in the public domain!

Perhaps it would be best if the son of York was buried in York. It's one of the great cathedrals.

I agree with you, I prefer the show to the movie. Didn't see the original but saw a couple of revivals. I prefer an English Sally Bowles. Love the original cast album. I have the UK original cast. Guess who played Sally Bowles -- Judi Dench!

I love Cabaret -- I don't expect a work of fiction, even adapted from a true story -- to be history! I suspect Isherwood's response to it was also not entirely fact! It's funny, on the subject of boring. Here's something I find boring. In posting and not seeing people face to face, sometimes posts that are innocuous or playful can come across as mean. The other side of that is that posts that say really nice and complimentary things can come across as smarmy and corny. What's a poster to do? If you watch "Christopher and His Kind" and you blush, I take responsibility, even though I warned you!

Good Morning, Miss W. There was a reunion of the Cabaret cast at a NYC theater a week or so ago. I didn't go, but a friend forward me some photos of the principal cast members (Minnelli, Grey, Berenson, York) who attended. Michael York has not aged well! The others look pretty good. I actually saw Joel Grey on a panel a few weeks ago. He HAS aged well, IMHO! Btw, in 2011 the BBC presented "Christopher and His Kind," a dramatization of the book Isherwood wrote in the 1970s to set the record straight (pardon the pun, which it most definitely does not do in one sense) regarding what really happened in Berlin and what Sally Bowles was really like. It's a wonderful, moving program, with Matt Smith (currently Dr. Who) as Isherwood. It's available on YouTube, you might like it, though some of it is of a nature that I would not recommend to a prude (which I assume you are not): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hjidIaTYiE

There's an old (1965) BBC series of the Henry VI -- Richard III plays. It's called The Wars of the Roses (not to be confused with other films of the same title) and has an incredible cast. This thread has encouraged me to search for it -- I've never seen it: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060039/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm#cast

That's right, a film with the great Mary Woronov, which will be on TCM on May 31! Your thread, Fi --