My Saturday doubleheader: Jude Law okay but Sienna Miller hits it out of the park!

Strangely, I wound up watching that former notorious couple Sienna Miller and Jude Law perform today, in that order. I have to say that I'm somewhere between rOcKs and rdove (the poor potential shill) on Hamlet. Law is great, but Hamlet is LONG and even though I was probably watching at least one Tony-worthy performance here, it stopped just short of reaching out and grabbing me by the throat.

But Sienna Miller in After Miss Julie did exactly that. I disagree with the posters here who were uncomfortable with the long silences in the play, which to my mind, were quite natural and built tension, and especially with the ones who felt that the director probably wasn't looking for laughter in the last 20 minutes of this play. If the director was looking to make me laugh AND make me cry, he succeeded brilliantly, as I veered back and forth between the two while watching the Sienna Miller character self-destruct. How could anyone NOT think they're going for a laugh as when, in between hysterics, Miss Julie fantasizes about living on the East Side, oh no better make that the WEST Side of New York City? In my opinion, ColortheHours is dead-on when he calls this production electric.

In terms of a preview, it was absolutely audience-ready. In terms of Miller, whom I couldn't even remember having seen in a movie, this is the best Broadway debut of a film or TV actress I can remember...in a completely different league than Katie Holmes, Julia Roberts, or even Jennifer Garner, who I thought did a very good job in Cyrano last year.

Hamlet was exactly what I expected, and I give Law credit; he's a brilliant actor. But Miss Julie went above and beyond. I am no shill for Roundabout; after last season, I gave up subscribing and just last week posted here that I thought Bye, Bye Birdie was just embarrassing. So it was especially gratifying--and sorry, I felt the need to do my own thread here!--to see them succeed with this one; and my God, I got to see this for ten bucks?

Well, Sienna is a celebrity that became famous because of a scandal. Her moviestar partner cheated on her and she became an overnight celebrity and suddenly she was all over the place. But she is not what I'd call a "movie star"; Jennifer Garner, Julia Roberts and Julianne Moore ARE movie stars. I think Sienna goes along Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Kate Gosslin. Women who became overnight celebrities because of a scandal.
I have no respect for any of these women, and find it disgusting when people use a scandal to make a name for themselves. Anyways, I will say that although I haven't seen any of these plays, she probably made a wise decision by getting involved with the genious that Patrick Marber is.

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April, I take your word for it, and Im sure I'd love this play. Marber is always thought provoking and makes very engaging plays and movies, such as Closer and Notes on a Scandal. He is one of my favorite playwrights.

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Sienna Miller was onstage in the West End playing Celia in As You Like It when the Jude Law scandal broke. She had already starred in half a dozen movies and a television series (Keen Eddie). How exactly does that merit a comparison to Kate Gosselin? Just because YOU probably hadn't heard of her before the Law business went down doesn't mean that she wasn't already a serious up-and-coming actress.

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