The Dresser

A film about a theatre company on tour during the war. Sir is an old actor at the head of his own company. They play Shakespeare and travel from town to town in provincial England. The man collapses. He undresses in the street, is taken to hospital, and is due to play King Lear that evening. Norman is his dresser and his keeper. He has been at his side for years and is charged with getting him on stage that night. From there the film takes place in the dressing room. Make-up, wig, brandy, prompting, and the effort to hold a man upright. Sir cannot remember. He confuses which play he is doing and cannot find the first line. Norman talks. He praises him, tricks him, scolds him, and lies when he has to. The curtain goes up and the play is performed. What the narrative is interested in is not art but dependence: the two men are stuck to each other, and the film's real question is which of them is carrying the other. Norman's line is understood at the end. The narrative makes plain in its final scene what he was given and what he was not. The rest of the company is inside the narrative too. There are old and disabled actors on stage because the young are at the front. The source is Ronald Harwood's play; in his youth the writer worked as dresser to the manager of a touring theatre, and the text came out of that. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, with its two leads nominated together in the same category. Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Edward Fox and Eileen Atkins are in the cast. Peter Yates directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes the theatre world and a display of two performances. Who it is not for: anyone looking for cinematic movement; the film is almost entirely interior and its stage origin is plain.