BLANCHETT'S HOTLINE TO THE HEART.

by Juliet Herd.

Prince Charles was probably well advised this week to avoid the opening night of David Hare's revived classic Plenty, starring the luminous Cate Blanchett. Boldly stepping out in London's West End with his long-time squeeze Camilla Parker-Bowles, the Prince opted for the light-hearted musical comedy Animal Crackers.

Blanchett's simmering performance as the heroically unhinged and grandly stylish Susan Traherne in Jonathan Kent's Almeida Theatre production, would have no doubt proved too near the knuckle for the wary couple, who preferred to be entertained by Marx Brothers-style jokes.

In their absence, the statuesque Australian actor, making her London stage debut, was wholeheartedly embraced by a high-brow audience of film and theatre directors, open to "a performance so raw she might have ripped off a layer of skin" in the words of one critic.

The guest list included former National Theatre director Sir Richard Eyre, wunderkind Sam Mendes (who directed Nicole Kidman in Hare's The Blue Room), playwright Patrick Marber (Closer), Shakespeare In Love director John Madden and Anthony Minghella who has just directed Blanchett and Gwyneth Paltrow in his film The Talented Mr Ripley.

Pierce Brosnan (taking a break from filming the new James Bond), Lindsay Duncan and Sinead Cusack spearheaded the British acting contingent, while Penny Downie, Kathy Lette and Clive James flew the flag for Blanchett, also adoringly watched in the stalls by her scriptwriter husband Andrew Upton.

"Magnificent, Quite magnificent," was Madden's verdict of Blanchett's portrayal of the war heroine-turned-diplomat's wife unable to adapt to life in post-war England. "It will take everybody by storm," he predicted.

Minghella, who directed the Oscar-winning The English Patient, rhapsodised recently that Blanchett "shares with only a handful of her peers - Juliette Binoche and Meryl Streep among them - the hotline to the heart, the glimpse of soul, tiny flashes of joy and pain, and is apparently incapable of a lie".

Like Kidman and a stream of film stars before her, 29-year old Blanchett, who won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA best actress award for the film Elizabeth, and an Oscar nomination, has accepted a modest 250 pounds (A$675) a week for the privilege and challenge of appearing on the London stage. The theatre is sold out every night until July 10th when the play is due to close.

There's every likelihood, though, that Blanchett could follow Kidman to Broadway, making Plenty Hare's fifth New York opening night within a year, judging from the highly enthusiastic critical reaction. "Sex Appeal clings to her brisk, cool performance with almost indecent enthusiasm," panted The Evening Standard's theatre critic.

While some notes of reserve were struck, aimed more at the difficulties in portraying a character meant to symbolise Britain's moral decline, the overall consensus was that Blanchett had triumphed. (It is conveniently overlooked here that the NIDA-trained actor was a fixture on the Sydney stage for nearly a decade.)

The Daily Telegraph's theatre critic Charles Spencer declared her "sensational". "The evening will be remembered for Blanchett, who seizes the play by the scruff of the neck and often succeeds in shaking it into life," he said.

"The scenes of mental unbalance are among the most distressing I have seen on stage, but Susan never quite loses a patrician hauteur."

Benedict Nightingale of The Times found Blanchett to be more contradictory and complex in the role than either Kate Nelligan in the original 1978 National Theatre production or Meryl Streep "whose big-screen Susan streeped about altogether too forlornly".

"All this asks Blanchett to be svelte and assured, bitter and brassy, crazily aggressive and, as when her doomed hoped of motherhood enter the emotional equation, oddly vulnerable; and Blanchett gives us the lot," wrote Nightingale.

Sarah Hemming of The Financial Times found the actor "riveting" to watch, with her "chiseled cheekbones and coltish limbs", but queried her decision to play Susan in a state of "permanent hysteria". "Her performance is so raw that she might have ripped off a layer of skin..." said Hemming.
"The trouble is that she starts in the vein early rather than progressing into it, so that she is soon over-the-top and has nowhere to go."

It also could have been a touch of first-night nerves. As Blanchett observed at the party afterwards: "First nights always feel like an exam, and this is the most technical show I have ever been involved with. But it has been great.

The Australian, Monday, 3rd May, 1999.

---

Aussie Cate Online © 1999 Lin, Dean, Lance
800x600 screen size recommended.

.