Rassegna stampa di Kathleen Turner

WHEN a recording at the Laura Pels Theater recently had Kathleen Turner asking audience members to turn off their cellphones, her mix of sex, gravel and good breeding actually made people turn off their phones. Ms. Turner is making her New York directing debut with a revival of Beth Henley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Crimes of the Heart.” The Off Broadway production, which opens on Feb. 14, ran last year at the Williamstown Theater Festival, with Ms. Turner directing and with much the same cast.
In addition Ms. Turner has an autobiography out this month called “Send Yourself Roses,” written with Gloria Feldt, the former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In the book Ms. Turner discusses her struggles with rheumatoid arthritis and alcoholism, dissects her most famous roles and calls out some of her co-stars. (Burt Reynolds? “Burt was just nasty,” she writes.)

Ms. Turner spoke about directing, acting and falling in love with Edward Albee’s Martha. These are excerpts from the conversation.
Directing ‘Crimes’
I had fears, of course, and anxiousness about being able to handle the whole picture. As an actor I’m used to being in complete control of my character and her needs or wishes or how she behaves, or costumes, props, everything, but not other people’s. In fact I have found myself absolutely thrilled by all the detail. Fascinated. I feel like I’m acting six roles instead of one, and I love it.
I love relationships between women. There’s much more room for exploration, for subtleties. There’s no generic, assumed relationship between women as there is sometimes between men and women. This was a great choice in terms of women and sisters. When I read it again, I thought, “Oh, yeah.” There’s so much to mine here, to discover, to explore.
Surviving in the Business
This is my 30th year, or maybe my 31st now — heavens to Betsy — of being a professional in this field. It’s evolution. I started on Broadway when I first came to New York, then soap operas and then back to theater and then films. But always, always coming back to theater, knowing that as the years went on, and as I changed ages and appearance and everything, theater is where the best women’s roles would ultimately be. That, of course, has proven to be true.
Now I’m moving into directing, and I teach acting at N.Y.U. It’s almost as though all these years of experience and learning have begun to blossom in other ways than just acting. Not that I think acting is just acting. It’s still the thrill of my life. But I suppose that when you get a certain weight of a body of work, then people have to give some respect for that. But I terrify my students.
Her Favorite Role?
Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” I read that play when I was in college, when I was about 20. I thought, “When I’m 50, I’m doing Martha.” When I was 49, I started campaigning for it with Albee and his producer and finally got him to agree to let me do a reading for him, and then we went on to do it. I think that’s been the most satisfying role I’ve ever played. God, it’s so complex. You love her, you hate her. It’s hopeful, it’s despairing. I can’t hardly imagine any role that’s more intense. ...
Martha is quite a workout. It’s a three-hour show, and she’s all over the place emotionally and physically. To do that eight times a week is sort of like training to be an Olympic athlete. How much you rest every day, what you eat, when you eat, how much you work out, how much you talk — everything goes toward that 8 o’clock hour when the curtain goes up.
You’re never free of it. It’s never off your mind or apart from your thoughts. For those months that you’re doing a character, doing a play, that’s it. That’s the whole world, and that’s pretty demanding. But I love it. Are you kidding? I have a ball. Just try and keep me off stage.
Da The New York Times, 3 febbraio 2008
‘A Question of Honesty’
How could I pick and choose what to say? It’s a question of honesty, really. I just don’t think it would be right to tell the stories that sound the best about me and none of the rest. That seems quite wrong. If I’m going to be honest, if I’m going to talk to myself, then I’ve got to give them the whole story.
Da The New York Times, 3 febbraio 2008

A cinquantatre anni Kathleen Turner si racconta in un'autobiografia. Dove ripercorre la sua carriera, ma soprattutto indulge sulle sue doti sexy. E mette in piazza le debolezze dei partner. Insomma, una diva si, ma una penna poco divina
«Sono stramaledettamente stanca» dice Kathleen Turner all'inizio di Send Yourself Roses (Mandati delle rose), l'autobiografia appena uscita in Inghilterra e Stati Uniti (pp. 256, euro 17,18 su amazon.com). Stanca di cosa? Verrebbe da chiedere al sex symbol degli anni Ottanta, sparita dal Duemila dal grande schermo, ma non dal teatro. Forse stanca dei problemi matrimoniali, di alcol, con tanto di ricoveri in cliniche specializzate. Adesso, comunque, la protagonista di Brivido Caldo, La guerra dei Roses e Turista per caso ha trovato la forza di scrivere la sua storia Il titolo giusto del memoir potrebbe essere Dio, quanto mi amo! perché l'attrice cinquantatreenne, ora anche scrittrice, nel ripercorrere i venticinque anni di carriera, indulge soprattutto sulle sue doti. Su quanto fosse sexy e su come lo sia ancora, nonostante le battaglie contro l'artrite reumatoide. «Posso essere sexy anche in un cartone animato di conigli, come ho dimostrato, dando la voce a Jessica Rabbit» scrive. Molte pagine sono dedicate al marito che le chiese di sposarla inginocchiandosi in strada sotto la pioggia e alla figlia ventenne Rachel. Troppo spazio per se stessa, secondo il Sunday Times, e poco per i suoi partner. Ci sono però la breve relazione con Michael Douglas in Messico, finita quando la (prima) moglie Diandra arrivò per riprenderselo. La rabbia di Dustin Hoffman quando mandò al diavolo il pubblico inglese che gli aveva negato la standing ovation per il Mercante di Venezia. E il cinismo di Nicolas Cage che rubò un chihuahua e se lo infilò in tasca. Divi molto poco divini.

Da Il Venerdì di Repubblica, 22 Febbraio 2008