Natasha Richardson Born Today: May 11, 1963

Natasha Richardson, who died way too young in a ski accident last year, was born today, in London. Daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and Tony Richardson, niece to the recently passed Lynn Redgrave, Natasha forged her own path (not an easy thing to do in such an illustrious family), making interesting choices for film roles, not star-making, perhaps, but interesting. I always liked her, although I didn’t quite consider her a giant talent. That is, until I saw her performance as Sally Bowles in the Roundabout Theatre’s revival of Cabaret – which launched her into my sparsely populated pantheon of “Great Stage Actresses”.

I have seen a couple of live performances that cut me open like a machete, leaving me a puddle on the sidewalk, but seriously, I could count them on one hand. Transcendence is rare. You can see someone skilled, and sharp, and nailing the moments that need to be nailed. You expect that from professionals. But sometimes, rarely, rarely, you see a performance that launches itself up above the fray, and appears to be telling you something, about life, humanity, our ability to love, our capacity for suffering … It reaches a hand out, grasping, through the darkness, and finds yours, sitting in the seats of the theatre. It burns. It is a performance that is so itself, and so of the moment, that you literally cannot imagine anyone else in the role, and your very spirit BALKS at the notion. Natasha Richardson, in Cabaret, gave one of those performances, and it was, to date, the most unforgettable theatrical experience I have ever had, and showed, without a shadow of a doubt, that theatre was her true home, because cinema could not contain her, could not explain her, could not put her into a proper context where we could see her bring THAT to the table. The movies hadn’t even begun to explore the depths and agony that this actress was capable of.

In all my life, I have never seen such a performance.

Happy birthday to Ms. Richardson. Your death is a true loss, not just to your family, although their pain must be excruciating, but to us, as audience members. I say that as someone who still believes, much evidence to the contrary, in the possibility of transcendent live theatre, as rare as it is, and I say that as someone who saw you in Cabaret, and will never forget it as long as I live.

I wrote about her performance of Sally Bowles on House Next Door, as a tribute, a couple of days after she passed away, and thought I would link to it again today.

The second Youtube link in that post on HND, of her singing “Cabaret”, doesn’t work – so I have included it below the jump.