In the early days of motion pictures, the scene’s biggest stars often came from the stage. It’s tempting—now that we know what Hollywood has become—to say that they were poached, but that wouldn’t be exactly true. Rather, it was a natural progression: the talents needed for the first proved useful the second, especially in an era when moviemaking was largely relegated to little more than recording stage plays.
But if talent moved from stage to screen, the reverse was not so often true. Certainly there were legends of theater who continued to thrive without ever making the transition to film—usually the result of an overbearing or too heavily accented voice, or a face that was deemed too “ethnic”—but for those who did make the leap, film was the modern promise, the future.
Flash forward a few decades and already the tide was turning. Actors who wanted to be taken seriously couldn’t afford to ignore the stage; the glamour of getting discovered at Schwab’s—if it had ever truly existed—had begun to pale. In its place grew a renewed appreciation of American theater that has resulted in a remarkable half-century of work in film: adaptations, re-imaginings, and homage. This week we look at two screenings that embody that feeling of appreciation.
First on the bill is The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners that pokes a wry finger at the snobbery of stature and pretensions of class warfare. This version of the play—screening Thursday, June 2 at 7 p.m. in a broadcast from its home on Broadway—stars David Furr and Santino Fontana as John Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, two caddish lads in pursuit of a pair of young women who find themselves tripped up by the fake identities they have invented to help their social lives.
Nominated for three Tony Awards (including a Best Actor nod for Brian Bedford, who also directs), the play will also be treated to a special presentation in its Amherst screening, when host David Hyde Pierce leads a behind the scenes tour. Alfred Molina and Oscar Wilde authority Michael Hackett also discuss the author during an intermission special.
On Friday and Saturday evening, Pothole Pictures hosts a classic adaptation in Shelburne Falls when it brings Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to the town’s Memorial Hall. With a script by Ernest Lehman (Sweet Smell of Success, North by Northwest) based on Edward Albee’s incendiary play, the film version starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton as sniping couple George and Martha. Burned out by the grind of life in academia, the pair’s evening-long squabbling doubles as a glimpse of the future for their guests: a young, newly hired faculty couple. An added bonus for locals: some scenes were shot at Smith College and in nearby Southampton.
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Also this week: Nostalgia for the Light opens at Amherst Cinema on Monday, June 6 for a 7:30 p.m. show. The latest from director Patricio Guzman is a look at one of our world’s most fascinating places: the Atacama Desert. At 10,000 feet above sea level, the Atacama is the driest place on Earth, where the sky is so clear that astronomers gather from all over the world to observe the heavens. But while scientists look above, others search below; the Atacama’s intense heat preserves human remains so well that the bodies of 19th-century explorers and miners are mixed in with the remains of political prisoners whose bodies were dumped there by the Chilean army following a military coup in 1973. Surviving relatives still search there for loved ones who disappeared almost three decades ago.
The film will be introduced by Dr. Salman Hameed of Hampshire College, who will also lead a Q&A after the screening. An astronomer and Assistant Professor of Integrated Science & Humanities, Dr. Hameed focuses on the intersection of science and religion, such as the conflict between astronomers and native Hawaiians over the use of telescopes on Mauna Kea.
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
