Like a Stage Virgin

Artists in need of funding often talk about requiring "the right to fail" — the implication being that only if they are free from commercial pressures can they produce their most truthful and personal work. Madonna is one of the world's biggest and most bankable stars. When she announced her London stage debut in David Williamson's Up for Grabs, the entire 10-week run sold out within days. With a reported personal fortune of more than $275 million, she transcends performers' usual financial insecurities, and yet with her iconic status comes the intense glare of public attention. Madonna, immensely successful as a singer, has never won respect as an actress — her 1988 Broadway stage appearance in David Mamet's Speed the Plow caused New York magazine's John Simon to grumble that "she could afford to pay for a few acting lessons." Her most successful movies are those in which she played supporting roles that traded on her headstrong image, like 1985's Desperately Seeking Susan or 1992's A League of Their Own. When she took the lead the films flopped — 1986's Shanghai Surprise cost $17 million and grossed less than $2.5 million. (1996's Evita, which bagged her a Golden Globe, did much better, but that one is sung through, making it effectively a feature-length music video.) Madonna has earned the right to try whatever she likes. But if she fails, this biggest of stars falls far and hard, in front of millions.

Unfortunately, Australian playwright Williamson has handed her a dud of a play (not saved by Laurence Boswell's clever production, which frames the action in a series of art installations). It's the tale of Loren, an art dealer who must sell a Jackson Pollock painting for $20 million or face a $2 million debt herself. As she soft-sells and schmoozes three interested parties, two of them — dotcom millionaires Kel and Mindy and business magus Manny — reveal desires for more than the painting.

While the central point — that the Pollock is treated by everybody as merely a commodity to be traded, for money or sex or both ("You know what TIME magazine called Pollock?" sneers Manny. "Jack the Dripper!") — Williamson's characters are absurdly weak. Loren's comments on her sexual acquiescences are restricted to "I enjoyed it" or "That was the most humiliating thing I've ever done." Her arguments with long-suffering husband Gerry are crudely drawn, seeming artificial and superficial. Worst of all is the cliché of the Jewish businessman Manny — a grotesque caricature of a vicious money-maker with a predilection for extramarital anal sex. Political correctness speaking? Not when Manny and his wife are so obviously "played Jewish" by Michael Lerner and Debora Weston.

Much has been made in the British media of Madonna's onstage lesbian kiss with Megan Dodds' Mindy and her handling of an oversized dildo, but for those without a fascination for such moments there isn't much reason to see her Loren. She began so tensely that instead of acting she struck poses. The crossing of her legs became almost a high kick, while her hands scythed the air so ostentatiously she was nearly voguing (the dance style she made famous). Even when she relaxed she rarely seemed to do more than speak the lines with generalized emotion — you could almost see her thinking through the script. There were whoops and cheers from the fans, understandably. It was Madonna they came to see, and Madonna she always remained. So what if it was amateur hour?

Inconveniently for Madonna, another fêted American, Gwyneth Paltrow, arrived on London's theater scene this month. Paltrow herself had much to prove in her own London stage debut, starring in David Auburn's Proof (a Broadway hit last year) at the Donmar Warehouse. It's directed by Paltrow's Shakespeare in Love collaborator John Madden, and the two plan to make a movie of the show, so it could well do with an acclaimed London run.

The two famous ladies share a history — Paltrow was even maid of honor at Madonna's wedding in 2000. But the Queen of Pop's ambitious streak is well known, and she will be desperate not to be upstaged on the boards. That Paltrow is giving such a subtly shaded, moving performance at the Donmar as a brilliant girl terrified she has inherited her father's madness will not ease Madonna's woes. But, like art dealers, audiences should be able to distinguish between an original and a copy. Paltrow can act, Madonna is the fake.