• Café Life is the Colony's main hangout, watering hole and meeting point.

    This is a place where you'll meet and make writing friends, and indulge in stratospherically-elevated wit or barometrically low humour.

    Some Colonists pop in religiously every day before or after work. Others we see here less regularly, but all are equally welcome. Two important grounds rules…

    • Don't give offence
    • Don't take offence

    We now allow political discussion, but strongly suggest it takes place in the Steam Room, which is a private sub-forum within Café Life. It’s only accessible to Full Members.

    You can dismiss this notice by clicking the "x" box

The Age Of Stars Is Drawing To A Close - Maybe

Invest in You. Get Full Membership now.
Status
Not open for further replies.

AgentPete

Capo Famiglia
Guardian
Full Member
Joined
May 19, 2014
Location
London UK
LitBits
0
United-Nations
bakersfield-mist.jpg
To the Duchess theatre last night for Bakersfield Mist, a one-act two-hander starring Kathleen Turner and Ian McDiarmid. Thoroughly recommended, well worth seeing.

I was especially struck by McDiarmid. Formerly only known (to me, at least) as Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, a role he played with suitably English (he's a Scot, btw) lip-curling menace.

The man is versatile and highly-watchable, up there with that other great Scot Mckellen. His role as an insufferable art snob with a guilty secret is the better of the two (devil always gets the best roles, don’t you know) allowing him a broad canvas of emotional expression and the audience much glee.

Then there is Ms. Turner. I think I caught her on a challenging night. She was most likely suffering from hay fever or perhaps an URT infection. But she gamely soldiered on, and delivered the goods.

Of the two, McDiarmid is the more dangerously talented actor. I would watch this man drink a cup of tea, and feel some dramatic apprehension while doing so. He has an easy relationship with the audience that says, keep your eyes on me, you won’t be disappointed.

Ms. Turner has rather less range, less thermogenic output.

So who is the star, then?

It’s Kathleen Turner.

And that rather foxes me.

Clearly, there are factors at work in the star equation other than raw talent. It’s a factor, certainly, but only one.

So what makes a star, then?

In this celebrity-obsessed age, I think we may be in danger of forgetting. Certainly, “stars” are finding it harder to be reliably bankable. Think Johnny Depp’s less-than-victorious ventures outside the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise – or Mike Myers bereft of his “Austin Powers” persona.

The truth is, I’m no longer sure what makes a star, nor whether we even need their enduring brilliance in this 140-character era. Maybe the Age of Stars is drawing to a close.

What do you think?
 
Last edited:
I hope the Age of Stars is ending. I'm sick of big-name actors getting all those voice-acting parts for animated films. Why not give the no-names a chance of breaking in?
 
Kathleen Turner has always had great cred and amazing acting chops, but not the "box-office magic" the production cabal needs to see since she started keeping her clothes on. I'm glad to see more screen actors making the return to the stage. Kinda seems like being branded a star is akin to "big ticket, while it lasts" which, for an actor, can't be good
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest Articles By Litopians

  • Advertising and Social Media
    There has been much discussion in writing circles about how much a writer has to self-promote these ...
  • Future Abstract: Fights at Night
    SATIRE ALERT: The following abstract is entirely fictional and does not represent actual events or s ...
  • Great Novel Openings Quiz
    As writers, we all know how important it is to grip the reader from the very start. Intriguing, surp ...
  • In The Summertime
    In the early seventies, I had a semi-Afro hairstyle and a shaggy beard. . I thought I looked like th ...
  • Working with a Literary Agent
    The Querying In a previous post I mentioned that I was back in the query trenches. To recap, my earl ...
  • Danger! Danger!
    What is perhaps the most feared creature of the Borneo rainforest, I hear you ask? Who is the King o ...
  • The World Has Missed You
         May 2021… COVID lockdown restrictions had eased, so Mrs Treaclechops and I headed to the I ...
Back
Top