Rebecca

Maureen toured the U.K in 2005 alongside Nigel Havers in the Daphne Du Maurier stage adaptation of Rebecca. Cast Maxim De Winter - NIGEL HAVERS Mrs De Winter - ELISABETH DERMOT - WALSH Mrs Danvers - MAUREEN BEATTIE Beatrice - AMANDA WALDY Giles / Colonel Julyan - IAN BARRITT Frith - JOHN NICHOLAS Robert / Ben - GREGOR HENDERSON-BEGG Jack Favell - GUY WILLIAMS Frank - MARTYN STANBRIDGE Clarice - JENNA RENSHAW Mrs Van Hopper - MARGARET ROBINSON REBECCA "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley." Nigel Havers is Maxim De Winter in Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca. Alfred Hitchcock created the ultimate film, and now the producer of the theatrical masterpiece ART presents a spellbinding new stage adaptation. Set on the windswept Cornish coast, Rebecca tells the story of Maxim De Winter and his new wife returning to the family seat of Manderley, the scene of the mysterious death of his first wife Rebecca and a past sinisterly guarded by the housekeeper; Mrs Danvers. This is the greatest romantic mystery story of all time and this captivating new production will haunt you like the ghost of Rebecca. The play is continued its tour of the UK in September. Dates and venues are below for your reference. The Journal Jan 2005 Actress Maureen Beattie talks to David Whetstone about bringing one of Daphne du Maurier's dark creations to life. Excitement and anticipation are mounting over the premiere of Rebecca , which takes place tomorrow night at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. The new stage adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's famous novel has been chosen by some national critics as one of the big events of the week and a national tour beginning in Newcastle is undoubtedly a coup for the city. The adaptation is by Frank McGuinness, a writer with a gilt-edged reputation, and comes from the same production stable as Art and The Play What I Wrote, hit plays which seem to be on permanent tour. Du Maurier's novel, published in 1938 and later filmed by Alfred Hitchcock, is narrated by the new young wife of Maxim de Winter, a widower whose first wife, the Rebecca of the title, died tragically, casting a shadow over the family home of Manderley. On her arrival at this gloomy Cornish pile, the second Mrs de Winter is confronted by the forbidding figure of Mrs Danvers, Rebecca's devoted one-time servant, who helps to keep the memory of the dead woman alive to a disturbing degree. Nigel Havers plays de Winter in the new production while young Elisabeth Dermot-Walsh plays poor Mrs de Winter number two. No prizes for guessing that Scottish actress Maureen Beattie plays Mrs Danvers. Last time she was at the Theatre Royal was with the RSC and she was in Titus Andronicus, eating her own children in a pie. Yesterday, with a throaty laugh, she said: "People see this woman with the deep voice who's 5ft 8in with black hair and a Scottish accent and this is what I get. If this was a pantomime, Mrs Danvers would be a witch. "But I don't mind playing characters like that because they are very powerful and usually very well drawn." Out of loyalty to the character whose shoes she will be filling for the next few weeks, she said there were reasons for Mrs Danvers's psychopathic tendencies. "She feels de Winter should never have married again. Rebecca left behind a very strange legacy and a very dark one." With the hours ticking by to tomorrow's first night - preceded by an afternoon dress rehearsal which, unusually, will take place before a paying audience - the cast were just getting acquainted with the set yesterday. "It's staggering and very monumental," revealed Maureen. "Even before we step on stage the audience is going to have its breath taken away. Apparently we've broken all the records for a number one touring show, so there is a sense of anticipation." She joked: "I feel a bit like Madonna. The tickets go on sale and they are sold within minutes." The actress, born in Ireland but brought up in Glasgow, said that although she had worked previously with McGuinness, a writer best known for a brilliant mouthful of a play called Observe The Sons Of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, she hadn't ever acted with Nigel Havers. Evidently she was enjoying this experience too. "I'm honestly not just saying this but I have always admired him. I think he's a smashing actor. "He's lovely looking and he's got this charm, so he has a massive female following, but he's a proper actor - and he has a fabulous part in this." Havers has his fans but so, after her Newcastle appearances with the RSC, does Maureen Beattie. In both Titus Andronicus and Richard III she demonstrated that she is a class act and equal to the demands of Daphne du Maurier's sinister creation. -------------------------- BEWARE THE HOUSEKEEPER FROM THE JAWS OF HELL Published on Friday, January 28th 2005 Myles Hodnett CALLING all spouses who suffer that interminable bane the dreaded mother-in-law. The good news is, it could be a lot worse. I know mother-in-laws can pester to the point of exasperation, but nothing can compare with that sour-faced, cantankerous housekeeper from Hell, Mrs Danvers. The Daphne Du Maurier creation from her novel Rebecca was treading the boards at Newcastles Theatre Royal this week. Actress Maureen Beattie must have injected pure malice into her veins to pull off the sinister role which reduced not only the suffering Mrs De Winter (Elisabeth Dermot-Walsh) to a quivering wreck, but also myself. Newly-married to Maxim De Winter (Nigel Havers doing what he does best playing Nigel Havers), Mrs De Winter moves into Manderley. Its a house possessed by the presence of her predecessor, Rebecca De Winter, and its full of dark secrets. The beauty of good theatre is its ability to suck the audience from the real world into the world on the stage until the boundaries between the two disappear. My wife therefore had to prevent me from climbing out of my seat and shaking some sense into the cowering form of Mrs De Winter as she suffered a torrent of abuse from the vicious woman in black. Elisabeth Dermot-Walshs performance was first class and she somehow managed to physically shrink her frail body as she grew weaker. Also going the extra mile was Guy Williams as Jack Favell a former lover of murdered Rebecca who took sliminess to new levels. The baddies are always the best. The curtain call was therefore, in one way, a relief because, with smiles on their faces, all the actors and actresses revealed their true selves. Mrs Danvers thankfully disappeared into the ashes of Manderley and was replaced by Maureen Beattie. It was still a relief though to get a back home without bumping into her spectral form. ---------------------------- A uniquely gripping story: beware of imitations It may have been published nearly 70 years ago, but the power of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca is undiminished. In fact, since 1938, the story has wielded a unique power over other writers and film-makers, inspiring them not only to continue the story of Max de Winter and his two wives, but to continue that tale in a succession of film versions, TV dramatisations and literary sequels. The first was by Orson Welles for radio, with Welles himself as de Winter and Margaret Sullavan as the second woman to fall under his power. The producer David O Selznick sent a transcript of the broadcast to Hitchcock and convinced the great director to do a version as his first American movie. The film Hitchcock produced in 1940 is by far the most famous dramatisation of the book and arguably the most powerful. Widely seen as the first of the director's masterpieces, the gloomy Cornwall landscape is the backdrop to an unsettling performance from Laurence Olivier and an icy turn from Judith Anderson as the bitter and unforgiving Mrs Danvers. Hitchcock's film may be seen as the definitive version, but it is by no means the only time the story has been dramatised. Before he took on the role of Sherlock Holmes, Jeremy Brett was a tight-lipped, tense de Winter in a TV version from the late 1970s. Charles Dance, another actor known for his stiff English roles, was de Winter in a 1997 TV version which won Diana Rigg an Emmy for her performance as Danvers. Novelists, too, have been inspired to continue the story of the second Mrs de Winter after the flames of Manderlay have died down. One of the most well-known was 1993's Mrs de Winter by Susan Hill, the author of the all-conquering Woman in Black. The novel restarts the story 10 years on from the end of the original book, but the ghost of Rebecca is still very much exerting her malign influence. Eight years on from Hill's effort, Sally Beauman fast-forwarded another 20 years from the end of Rebecca. Neither book was well-received by fans of the original, but it is probably a meaure of the enduring power of the original book that its followers are unwilling to accept any imitation. Previous stage adaptations, including one by du Maurier herself, have been creaky to say the least. The latest, by Frank McGuinness, the Irish writer of Observe The Sons of UlsterMarching Towards The Somme and Someone Who'll Watch Over Me,arrives in Edinburgh on Valentine's night, and aims to take the tale beyond traditional potboiler status. --------------------------- The Herald 1 February 2005 Outside of his film and television career, Nigel Havers was a longstanding cast member of the runaway success, Art, which he later directed in London and on tour. Such a branching-out is something he shares with Maureen Beattie, who, offstage is infinitely more vocal than Havers, and whose presence in the rehearsal room of Liz Lochhead's rom-com, Good Things, withwhich she made her directing debut last year, must have been equally formidable. "It was terrifying," she admits now after jumping in at the deep end when the play's original director pulled out. "When Liz first rang me, I couldn't say no." The result, a well-crafted and charmingly old-fashioned exercise, wouldn't look out of place on prime-time TV. For a while, Beattie herself became a familiar face in that world following a stint in Casualty. In her homeland at least, she's long been recognised as an onstage powerhouse, especially after taking the title role in Liz Lochhead's fiery adaptation of Medea, delivering an awesome, some might say terrifying performance. The production travelled to India, Canada and Cyprus. Even so, Beattie maintains that it still hasn't been done enough, and is ripe for revival. "We must have only played it about 50 or 60 times maximum. Compared to most things, that's nothing. Yet it seems to have had this global effect. I can't believe my life will end without me being able to play Medea again," she mourns, unconsciously tapping in to some of the passion and intensity she gave to the role. Having seemingly cornered the market in scary women, however, Beattie maintains that Mrs Danvers's neuroses are an utterly different. For sure, it would be easy for any actress to showboat their way through Mrs Danvers, playing her as a one-dimensional study in cartoon melodrama. Beattie, instead, opts for something a whole lot more subtle. "You have to remember that Rebecca is a deeply corrupting influence on everything she touches, and Mrs Danvers is the ultimate face of how far that corruption has gone. By the time we see her she's bonkers, she's psychopathic, but, given a different set of circumstances, in which she hadn't met Rebecca, I'm not saying she wouldn't have ended up excessive, but I don't think she'd be that unhinged or obsessive. Beattie grew up watching her father, entertainer Johnny Beattie. Aged 12, she appeared on the small screen in legendary homegrown drama, This Man Craig. Despite dalliances with becoming a vet, a dancer, and even a nun "it wasn't about becoming celibate and holy, I just liked the idea of wandering round in this big black habit, looking serene and having people bow when I passed" joining the family firm was inevitable. Beattie first worked with Frank McGuinness in 1989, and is clearly thrilled to be performing in this new adaptation. While Medea remains her own career high, she's not ready to play nice just yet. "I wouldn't mind a go at Cleopatra," she muses. "Yeah, I think I'm about ready for that now." Rebecca, King's Theatre, Edinburgh, February 14-19. ------------------------- Review: Rebecca Feb 1 2005 Wendy Horton, South Wales Echo New Theatre, Cardiff THIS was acting as acting should be. An almost barren stage coupled with superb theatrical performances brought Daphne du Maurier's classic masterpiece to life. The lack of hardly any props left the imagination of a packed audience to its own devices as the dark unwinding tale of murder and deceit unfolded. What was refreshing was the subtle humour, which had been lost in the famous screen version, but was revived from the original book in Frank McGuinness' stage adaptation. The charm of star Nigel Havers as the dashing Maxim de Winter captivated the audience. His terrific acting ability shone out of the mainly semi-lit stage and enhanced by terrific performances from Elisabeth Dermont-Walsh who played his tolerant second wife and Maureen Beattie who starred brilliantly as a manic Mrs Danvers. ------------------------------- Maureen Beatties Mrs Danvers continues the more real approach with again a much more believable personality nevertheless strong and whilst remaining pretty obsessed with the memory of Rebecca has abandoned the pantomime villain approach to the role. We question was she in love with Rebecca or even was she her mother? So strongly does she register the bond. Her attempts to drive a wedge between de Winter and his new young little wife are what you would expect from an one in such strained circumstances.