Finney & Courtenay's performances dominate this adaptation of Harwood's award-winning play about an imperious and moody actor-manager cracking up under the strain of keeping his travelling Shakespearean company operational.
Harking back to the draughty, bygone days of the theatrical actor-manager – roaring, scenery-chewing men, hardened by umpteen performances of heavyweight Shakespearean... more >
Harking back to the draughty, bygone days of the theatrical actor-manager – roaring, scenery-chewing men, hardened by umpteen performances of heavyweight Shakespearean roles – Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser draws upon his own experiences as an assistant to the legendary Sir Donald Wolfit, whose company, from the thirties to the fifties, toured Britain on a seemingly tireless mission to bring the Bard’s work to the provinces.
In a gargantuan performance of primal howls and bombastic rhetoric, Albert Finney plays ‘Sir’, a Wolfit-type character whose lifelong immersion in dramatic intensity has left him – offstage at least – bewildered, befuddled and almost incapable of negotiating the mundane trials of life outside the theatre. He is shielded from daily inconvenience and frustration by Norman (Tom Courtenay), his campy, light-footed dresser, who flutters around him like a mother hen, attending to his make up, costumes and general emotional welfare from the modest confines of a backstage dressing room.
As The Dresser begins, ‘Sir’ is confused and wilting: his company arrives for an engagement at the Bradford Alhambra, but his health and state of mind is of grave concern. (Half an hour before the performance of King Lear, in which Sir is scheduled to play the lead, he barks to Norman: “What play is it tonight?”). Worse, this is the height of World War II, and the threat of a German air raid hangs over the Alhambra with a portentous irony - the explosive tempestuousness of Lear could literally bring the house down. Eventually, Norman manages to pamper and cajole Sir into making his entrance onstage; whether or not he can get through his 227th performance of the role, however, is another matter.
Occasionally unfolding in apparent ‘real time’, director Yates evokes the dusty, backstage milieu of a wartime theatre with precision, although the period detail never gets in the way of what The Dresser actually is: that is, one of the great two-handers of recent years. Finney and Courtenay are magnificent, and it is fascinating to watch the pendulous energy of the film swing between each actor - one bombastic, inflated yet vulnerable and deluded, the other subservient, maternal yet highly strung and acidic. And. although it is filled with funny moments and trenchant digs at the ego-driven frivolity of theatrical life, at the heart of the character interplay is a touchstone of need and companionship. Ultimately, The Dresser is something of a platonic love story.
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