That Accent

Yesterday I saw a movie that had Tilda Swinton in it. It was called "Burn After Reading." A few days before that I saw another movie that had Helena Bonham-Carter in it. It was called "Conversations with Other Women," though after having seen it twice, the only conversation I heard in it was with only one woman, and that one, which lasted through the whole film, fittingly was with her. And a little while before that I saw a movie called "Croupier" whose makers had the enough good taste, or luck, to cast not only Alex Kingston** (very definitely a woman, despite the name) but also Gina McKee, who had already long ago starred as Ireney in the first Masterpiece Theater series based on J. Galsworthy's series, "The Forsythe Saga." And these are just a few in an amazingly long line of British thespians of that gender and appeal.

None of these films would go on my All-Time Greatest List, yet they were linked and distinguished by one feature, the felicity of which there can be no doubt. In addition to their other attributes, you can't beat those actresses and their always sensible statements as put forth with their best aspect of all -- that ever elegant mature female British accent.

And just think -- in Shakespeare's day, women weren't even allowed to go on the stage, and instead rusty-dusty men always played those parts.

What a miserable experience that must've been! The Elizabethan Age may have been a Golden Age, but, like any Age, it certainly had its share of incongruities, anomalies, perversities, or whatever you want to call it.

Yet even today (and for me quite often any time in the last 40 years is still "today") Kabuki is still the same way, and, having seen some of it, the real thing, in Tokyo's Kabuki-za Theater, I think I can say that it is missing out on something, bigtime.