I’ll do anything for Cate but cast her: [2 Edition 1]
Sophie Tedmanson * Entertainment reporter, John Stapleton, John McCallum. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 29 Aug 2002: 1.
Abstract
-NOTES- The Australian, Edition 1 FRI 30 AUG 2002, Page 002Cate Blanchett CorrectionIN An Article In The Australian Yesterday About The Premiere Of The Andrew Upton Play, The Hanging Man, It Was Wrongly Stated Upton’s Wife, Cate Blanchett, Was An Oscar Winner. This Was A Production Error. Blanchett Was Nominated For An Oscar For The 1998 Movie Elizabeth.
Usually it is Upton who plays the supporting role when Blanchett is at centre stage. He even refers jokingly to himself as “the hand”, after being cropped out of countless red-carpet pictures.
Leading man and woman: Upton and Blanchett arrive at the Wharf Theatre for last night’s opening Picture: Jeremy PiperAUS NEWS The Australian:NEWS:28Aug2002:Actress Cate Blanchett arrives at the wharf theatre with husband Andrew Upton for the opening night of Uptons play new play “The Hanging Man”.Photo by Jeremy Piper $Photographer PIPER JEREMY; Photo: Photo
Full Text
-NOTES- The Australian, Edition 1 FRI 30 AUG 2002, Page 002Cate Blanchett CorrectionIN An Article In The Australian Yesterday About The Premiere Of The Andrew Upton Play, The Hanging Man, It Was Wrongly Stated Upton’s Wife, Cate Blanchett, Was An Oscar Winner. This Was A Production Error. Blanchett Was Nominated For An Oscar For The 1998 Movie Elizabeth.
FOR once, it was Cate Blanchett’s turn to be the handbag last night as she accompanied her husband to the world premiere of his first play.
Despite the pleas of the paparazzi for a solo shot, the Oscar- winning actor clung to playwright Andrew Upton as the couple arrived at the Sydney Theatre Company’s Wharf Theatre for the opening of The Hanging Man. “It’s not my night,” she said.
Usually it is Upton who plays the supporting role when Blanchett is at centre stage. He even refers jokingly to himself as “the hand”, after being cropped out of countless red-carpet pictures.
It was the couple’s first public appearance together after returning to Australia recently with their eight-month-old son Dashiell.
Speaking to The Australian before the curtain went up, Upton scoffed at the suggestion the opening of his first original play would make him a more recognisable face.
Perhaps his profile would be raised if he wrote something with a character for his world-famous wife?
“Oh I’d love to, but I want to get sharper first,” Upton told The Australian. “You’d want to write a good character for her.”
Upton was commissioned by STC director Robyn Nevin to write his first original piece after adapting the plays Don Juan and Cyrano De Bergerac for the company.
The writer describes The Hanging Man, which stars Steve Jacobs, Toby Schmitz and Tiriel Mora as three brothers who come home for their mother’s funeral, as a “family drama with a comic side”.
“There’s a lot of grief but there’s quite a lot of humour going on, you know what families are like,” he says of the play which was rewritten after his own father’s death.
Blanchett declared herself hugely impressed with her husband’s work: “I am incredibly biased, but I think it is extraordinary,” she said.
John McCallum writes: The sense of futility that pervades Andrew Upton’s play is quite depressing, but sometimes very funny. The characters’ lives are empty, they have no sense of purpose and they cannot say what they feel. They talk in a series of ramblings which, in the hands of Robyn Nevin’s cast, is comic and poignant.
Illustration
Caption: Leading man and woman: Upton and Blanchett arrive at the Wharf Theatre for last night’s opening Picture: Jeremy PiperAUS NEWS The Australian:NEWS:28Aug2002:Actress Cate Blanchett arrives at the wharf theatre with husband Andrew Upton for the opening night of Uptons play new play “The Hanging Man”.Photo by Jeremy Piper $Photographer PIPER JEREMY; Photo: Photo