Let's change the subject

I actually do have other interests besides the idiotic antics and the mendacity of our elected officials.

Like serious theater. So, as I was reading the announcements for the new theater season, a few upcoming star turns caught my eye.

There will be a number of celebrity actors starring in serious theater works this season. Maybe with the bad economic situation, they're hoping the names will draw crowds. Most will probably also be worth seeing for the quality of their work.

Helen Mirren will star in Racine's great tragedy Phaedra at the National Theater in Washington. She should handle that quite well, after solving all those crimes and then playing both Queens, Elizabeth I and II.

Cate Blanchett (another former QE I) will do Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Liv Ullman. It opens in Sydney but will come to Washington and Brooklyn Academy of Music. If she can be a believable Bob Dylan in that film about him, perhaps she can also embody the vaporous Blanche; but I worry about the accent, having to go from Australian to Southern faux gentility. But Cate has done some amazing acting. Hmm. A Swedish actress directing an Australian actress in this quintessentially American play.

Jude Law will bring his Hamlet to Broadway for a limited run. I would have been skeptical, but reviews from the London run have been great; and a recent New York Times interview with him suggests a real immersion and understanding of the role. I saw Ralph Fienes' Hamlet from the front row of a small New York theater -- so close that I found myself ducking during the duel scene. He emphasized the brimming rage of Hamlet more than the indecision.

Philip Seymour Hoffman will play the villainous Iago in Othello at the NY Public Theater. Now that should be great. Much better than his miscast (in my opinion) priest role in the film of Doubt. I saw his early career performance in the Broadway production of Long Day's Journey Into Night, as the alcoholic son to Vanessa Redgrave's extraordinary drug-addled, neurotic mother. This was many years ago, and I still remember the way she conveyed her mood and the level of her drugged state with her hands: your attention became riveted on those nervous finger movements and the subtle shifts from agitated fidgets to somnolent repose.

Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig open a new play in NY, A Steady Rain, about two cops who handle a domestic disturbance that changes them forever. Star power, grade A; acting quality, remains to be seen.

And this one made me scratch my head and wonder what they were thinking -- or is there something I don't know about her? Annette Benning as Euripides' Medea -- about as heavy a role as there is: a mother who wreaks revenge on her philandering husband by murdering their children. If she has it in her, then this should be a breakthrough role for her. If not . . . let's hope it at least introduces the LA crowds to a great play. I saw it on Broadway with the marvelous Irish actress, Fiona Shaw, and cringed in abject horror as she staggered onstage carrying the inert, bloodied bodies of those two children. But as an acting tour de force, it was near the top. . . . Mrs. Warren Beatty has quite a challenge to meet.

A side note: while caught up in that scene as a dramatic play, I couldn't help wondering about the reality for those live child actors. What did they think this was about? And what kind of trauma might that have been for them, to even contemplate at that tender age that a mother could murder her children? I guess they could have been told -- look, we're going to put some red paint on you and pretend it's Halloween, and this nice lady is going to carry you on stage and you have to pretend to be asleep. But kids know more than we think about what's going on.

Ralph