The Misanthrope has sparked a box-office frenzy -- thanks to Keira Knightley making her West-End debut. Dominic Cavendish finds out how director the director pulled off this casting coup, and Celia Walden analyses the star's appeal.

by Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph Review Magazine, December 5, 2009

When it was first unveiled at the Young Vic in 1996, Martin Crimp's freely updated version of Molière's Le Misanthrope was greeted, in the main, by a chorus of approval. Crimp had turned a 17th-century portrait of Parisian high-society sycophancy and hypocrisy -- itself subject to the contempt of the play's anti-hero Alceste -- into a savagely entertaining critique of contemporary London.

In his preface, Crimp justified putting a modern spin on all those ancien regime rhyming couplets by asserting that Molière believed comedy, as distinct from tragedy, had to have an actuality: "The portraits must be accurate. If you don't make recognisable portraits of the contemporary world, then nothing has been achieved.'' Hence, Alceste became a bilious playwright, orbiting a recognisable social scene populated by two-faced arts and media glitterati, with references to Damien Hirst, David Hare and adulterous Tory ministers liberally spiking the conversational cocktail.

For the new West End production, opening at the Comedy Theatre this week, Crimp has brought things up to date again; so part of the fun will be spotting who has moved in and out of the satirical firing-line since then (here's a tip, a scathing allusion to David Cameron and his "flat bland mask of pity" awaits).

Arguably the most glaring difference between the mid-Nineties and now is that celebrity culture has turned into an established phenomenon, serving an unending appetite for human trivia and star-worship. In this respect, while the casting of rising A-lister of stage and screen Damian Lewis in the lead role has attracted attention, the positioning of Keira Knightley in the part of Jennifer (Celimene in the original) -- a flirty, fickle American film star whom Alceste can't help being drawn to -- pushes the production into a different league of artistic interest.

The conceit of colliding art with life in such a direct way isn't new to The Misanthrope -- the Crimp version premiered with American actress Elizabeth McGovern and it should be remembered that Molière himself starred as Alceste, with his wife taking the part of Celimene back in 1666. Yet the sheer scale of Knightley's fame amplifies the meta-theatrical, postmodern trappings she's able to bring to this supporting role and pushes her hotly anticipated West End debut full square into the limelight.

Here, the show's director, Thea Sharrock, who previously directed Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe in Equus in the West End and on Broadway in 2007 and 2008, gives the inside story on how she pulled off this casting coup and what it means for Keira Knightley, the production, and the play.

On how Keira Knightley came to be cast

"I'm rather proud of casting Keira Knightley. It was very simple. I was sent the proposal of doing the play once Damian Lewis was on board as Alceste. I thought it would be fantastic, for the role of Jennifer, to get a real film star playing the part of a film star -- if we could get someone who would understand the irony. That was the mirror effect I was drawn to. Our A-list was very short and Keira was an obvious person to put on that list.

So she and I met and we got on really well. She has lived and breathed the theatre all her life [her mother is the playwright Sharman Macdonald, her father is the actor Will Knightley]. And she felt that in terms of her film work this was the moment to try a new process so she could grow as an actor. Theatre was the obvious way. It was a coincidence that she was thinking that just as we presented her with this option.

I didn't do an audition. When you audition someone you often only have 20 minutes and you just have to trust your instinct on the basis of those 20 minutes. Sometimes you see something amazing in audition then you cast someone, get them in the rehearsal room and you never see that again. So your instinct is proved wrong. Sometimes you just need to meet the actors. I had a very strong instinct because of Keira's understanding of the play and what the part of Jennifer needed. I felt excited coming away from meeting her and hoped she would say yes.

On the challenges for a screen star turning to theatre

There are things that are second-nature to the cast in the rehearsal room that are completely new to Keira. On the other hand she did a lot of work beforehand: she was about as prepared as anyone I've ever worked with.

She has been intrigued, too. There has been a sense of 'Do I really have the freedom to do this however I want to do it?' Because she's bright and brave, she has started to relish that freedom. If you were an alien dropped into the rehearsal room and you watched everyone for 20 minutes and were then asked: 'Which one of these people is the big movie star?', there's no way you'd be able to spot who that person was. There's been no sense of anyone being intimidated by Keira's fame.

On managing audience expectations -- and hysteria

Every production is different. Doing Equus with Harry Potter fans in New York was pretty extraordinary. Certain nights you'd get a gang of people that went a bit crazy when they first saw Daniel Radcliffe and then go ballistic at the curtain call. But being in a theatre has a certain religious quality to it so there is a feeling that everybody has to be quiet for the duration of the show.

I will be intrigued to see our audience. What is the make-up of people who are just coming to see Keira Knightley: is it a young audience? A very male-led audience? I don't know. But it's certainly not the Keira Knightley Show.

On the particular pressures for Knightley

As with Daniel Radcliffe, there are huge expectations because of the career she has had up until now. But if I had cast someone no one had heard of and it didn't go well, it would be very difficult for that person to keep going. In that sense I would say she has much less pressure than if I had cast an unknown. If for whatever reason it doesn't work out or she doesn't enjoy it, I'm sure she will just go back to the movies. Of course, if she stands there like a wooden plank and unbalances what is otherwise a tight ensemble piece then I as a director have made a big mistake. But if she does a good job and convinces people she's Jennifer, an American movie star, then we've done the right thing.

Obviously, I hope everyone is going to be generous enough to go with their instincts and go: 'Wow, not only can she do it but she can really do it.'"

'The Misanthrope' previews from Monday, opens Dec 17. Tickets: 0844 871 7612; www.themisanthropelondon.com

Caption: Big-screen beauty: clockwise from left, Keira Knightley in 'Bend It Like Beckham'; with co-star Damian Lewis rehearsing 'The Misanthrope'; 'The Edge Of Love'; 'Pirates Of The Caribbean'; 'Atonement'; 'King Arthur'; and 'The Duchess'.

Are We Simply Jealous Of Her?

by Celia Walden, The Telegraph Review Magazine, December 5, 2009

"If I'd thought about what fame meant when I was younger," Keira Knightley said earlier this week, "it probably would have been for your name to be respected for something you do well. I don't know if that is any longer what fame means. I don't see it in its modern-day connotations as being a particularly positive thing."

To the millions of girls entranced by the exquisite contours of Knightley's face and the jobbing actors reading about her in Forbes magazine, where she is listed as the second-highest paid actress in Hollywood last year (earning £19 million in 2007), that latter observation might seem a little graceless. Her comment on the nature of modern fame, however, is astute -- and one that hints at a desire to be respected for more than being the only woman in the world beautiful enough to look good in a swimming cap.

This, combined with a genteel thespian upbringing, might account for the slight whiff of spoilt-little-girl that emanates from Knightley. But does it explain why mention of her name prompts women of every age to spring forward, enthralled and enraged, to postulate on the size of her pout, bosom and talent? No. That is female jealousy.

I have met Knightley twice: the first time, she was a pretty schoolgirl from Richmond; the second, a silver screen goddess carrying her beauty with self-awareness, like a much-admired ornament. On both occasions, she was polite and hard to dislike. And yet dislike her women do.

Female jealousy is a form of lust, the desire to know every inch of a beautiful woman in the same way that a man wants to through sex. But this lust is more powerful than the male kind, and is what has propelled Knightley to her position as a fashion figurehead, role model and Hollywood actress.

What's surprising is that she doesn't seem to generate a voraciousness in men. Ask them why and they will tell you that there is something too poised, too static about her face -- and not enough vulgarity in that angular body.

Ask either sex whether they set much store by Knightley's acting skills, however, and the response is unanimously tepid. British contemporaries such as Romola Garai, Rosamund Pike, Rebecca Hall and Emily Blunt, far superior in their craft, will probably never command Knightley's fees. With commendable modesty, the actress has herself admitted that she is "still improving".

Yet it's hard to imagine how far she can do so when you consider that, aside from Bend it Like Beckham, in which the then 16-year-old displayed a promise that has yet to be realised, she has always been given the role of the petulant beauty (Love Actually, Pride and Prejudice, Silk, Atonement).

Costume, clever casting, good production and the extraordinary alchemy of that face on film are responsible for her success, which is why the choice of Martin Crimp's updated version of The Misanthrope as a West End stage debut is a smart one. With the support of the excellent Damian Lewis and Tara Fitzgerald, under the direction of Equus's Thea Sharrock, and in a role not unfamilar to her (beautiful but petulant American film star passing through London), she is as protected as it is possible to be before an 800-strong audience.

It's what Knightley does next that interests me. "In this business, fame lasts for a second," she has said. "You can be blown up and be blown down. People lose interest in faces because new ones come along every second. I'm one at the moment. Tomorrow, I won't be. That's cool. I'm not saying that when it ends, I'll be like, 'Yay! It's ending.' But I'll move on and do something else."

Looks like hers survive for many years, but she may only grow as an actress when she stops being so conscious of them. "She makes this stupid face, just like my girlfriend does when she looks in the mirror," says a male friend.

Therein, perhaps, lies the problem: when Knightley stops seeing the camera as a mirror, we might start seeing her talent.