Kidman’s latest performance comes 17 years after she appeared in David Hare’s The Blue Room in the capital, and the Daily Telegraph’s review is as complimentary now as it was then.
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As an X-ray crystallographer, Franklin captured the image that would eventually lead to the identification of DNA’s double-helix structure.
This time around, Kidman plays a steelier character, Rosalind Franklin – the British chemist who had a crucial role in mapping the structure of DNA – in the play Photograph 51, by Anna Ziegler. Anna Ziegler’s “Photograph 51” is as safe a safe bet as you’ll find, a science play that sticks to the formula, a history play like every other and a star vehicle that doesn’t look like one.
“Photograph 51” was produced off-Broadway at New York’s Ensemble Studio Theater in 2010 with a different cast.
Kidman has said she wants to shine a light on women whose quiet hard work has been overshadowed by pushier men.
She was also encouraged by the chance to reunite with director Michael Grandage, following their work on upcoming film Genius, about the life of American literary talent-spotter Max Perkins.
The dapper couple cut a stylish figure as they posed for the cameras at the Noel Coward Theatre in London on Monday night (14 September). Ben Whishaw is starring within the unconventional “Bakkhai” on the Almeida Theatre, whereas Stephen Service provider just lately ended his run in a revival of “The Mentalists”. And Ms. Kidman, who turns Franklin’s guardedness into as much a revelation as a concealment of character, is pretty close to perfection. “Although her kit is 1950s demure, the caboodle of her nuanced performance is the stuff of intoxication”, he writes. “Being no-nonsense, she’s often funny”.
It seems Kidman’s decision to return to the stage was a good one, judging by the more than favourable reviews.
“But Kidman also conveys the ecstasy of scientific discovery: her features acquire a luminous intensity as she stares at the photograph that reveals the helix pattern”.
The Guardian, which gave the play four out of five stars, said Kidman gave a “commanding, intelligent performance”.
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Benedict Cumberbatch is showing to sold-out homes in “Hamlet” whereas Imelda Staunton has earned important raves for her title position within the musical “Gypsy”.
