As we all know, there was a time centuries ago when women were prohibited from performing on stage; instead, men played all the female characters. Here, Ned Kynaston (Crudup) is the most acclaimed "female" actor in 17th-century London, bringing the house down in roles such as Othello's Desdemona. Claire Danes plays his dresser, Maria. She studies his every move onstage and secretly performs the role herself at a nearby tavern. Kynaston finds out about Maria's acting debut at a royal dinner, but his attempt to cast calumny upon it backfires when King Charles decides to allow women to perform. Kynaston is necessarily a little unhappy about this, and he flat-out refuses to perform with Maria or any other woman onstage. Charles' little minx of a mistress soon talks (well, it's not really talking, but it does involve her mouth) the king into forbidding men to play female parts altogether. The celebrated Kynaston, "queen" of the London stage, is now without a job; to make matters worse, he's given a thorough thrashing by Maria's supporters. Kynaston, unwilling to play a male role, soon hits bottom - and it's really not pretty. Maria has a few problems of her own, as well; as celebrated as she is as the first woman of the London stage, she's not really a very good actress. Might it be that Maria and Kynaston need each other in order to find success and happiness?

This movie is really all about Billy Crudup and his character. There's one particularly poignant scene wherein Kynaston tries to show how easy it is to play a man - and fails miserably. Kynaston doesn't want to play men because there's no art involved in it, nor is there any beauty. He doesn't want to let the beauty die. He has spent years training for his profession, knows more about being a woman that Maria does, and feels utterly betrayed. It's a surprisingly powerful, emotional argument that gives the film a depth that nothing and no one else was able to supply. Of course, the most powerful scene comes at the very end, sending the movie out on a high note indeed.

Crudup is rather disturbingly feminine in his female guise; Danes, in contrast, is somewhat manly in terms of her actions and motivations. I never understood the feelings between their two characters; there's some kind of romantic flame winking in and out somewhere, but Maria is far too unfeeling early on to make whatever passion comes later believable to me. Anyone with a heart would take pity on the guy when he loses everything he cares about.

I should mention that Stage Beauty is surprisingly risqué on several occasions - what with Kynaston having to convince a couple of admirers that he is in fact a gentleman, a lecherous courtier making advances on Kynaston in female guise, and a perverted king (and let me say, I hope I never again see a "king" dressed as a woman). There's only a modest amount of nudity, however (including one quick, slightly revealing shot of Claire Danes). There is also, I should mention, a kissing scene without any females in attendance - not my favorite scene.

In the end, my slight sense of disappointment with this film seems to come down to Claire Danes' performance. There just wasn't much depth there until the very end. I'm all in favor of women playing women, but I wasn't even sympathetic to Maria's cause. It's still a good movie, but I just think it could have been better. It's worth seeing, however, for Billy Crudup's tour de force performance, if nothing else.

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