Bessone's two-venue New York début presents a theatrical cast of characters — a eunuch, who looks like a washed-up silent-movie star, with a turban, a pencil mustache, and ghoulish eye makeup; a Faustian character with a wicked widow's peak; a raccoon — based on porcelain or metal statuettes.
Mendes has assembled his actors like an extremely classy theatrical cast, and, with the help of Alan Ball's terrific screenplay, conjured from them superbly modulated complementary performances, crowned by Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening as the unhappiest middle-aged couple in all suburbia.
Equal opportunities is properly a legal requirement in the workplace, but it should never be applied to theatrical casting.
A Radcliffe graduate, she worked as a theatrical casting agent before taking this skill for talent evaluation to her alma mater's admissions office.
She said her fascination with plays began when her mother, a theatrical casting agent, was explaining what various show people did.
And so, in the staff dragnet, Lincoln hosted "open calls" akin to theatrical casting scrums, and Mr. Valenti, Mr. Benno and Mr. Novello trekked up to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., to make a fervent pitch to 30 students.
However, Josie Rourke, who directed Gatiss in The Recruiting Officer, said there was no longer any scepticism among theatrical casting directors about whether TV actors can deliver on stage.
"I'd explain to them, 'You were part of the Great Migration,' " she recalled, "and many of them would say, 'Really?' " The process was not unlike a theatrical casting call, she said, and eventually she narrowed the field to 30 people, some of whom make brief appearances in the book and any one of whom could have had a starring role.
Many of this new wave of Disney suits were ex-theatre producers, and they retooled accordingly: Beauty And The Beast required singing talents, so the crew went to theatrical casting directors, resulting in the employment of Angela Lansbury and Jerry Orbach, established stars of both stage and screen.
Again I felt a paranoiac certainty that in telling his tale Sigismund Blondy had enlisted me in a theatrical invention — cast me in a role — for the benefit of an unknown audience, perhaps only himself.
A DTS Laserdisc (uncut) was released on August 26 , 1998followed by a Collector's Edition DVD of the film on December 8 , 1998 containing the film, the theatrical trailer, cast interviews, a director's commentary, and behind the scenes information.
