Mischief and mishaps undeniably characterized the event, but a wave of hush fell over the audience as student poets Janessa Terry and Canice Munroe performed their work at the show’s opening. Their words had audience members and celebrities alike enthralled, and highlighted the excellent forum provided by Urban Arts in enabling young creatives from underprivileged backgrounds to showcase their talent.

Indeed, there was much talent on display throughout the evening as six plays, written just a day earlier, had their first and last public airing. All the ubiquitous components of a 24 hour play were there – on-stage tumbles, corpsing and reams of questionable props. The clear favorite of the evening had to be Reservation for Rockwell: a play about Sam Rockwell, starring Sam Rockwell as Sam Rockwell. No points for innovation there.

But creativity came in a different form entirely, with Justin Long and Billy Crudup showing a lot of skin in tiny Hooters tank tops. Battling to see who could offer up the best Rockwell impression before the man himself arrived for dinner, their competition was comedy gold. Mr. Rockwell’s entrance inspired some serious slo-mo shapes being thrown onstage, and as High School Musical darling and 24 hour play participant Vanessa Hudgens so neatly surmised to The Observer on the red carpet, “Seeing Sam Rockwell and Justin Long doing a dance-off kind of blew my mind.”

Also on the red carpet at BB King Blues Club was Broadway veteran and self-proclaimed “mama hen” Tracie Thoms who agreed, “We all know the best play was that dang Sam Rockwell piece. I mean, how do you write that overnight? The tiny Hooters tops…I mean, it was a package deal, they sealed it, they win, they get the 24 hour Oscar. It’s not even fair it was so good!” Thoms starred as lady loving ghetto princess Shaneetra in Impeach the Socialist, a somewhat strange play saved by the stage skills of both her and comedy queen Kristen Schaal. Other star performances included 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer as a man who fell in love with a horse, Seth Green as a surprisingly convincing Mexican and American Pie’s Eddie Kaye Thomas as a zombie banker.

Jason Biggs, also of American Pie fame, starred alongside his childhood pal Kaye Thomas, but when it came to the zombie-off, there was only one real contender. “Eddie clearly made the better zombie,” he conceded, but Mr. Biggs certainly made an impact in the charm stakes, winning over The Observer with a refreshingly laid back attitude.

“I’ve always wanted to be on stage with Eddie, so it was really cool for me to act with my buddy on stage tonight,” he said, before revealing: “I’ve done two 24 hour plays before, and the way to do it is to go first. All night I was watching and enjoying everyone perform, but I was also fucking nervous!”

Stage fright had also plagued Precious star Gabourey Sidibe, who enthused, “I loved tonight, I had so much fun! But I always get really scared and I was like ‘I can’t do it this year.’ I always regret thinking that and want to punch myself in the face about it afterwards because I have so much fun doing it.”

Thankfully, there was no need for self-flagellation, apart from perhaps an enthusiastic pat on the back. As the afterparty – also attended by Macaulay Culkin, who shunned the spotlight in favor of a dark corner at Amber Heard’s table – continued late into the evening, the actors hit the dance floor to let off some steam. Ms. Heard had taken a somewhat epic tumble onstage during her performance, but recovered like a trooper, characterizing an evening whereby the calamities were a vital – and probably the best – part of the process.

Greg Kinnear, Lea Thompson, Billy Crudup at 'Thin Ice' party (Patrick McMullan)

"Have you ever been to Minneapolis?" Billy Crudup asked the New York Observer last night at the Soho Grand Hotel's Club Room, where the Cinema Society & Grey Goose were hosting an after-party for their screening of the bleakly dark comedy, Thin Ice.

We actually hadn't been, but Mr. Crudup had, as that was where the movie had been shot.

"It's very, very cold," he told us.

"Oh, we can't imagine. So in the movie..."

"No, no no noooo," he interrupted us, chuckling. "It's very, very cold."

Billy Crudup then stared at the New York Observer for a beat, decided something, and leaned in to tell us a secret.

"It's a wet cold,"  the actor emphasized, who co-starred in the film alongside Greg Kinnear, Lea Thomspon, and Alan Arkin. "It's sub-zero something."

"So, like a dry heat...but the opposite?" We struggled to understand where this was going.

"The whole city is indoors. And it has a tunneling system, so you can go from place to place without going outdoors."

"That's...cool," we said. "So, are you going to any Fashion Week events?"

"I'm not running away from New York just because it's Fashion Week!" Mr. Crudup announced. "I am Not. Running. Away."

"Oh, so are you going to any shows?"

"No. If you see me at a show, you can come up and tell me that I'm a liar."

We would take him up on that offer, but honestly, we are kind of scared to.

"Sam is our spokesman," Hoffman said, pointing to his fellow actor.

The three of them had come to the Hudson Hotel for a particularly raucous after-party celebrating LAByrinth Theater's "Celebrity Charades 2010: Fight Night," in which actors and other luminaries do battle in a series of competitions. The main event was held in St. Paul of the Apostle Church Hall, and before long the crowd had shifted over to the Hudson Bar and were taking full advantage of the open bar. As we dodged actors such as Juliette Lewis and Justin Theroux, Billy Crudup pulled us into the scrum.

We asked about the event, naturally, but it became evident that Sam Rockwell had no intention of staying on topic.

"I love Monopoly," Sam Rockwell said.

What?

"I'm a huge fan of Monopoly." Rockwell repeated, taking a slug of his Negro Modelo. "I'm a buyer and a seller."

Phillip Seymour Hoffman nodded. "Sam will buy Baltic and Boardwalk--you know what I mean?" he added in slow serious beats.

"Sam is famous for his financial wherewithal," Billy said, emphasizing the last word with a jab of the right hand. At this point, Crudup's baby blue shirt was unbuttoned to the undershirt, and he was wearing metal cowboy belt buckle.

"He's known to not buy a house or a hotel but a little hut," Hoffman said with his glance askew, tilted toward the dancefloor. When we'd first walked in, his figure could be easily spotted dancing and twirling a member of the opposite sex in and under his arm.

Then Crudup again, with the same open-fisted jab: "His real estate acumen is off the charts!"

"It's fricken weird how that happens..." Hoffman wondered. It seems he was stuck on Sam Rockwell's little huts. "He actually builds them..."

"Take us through it step by step!" Crudup asked Rockwell.

There was a pause, long, pregnant even, and then Sam Rockwell looked The Observer in the face.

"I love, I love... I love people" he said.

And with that the charade, if you will, came to an end.

"Everyone has a great time as you can see," Philip said. "It's a bit of a reunion, actually. A lot of us don't see each other until this event. And it's a good night, you know?"

Is there another song, Philip Seymour Hoffman, that will bring you back to the dance floor?

"Oh, hey no," the actor said. "That was my girlfriend--she started dancing and I felt, you know, compelled."

Then we were talking with Billy Crudup about Almost Famous, in which he plays guitarist Russell Hammond, and about how the film helped lead us toward a career in journalism.

"I love that shit!" Crudup exclaimed. "I'm gonna write Cameron."

Oh no, Billy, you really don't have to write Cameron Crowe about this, we said.

"Nope," Billy Crudup said, "I'm gonna write Cameron."

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

America's enduring obsession with the folk-hero outlaws and gangsters of the 1930s is about to get ratcheted up a few notches. Ace director Michael Mann’s  Public Enemies, with Johnny Depp as an unlikely but undeniably mesmerizing John Dillinger, opens on July 1, but I liked it so much I am compelled to write about it early. I don’t think anyone will mind. Thrilling, glamorous, richly textured and breathlessly action-packed, it is one of the best movies of the year.

Eschewing biographical data and jumping instantly to the point, it begins in 1933 with the world’s most famous bank robber’s daring and imaginative breakout from a Lima, Ohio, jail (he literally walked right out into a waiting car). Since no cop could catch him and no prison could hold him, it was the first of many. For economically downtrodden Americans, it was the fourth year of the Great Depression, but for Dillinger and his gang, which included the psychotic Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham); the paranoid Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum); ruthless schemers Harry Pierpont (David Wenham) and Alvin Karpis (Giovanni Ribisi); and the murderous Homer van Meter (Stephen Dorff), it was the golden age of bank robberies. They’re all here—their depraved personalities, mind-boggling escapades, narrow escapes and horrible endings—inspired by Bonnie and Clyde and pursued with a vengeance by ace F.B.I. mongoose Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). The actors are uniformly wonderful, and the film never lags far from the action, even in the love scenes.

Yes, the story has been told before, in countless movies and TV shows, but the Dillinger played by Johnny Depp is such a lover that it soon becomes clear why his strange mixture of danger and charisma inspired foppish, inexperienced crime fighter J. Edgar Hoover to label him “Public Enemy No. 1” while the disillusioned public—broke and already unsympathetic to the banks that had lost their savings and foreclosed on their homes, farms and businesses—cheered him on as a modern-day Robin Hood. (During his heists, Dillinger often took the time to destroy loan files and mortgage records.) In his element among the crooked cops and flashy Roxie Harts of Chicago, Dillinger met and fell for his one and only. The girl who knocked his socks off was Billie Frechette, alluringly played by Oscar winner Marion Cotillard in her first role since Edith Piaf in the unforgettable La Vie en Rose. Billie is presented as a sweet, naïve country girl, half-French and half–Native American, from the Menominee Indian Reservation, who meets Dillinger at a dance in November 1933 and fears his aggressive overtures. In real life, she had already covered a lot of territory in the Chicago underworld, and her first husband was in prison for mail robbery when she met Dillinger. So becoming the lover of Public Enemy No. 1 was actually a rung up the ladder for an adventuress. They lived together as passionate companions until she was arrested in 1934 (although she drove a getaway car only one time) and served two years in prison for harboring a fugitive. She went on to live a respectable life until her death in 1969.

The movie catalogs this romantic subplot, juxtaposed with both the exploits of the Dillinger gang and the frustration of Southern gentleman G-man Purvis and the fledgling F.B.I., with its antiquated crime-detection techniques, in their efforts to trap them. There is violence (it’s a movie about gangsters, not naughty kids on skateboards), but it’s never as bloody as anything in a dozen Martin Scorsese movies. And the shootouts are leavened by humor. Dillinger is so full of cocky self-confidence that when he finally comes face to face with Purvis in prison, the exchange is surprisingly raffish. “What keeps you up nights, Mr. Dillinger?” asks Purvis.  “Coffee.” These are hoods who remain undaunted in their belief that no one can catch them (“They’re not tough enough, smart enough, or fast enough”), and even when he’s dragged off to prison to await execution under armed guards, buoyed by the “bravos” of the crowds outside, Dillinger remains optimistic. He was as adept at staging escapes as he was at robbing banks and taking hostages, and squeezed out of more tight spots than Harry Houdini. He may have been on the wrong side of the law, but there is no doubt whose side the audience is on. Transferred from an Illinois jail to an escape-proof state penitentiary in his native Indiana in 1934, Dillinger steals the car of the female county sheriff (Lili Taylor) and drives back across the state line, risking everything for a reunion with Billie. There’s a marvelous scene, tightly staged by director Mann’s all-encompassing camera, where he walks boldly into the Chicago Police Department, enters the Dillinger investigation offices, peruses the wall photos of everyone he’s known and lost (including Billie) and asks the preoccupied cops listening to a ball game, “What’s the score?” The events of July 22, 1934, when he met his fate at the hands of special agent Purvis and his agents outside Chicago’s Art Deco Biograph Theatre, where Dillinger had just watched Clark Gable and Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama, are brilliantly detailed, including footage of the movie itself. Ironically the press had nicknamed Purvis himself “the Clark Gable of the F.B.I.” You learn things. I never knew Dillinger had been set up by his moviegoing companion, an illegal brothel madam from Romania who betrayed him to Purvis to protect herself from being deported. (Excellent work by Branca Katic, one of the stars of the hit HBO series about Mormon polygamy, Big Love.) Even the Biograph marquee has been faithfully reproduced.  

It’s all here, exhaustively researched and painstakingly re-created. Curiously, there’s no mention of Dillinger’s wife, Beryl, and Michael Mann’s screenplay, co-written with Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, takes liberties by condensing some events and combining a few characters, but with so many informers, gunmen and tertiary historic plot contributors, it’s amazing that so few key elements found their way into the discard pile. From Billy Crudup, as the silly, publicity-seeking J. Edgar Hoover, to Johnny Depp’s magnetic starring role, replete with neatly cropped hair, piercing dark eyes, no sign of a tattoo and a lewd smile in the corner of his eyes, every role large and small is polished to perfection. (Johnny Depp gives the best performance of his career.) Even the bank plunders in broad daylight seem freshly staged. Since it’s more in the biographical vein of Bugsy than the grand opera of The Godfather, no easy comparisons come instantly to mind. But with the shiny cars with white-wall tires; the tailored, double-breasted pinstriped suits that give you an idea where Giorgio Armani’s fashion inspiration comes from; the music (lots of early Billie Holiday and big band jazz); and the navy blue midnight world of the Great Depression—Mr. Mann does more to illustrate the fabric of the gangster era than any film since Pete Kelly’s Blues.

In the process, Public Enemies becomes one glamorous, glorious, gun-blazing whale of an entertainment.

rreed@observer.com

As someone unfamiliar with the Watchmen universe, it’s a little hard to catch up with the mythology of this thing, which frankly seems a little complicated! The basics: there’s a gang of costumed superheroes walking around in a 1985 America that still has Nixon as president, and the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union is imminent. We have Little Children’s Patrick Wilson as Night Owl—a rather wussy man with lots of expensive toys; Jackie Earle Haley as a redheaded sociopath named Rorschach (sounding like Christian Bale in Dark Knight); dead Denny from Grey’s Anatomy as the violent and not-so-funny Comedian; Malin Ackerman as some weird long-haired thing we couldn’t figure out (and who earned the funniest of slams in a particularly awesome Anthony Lane review in this week’s New Yorker); and our would-be-boyfriend Matthew Goode, almost unrecognizable in blond hair and kind of doing a David Bowie circa Labyrinth kind of affect. Oh, there is also a giant blue naked man named Dr. Manhattan who used to be Billy Crudup, but now glows and smiles serenely and often forgets to wear pants and can vaporize just about anything. His giant blue flaccid penis is very distracting.

Here’s the good news: the movie is lovely to look at in an incredibly stylized kind of way (though really, it can’t rain all the time like a November Rain video, right?).  If there’s one thing I’ve heard, it’s that the movie is faithful to the book—perhaps too faithful? It wasn’t that I wasn’t engaged in some of the (many) story lines, it’s just that there was never enough time spent with any particular one to so as to become emotionally involved … which seem strange to say about a movie 165 minutes long. That's right, 165 minutes long! These are three hours I will never get back.

In addition to the length, I truly did not enjoy what seemed to be the over-the-top violence. Do we need to see dogs ripping at a little girl’s leg (read: no)? Same goes with the rather oddly staged sex scene ... too much and too weird and it all left me feeling was that this movie did not intend itself to be seen by someone like me. I'm the wrong gender and about fifteen years too old.

I am quite curious to see what people will think of this movie. One thing is for certain ... I can't imagine seeing Dr. Manhattan in all his naked glory in IMAX!

The early reviews have been split down the middle, with the fanboys drooling (spoiler alert: Harry Knowles loved it!) and the real critics meeting the film with a shrug or worse. Says The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt in his pan: “Bottom line: Ouch."

That hurt! Still, love or hate, everyone seems to agree that “visionary” director Zack Snyder has succeeded in painstakingly recreating Alan Moore’s graphic novel. (Just prepare to be disappointed if you’re looking for the giant squid.) But from where we sit, the one thing he missed is the casting!

Oh sure, Little Children co-stars Patrick Wilson and Jackie Earle Haley, playing Nite Owl II and Rorschach respectively, are ideal. Mr. Haley is adept at doing creepy and pathetic; Mr. Wilson, the very definition of “hot, but impotent." And while in some quarters the feeling is that Robert Downey Jr. should have been The Comedian, we think Jeffrey Dean Morgan will be just fine. Simply, Mr. Downey Jr. is way too nice to play a role like that. Mr. Morgan, on the other hand, has always seemed like a bit of a jerk (playing a ghost on Grey’s Anatomy who got to have sex with Katherine Heigl might have something to do with that). It’s the rest of this motley crew that leaves a lot to be desired! So join us as we recast Watchmen.

Demi Moore as Silk Spectre I: Watching the two female leads in Watchmen was a difficult task. Between the nudity and the general misogyny directed towards all women in the graphic novel, we doubt a lot of A-list actresses were banging down Mr. Snyder’s door to appear. That being said, is it written, Slumdog Millionaire-style, that Sin City co-star Carla Gugino has to appear in every adaptation of an acclaimed graphic novel? Give us the older and just plain better Demi Moore instead.

Cameron Diaz and Maggie Grace as Silk Spectre II: If you’re going to cast Cameron Diaz look-alike Malin Akerman in this role, why not just go for the real thing? As for those pesky flashback scenes, we’d slide in former Lost castaway Maggie Grace. If she can play a teenager in Taken, we’re sure she can do it in Watchmen. Too bad we can’t find any room for Boone.

Javier Bardem as Dr. Manhattan: Billy Crudup possesses a lot of useful character traits, but being laconic isn’t one of them. And unfortunately for him, Dr. Manhattan is a soulless and dead-eyed bore—words like “tachyon” are just not said in anything other than a Ben Stein-like monotone. So how about we go with Javier Bardem? Dr. Manhattan might be an All-American, but Mr. Bardem’s rumbling baritone, used so effectively in No Country for Old Men, would suit the big blue guy just perfectly. And this time, he wouldn’t need that ridiculous haircut.

Ralph Fiennes as Ozymandias: We really like Matthew Goode—so effete in Match Point, so dastardly in The Lookout—but he’s way too young for this role. And, no offense, we have a hard time thinking of him as the smartest man in the world. Ozymandias is the type of guy who would affect a British accent just for the hell of it; a man who seems bored with his own intelligence. Mr. Fiennes, come on down! An actor of his caliber could liven up the pages and pages of exposition that Ozymandias is forced to deliver in the final third of the story. We’re already trembling at the thought of Mr. Goode pontificating about the greater good while wearing a gold lamé headband that’s straight out of Barbarella.

We learned the difference between the man who buys a $300 shirt and the man who buys a $600 shirt at a fashion show sponsored by private concierge service Quintessentially.

After reviewing Stylista's lackluster ratings, we wondered when and if the rest of the world would see the appeal of Anne Slowey. 

We investigated The Edmont Society, the newest addition to the literary socialite scene. 

Christine Taylor told us that she and husband Ben Stiller have no problem sending their daughter Ella to play at Tom Cruise's house. 

We got Project Runway winner Jay McCarroll's take on the Daily Beast hoax. 

"I’m a Mac" actor (and former Drew Barrymore dater) Justin Long, who is in town filming After.Life with Christina Ricci and Liam Neeson, has had quite a bit of experience with getting laid off. “Once, I was fired from Carvel for giving out free ice cream. I was like the Robin Hood of ice cream!" said Mr. Long. "But then I got fired and developed lactose intolerance, which kind of sucked. It was like getting dumped and getting an STD at the same time. Well…maybe not quite that bad.”

He continued: “Then I also got fired from a bagel shop for throwing bagels and I got fired from a film once, which was pretty heartbreaking. I guess I’ve been fired from a lot. But now, I’m great with rejection. In fact, I’m amazed when I don’t get rejected. This industry is a very flighty, fickle business—the minute you’re done with a job, you may never work again. But I’m a fairly flighty and fickle person so I’m just suited to it, I think.”

Actress Natasha Lyonne, dressed in a high-waisted gray skirt, a long striped sweater and ankle boots, was chatting with the cast of Kevin Elyot’s Mouth to Mouth, a New Group play that Ms. Lyonne said that she has already seen twice. Ms. Lyonne couldn’t recall ever being outright fired, though she's come close.

“I always thought Woody Allen was going to fire me, but he never did,” Ms. Lyonne confessed, referring to her role in Mr. Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You. “I thought he fired a lot of people.”  

Meanwhile, the actor Billy Crudup said that getting fired from a job at the beginning of his career was what ultimately led him to win a Theatre World Award in 1995 for his role in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia at Lincoln Center.

“It doesn’t feel quite right to say what it was that I was fired from because another actor ultimately got that role so I don’t want to make them feel like they were secondary,” said Mr. Crudup. “But it was my first big job. I went and worked on it for two days, then I had two weeks off and during that two-week period, I got a call from the casting director saying that I was fired.”

The Daily Transom wondered what could have gotten the young Mr. Crudup fired back then.   

“I think I sucked, that was the main problem,” replied Mr. Crudup. “But a week later I got the call for Arcadia, which changed my career for sure. It was a devastating and exhilarating couple of weeks.”

When Ethan Hawke, who was being honored with a Michael Mendelson Award for Outstanding Commitment to the Theater, arrived with his mother Leslie, he was immediately surrounded and congratulated by fellow actors like Andrew Polk and Lili Taylor.

“I don’t know why they’re honoring me!” Mr. Hawke said, in a jaded sort of way. “I think the real reason they are honoring me is to help raise money for the theater company. Whenever the economy gets hit hard, one of the first thing to go is people’s giving, and last on that list of things people give to is the arts because they feel it’s not essential. I guess I’m here to remind people that the arts are essential to our mental health as a country.”

Glancing around the room, the Daily Transom noticed a poster from the French release of Mr. Hawke's 1994 film Reality Bites—the title was changed to Generation 90 in France—and couldn’t help but tease Mr. Hawke about the 25-year-old version of himself staring at him from across the room. 

“Yes, that was from the Clinton days!” said Mr. Hawke, glancing towards the poster.

And has Mr. Hawke ever been fired throughout his acting career?

“Besides for drugs? Kidding!” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been fired. I’ve had many films canceled in production. I could have been a great actor if some of these jobs had happened.”

Mr. Hawke was interrupted by actor Vincent D’Onofrio coming over to say hello.

“Hey Vincent!” said Mr. Hawke, giving Mr. D'Onofrio a thorough handshake. “I’m being asked if there is any job I would have done if my career would be better. What do you think?”

Without pausing, Mr. D‘Onofrio replied, “The Matrix.”

“As a New Yorker, you’re confronted with people who are in need in one way or another. Whether it’s people asking you for money or asking you for a meal—and it’s very difficult to make that decision on a moment-to-moment basis, day after day,” the 39-year-old told The Daily Transom last night. He was looking pretty good in a sharp suit and hair that looked like it was still slick with something like Kiehl's Creme With Silk Groom, sort of faux-shower-fresh, at the Metropolitan Pavillion on West 18th street for City Harvest’s 25th anniversary party.

The room was filling up fast with smoke from cooking chunks of steak as Mr. Crudup talked; there were little mob scenes at stations set up by restaurants on the order of Aquavit, Le Cirque, Blue Hill, Le Bernadin and Union Square Café.

“Typically, people won’t say specifically they’re in need of a meal," Mr. Crudup said. "They’ll say they’re in need of money, and I’ve made the decision to give my money to organizations. So typically I say, ‘I can’t help you today, but if you need some help, I know where you can go.’ That helps me to confront the issue with the person, and not have to ignore it and feel like I’m ignoring people in need, and not have to make New York a more abrupt place than it already is; and it helps me to put the onus of helping people on the people who are really qualified to do it and capable to do it,” he said. Deep breath! He'll spend the next four months in Vancouver filming Zach Snyder’s Watchmen.

Later, Rachael Ray took a few ‘Yummo’-free moments to dish about how hungry people in New York differ from people-in-need elsewhere.

“They probably have more challenges, I would think, just because an urban environment isn’t as conducive to people stopping and really taking the time to help you as a suburb environment,” Ms. Ray, 39. She was wearing a red dress and suede boots. “But I gotta tell you, I live a more small-town life when I’m in New York City than when I’m upstate. It’s ironic, but it’s true. There’s still that small village feel.”

Unlike Mr. Crudup, though, Ms. Ray makes a habit out of reaching into her deep pockets on daily basis. “We have people that we see frequently on our block and we never figure, ‘Oh we gave you 20 bucks last week!’ We always give them food, money. If I have money on me, I give it. I lived check-to-check for a long time and there but for the grace of god, literally, go I. Anybody could be homeless tomorrow!”

For 18 years, no public performances of any kind were permitted in England, thanks to the Puritanical and repressive decades ruled by the anally retentive Oliver Cromwell. But in 1660, when the Stuart dynasty was restored to the throne with the coronation of prissy, fun-loving Charles II (Rupert Everett), a new era of exploration and permissiveness blossomed called the Restoration, and theaters once again played to full houses. The stage was still considered improper employment for ladies (what’s more, it was illegal), and Ned Kynaston played all of the best female roles, relishing his wigs and lipstick so much that he even greeted his public backstage in full makeup, reducing lady fans to fainting spells by displaying his endowments under his petticoats. He also carried on a passionate affair with his patron and lover, Lord Buckingham (Ben Chaplin)—all to the horror of his loyal dresser, prompter and stagehand Maria (Claire Danes), who studies his every move in Othello with the dream of someday playing Desdemona herself. When the king, who longs for some fresh flesh and gender-bending titillation onstage (and who, as wittily played by Mr. Everett, is a bit effete himself), suddenly lifts the ban on women and insults Ned by decreeing that men can no longer wear gowns, Maria seizes the opportunity to finally become a star while Ned’s career plummets. Without the sexual fantasy of bedding a man pretending to be a woman, Lord Buckingham deserts him and marries a real female, and Ned is ruined.

The dilemma is sad but ironically amusing: Maria, the new star, can’t act, and Ned, whose identity and self-confidence have been tossed on the rubbish heap along with his high-heel shoes, can’t play male roles. On a downward spiral, the drunken and dissipated Ned is beaten and left for dead in a park by one of Maria’s own jealous "sponsors," then rescued by her. In a country inn secluded from London gossip and prying eyes, they find redemption in each other: While he teaches his former dresser how to play Desdemona, she tenderly inspires him to inject the Moor’s speeches with manly authority and gives him a graduate degree in how to really make love to a woman. With the skeptical theater owner (Tom Wilkinson), the irascible King Charles and his mistress, Nell Gwynn (Zoe Tapper)—a tart so notorious there are still pubs and taverns named after her to this day—all applauding wildly, stardom miraculously returns in a triumphant production of Othello. But in the end, the half of his dual sexual psyche Ned loves the most is still in doubt.

What a story, and how little of it was ever revealed until playwright Jeffrey Hatcher dramatized it for the stage and then adapted his own screenplay for the film after reading Samuel Pepys’ diaries of the Restoration in a secondhand bookshop and researching the characters of the period as well as he could. How much of the story is accurate I cannot tell you, but in director Richard Eyre the project has found a perfect choice. His film experience has been limited but impressive (who could forget Judi Dench in his wrenching Iris Murdoch biopic, Iris?), and his period theater research is impeccable. There are several concurrent themes at work here—the search for sexual liberation in a time of repression and religious hypocrisy, the emergence of 17th-century feminism, the way beautiful young men were used as toy-boys by the British upper classes, the theatrical stage as a reflection of the evolving politics of British history—and Mr. Eyre has bathed each one in a radiant amber gel. The production values are rich, the sets are arresting—from the lurid taverns where Maria secretly performs vulgar parodies of Shakespearean roles in Ned’s stolen costumes, to the king’s lavish private dinner parties, to the piles of steaming manure in the filthy streets of London—to the point that you feel you have been transported by time machine to the 1660’s.

The acting is splendid. The big surprise is Claire Danes, who grows from Ned’s shy, stagestruck backstage serf to his powerhouse rival, ruining his career while challenging him—personally and professionally—to reinvent himself. Both Ms. Danes and Mr. Crudup master demanding and complex roles, in the formality of their onstage acting as well as the subtlety of their private love scenes, where she teaches him to be a man not by what he does, but by how he feels.

My only problem with Stage Beauty is that Billy Crudup lacks stage beauty. As a transvestite described as the most beautiful woman on the stage, he did not convince me. A prettier actor, like Rob Lowe or Ben Affleck, would have made a more alluring woman in rouge, eyelashes and powdered curls, but might not have been skillful enough to bring the same artistic flourish to the role. Still, there is something awkward and disconcerting about Mr. Crudup. As a "man in a woman’s form," his bone structure is too sharp, his shoulders are too broad, his hips are too narrow, his muscles are too sinewy. When Mr. Chaplin throws him out of bed, it’s not because he’s no longer a lady, but because Mr. Crudup is bigger than the mattress. No question about his acting chops, but in drag Mr. Crudup looks like a college jock roped into playing the lead in an embarrassing frat-house parody of Charley’s Aunt.

Put the Kettle On

More British working-class suffering from Mike Leigh infects the dreariness of Vera Drake, which opens commercially this week after its initial unveiling at the New York Film Festival. Despite the honest, penetrating and open-faced presence of the distinguished Imelda Staunton in the title role, the film is something of an ordeal. Vera is a kind and charitable maid in 1950 who makes her daily rounds in a battered cardigan and sensible shoes administering to the sick and needy, clucking over her husband, a garage mechanic, and providing a meager life for her son, an apprentice tailor, and her spinsterish daughter, who works in a light-bulb factory. Life is grim, but for Vera no hurdle is so daunting that it can’t be put right by putting the kettle to the boil for a fresh cup of tea. Between scrubbing the floors of the well-to-do and mashing the spuds for her numbingly dull family, Vera also masters another line of work in which she finds the appreciation and gratitude she doesn’t get at home. Vera, you see, performs illegal abortions for women in trouble. She sees nothing wrong with this sideline. She’s just trying to help, charging no fee for her services and innocently unaware that her sleazy "agent" is ripping her off in the bargain. It all comes to a bad end when one of her "clients" nearly dies, the police arrive in the middle of her daughter’s engagement celebration, and the family is scandalized. Vera is tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. A flood of tears ensues.

The whole story is worth enduring for about 30 minutes max, but Mike Leigh drags out every painful minute for 125 minutes that seem like 125 days. We are forced to watch repeatedly as Vera hums cheerfully while unwrapping the tools of her trade—a bar of soap, a cheese grater, a bottle of disinfectant and a rubber hose—when once would be more than enough. Then, after she’s arrested and dragged to the station house, we are held hostage as Vera goes through each and every halting, agonized, gasping, sobbing, punishing moment of interrogation like a child about to be flogged for sticking a finger in the fudge. When she is ordered to remove the wedding ring she hasn’t taken off her finger in 27 years, you wonder if she’ll get it off before the camera runs out of film. In most Mike Leigh films, the accents and brogues are so thick you need subtitles. Not here. Imelda Staunton’s stoic sweetness spreads through her voice like clotted cream on a scone. Still, what is the point? If the director intends to drum up sympathy for the plight of women seeking abortions in 1950, when the movie takes place, it’s too late. The abortion law of 1861 that condemns Vera Drake was modified in 1938, again in 1967, and the French "abortion pill" was approved in 1991. It would have been advisable to bring everything up to date in the end titles instead of making Vera Drake a martyr for the ages.

Despite my reservations, the acting justifies the pain. It’s hard to imagine that the dumpling-faced star of this turgid melodrama is also one of London’s most popular musical-comedy stars. Transformed from a pleasant, compassionate, optimistic wife and mom to a haggard, traumatized, burned-out old hag branded a criminal by the magistrate’s court, Ms. Staunton gives a mesmerizing performance, but the movie is so slow and grueling that by the time she goes to prison, you wish you had seen her play Miss Adelaide in Richard Eyre’s acclaimed National Theatre production of Guys and Dolls instead.

Good Men Are Hard to Find

Also transferring from Lincoln Center is Undertow, a Southern Gothic tale about violence, blood and frightened children fleeing a demented uncle with a knife. Think Flannery O’Connor with obvious shades of Night of the Hunter. Grieving for years over the death of his wife, a hog farmer and taxidermist (Dermot Mulroney) becomes a hermit in the backwoods with his two sons. The younger boy (newcomer Devon Alan) eats dirt and suffers from epileptic seizures. The older boy (Jamie Bell, gifted star of the cherished Billy Elliot) is on the verge of juvenile delinquency. Into their isolated, unhappy lives comes Dad’s estranged brother (Josh Lucas), a jealous, resentful and mean-spirited convict who slashes Dad’s throat searching for a fortune in hidden gold coins. The older boy heads for the swamps with his fragile, pampered little brother in tow and the coins in his pocket, pursued by the psychotic uncle, and the movie focuses on their adventures on the way to survival.

The result is profound, beautifully photographed and a real Gothic page-turner in the William Faulkner tradition. Director and co-writer David Gordon Green does an admirable job of showing the disparity between four members of two different generations in the same dysfunctional family, while building gobs of menacing ambiance, and all of the actors are superb. Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Lucas have all but disfigured themselves in their apparent distaste for the handsome "leading man" labels they have often been assigned, but the real shock for me in Undertow is the gifted Jamie Bell, whose British accent has disappeared into a cotton-pickin’ drawl that is astoundingly accurate. He plays the first part of the movie as a confused player in a family civil war, a lanky, rural troublemaker caught up in violent circumstances beyond his control. In the second half, he is a man-boy coming of age fast, stuck between childhood duties and adult responsibilities, escaping a sadistic uncle and a dead-end future. What a talent. As a teenage rebel in bayou country with great reserves of strength, sensitivity and range, he is as far removed from the sensitive kid who wanted to be a ballet dancer in Billy Elliot as an alligator in Alaska.