Stage Beauty

by | Feb 4, 2011 | Adventures of a Writing Life, Recommended Books, Movies, Podcasts, etc. | 4 comments

I just watched “Stage Beauty”—a wonderful movie about the changing world of 17th century theatre in London. I loved it. I believe I’ve found my perfect Petite in the actress Claire Danes.

There are a number of historical shifts and twists, nips and tucks, but all in the service of good drama. Somehow we forgive this in a movie, but wouldn’t in a novel. (Why is that?)

Although the movie captures the spirit of the theatre world of the time (I think), to have been perfectly accurate there would have been dandies with paid seats on the stage. This was distracting then, and it would have been distracting in this movie, as well.

I adored the representations of Nell Gwyn, Charles II (with all his dogs), Peyps. The costuming was terrific. Even though hats were not yet worn, I loved seeing them.

There are interesting differences between French and English theatre of this period, and the relatively late arrival of women on the English stage is one of them; women had long been on the stage in France. In France, male actors who played female roles did so for comic effect. Very different from the beautiful main character of this film.

To see the movie trailer: click here. I had the pleasure of buying it on iTunes and watching it on my iPad.

The daring Mademoiselle Desjardins

The daring Mademoiselle Desjardins

by | Jan 28, 2011 | Baroque Explorations, On Research, The Shadow Queen | 2 comments

Marie-Catherine de Villedieu, born Mademoiselle Desjardins, is a writer whose work is being revived today. She is largely known for her rather daring (and, for the time, erotic) semi-autobiographical novel Mémoires de la vie d’Henriette-Sylvie de Molière.

She led a scandalous life, without a doubt, running off with a married man (Monsieur Villedieu) and living not only to tell the tale, but to crow about it.

She has shown up several times in the biographical historical novel I’m writing now. In some historical accounts, Desjardins/Villedieu is accused of dealings with the poisoner Voisin, and—since she’s also accused of being my heroine’s good friend—implicating my heroine (Mademoiselle Claude des Oeillets) unto the bargain.

Wrong on both counts, which shows how tricky historical research can be. The Madame de Villedieu who had dealings with the poisoner was the original Villedieu, the wronged wife, and the so-called friend was my heroine’s cousin.

Working on my third draft, Marie Dejardins showed up yet again in Claude’s life, in fact as well as fiction. Claude’s mother, Alix, was a theatrical star (something of a Meryl Streep rather than a Marilyn Monroe). After Alix is headhunted by the Theatre of the Bourgogne—the serious theatrical troupe in mid-17th century Paris—the first play they put on is Manlius, a tragicomedy by  . . .  guess who? Marie Dejardins/Villedieu.

There are two rather amazing things about this:

The first is that Marie was only twenty-two at the time. The youngest member of the Bourgogne troupe was over ten years her senior. As the author of the play, she would have been calling the shots, from casting through rehearsals to production.

The second amazing thing, of course, is that she was not only young, but female. A playwright? This was almost unheard of.

Her work is being revived, reprinted, translated and studied today. I may, someday, write about her, and if I do, I should like the image below—”Lucrezia as Poetry” by Salvator Rosa—to be the cover.

It’s not the prim, fat-cheeked young woman shown in the etching above, but it’s rather how I imagine her, a spunky young woman of twenty-two who dared produce a tragicomedy in a male-dominated world.