Arts & Entertainment

A man’s world

Glenn Close’s pet project explores societal advantages of gender

Published

15 years ago

January 26, 2012

Aaron Johnson, left, and Glenn Close in the gender-bending 19th century drama ‘Albert Nobbs.’ Close and co-star Janet McTeer are both nominated for Oscars for their performances. (Still courtesy Roadside Attractions)

“Albert Nobbs” is a complex movie about a simple man with grand dreams — and a big secret.

The fastidious Mr. Nobbs works as a waiter at a posh Irish hotel. He carefully tracks the tips he receives from his stylish clients, saving up to buy a tobacconist’s shop (even though he does not know how to smoke or even roll a cigarette). He lives a quiet lonely life, carefully locking the door to his Spartan room, wandering the streets of 19^th century Dublin looking like an early version of Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp and squirreling away his growing stockpile beneath a loose floorboard.

All that changes when he is briefly forced to share his room with Hubert Page, a painter who has been hired to spruce up the hotel. The two men soon realize they share a secret — both are really women who have dressed as men to escape poverty and sexual violence.

The two women embody very different modes of masculine behavior. Nobbs, played by Glenn Close, declares that “life without decency is unbearable.” She binds herself in a scratchy undergarment, dresses in formal clothing and seems to vanish into the background, watching the action around her rather than participating.

On the other hand, Page, played by Janet McTeer, employs a different strategy. She disguises herself in a set of baggy clothes stolen from her abusive husband. Page swaggers through life, smoking, flirting with women and slapping men on the back. In fact, Page has married a woman, leaving a mystified Nobbs wondering, but too timid to ask, how Page told his wife about his sexual identity.

Inspired by Page, Nobbs expands his dream. He envisions taking on a wife who can provide companionship, respectability and free labor for the shop. He starts “walking out” with one of the maids, not realizing she is already having an affair with the handyman at the hotel. Nobbs is too busy fantasizing about their life together and wondering when he will reveal his own secret.

Both Close and McTeer offer vibrant portrayals of women forced to live their lives as men, making clear and interesting choices about the fascinating similarities and differences between their two characters. Close has a long history with the character. She created the role onstage in 1982, and since then has worked to bring the material to cinematic life. She produced the movie, co-wrote the screenplay with award-winning Irish novelist John Banville and Gabriella Prekop and even provided the lyrics for “Lay Your Head Down,” the lovely ballad that closes the movie (which opens today in Washington).

The press materials describe Nobbs as “trapped in a prison of her own making,” but that seems rather inaccurate, although there is a scene where Nobbs and Page put on dresses and Nobbs runs giddily along the shore.

Nobbs is not simply a straight woman masquerading as a man to get by, but somewhere on the trans spectrum. He shows no sexual interest in men. His interest in women is more social and economic than sexual, but he is obsessed with the question of when to reveal his true sex to Helen (even though he never touches her and he does not realize that Helen and her beau are just milking him for gifts) and the mystery of when Page revealed his true sex to his wife Kathleen, so he thinks about having an intimate physical relationship of some kind with a woman.

The film — which is more interested in telling Nobbs’ story than identifying his gender identity — deals with these murky issues with a velvet touch. Even the rape and poverty mentioned as part of his story are discussed but not shown.

Close and McTeer are surrounded by a strong supporting cast and crew including Mia Wasikowska as the calculating maid who is the object of Nobbs’ affection, Pauline Collins as the affected proprietress of Morrison’s Hotel and Brendan Gleeson as the kindly doctor who lives at the hotel.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers appears all too briefly as a party-loving and occasionally gender-bending aristocratic guest at the hotel. Designers Patrizia von Brandenstein and Pierre-Yves Gayraud lovingly recreate period Dublin in rich detail and director Rodrigo Garcia (known for HBO’s “In Treatment”) directs with a sure if somewhat too steady hand (the movie could have used a little less of Nobbs’ timidity and a little more of Page’s bravado). Nonetheless, “Albert Nobbs” is an interesting consideration of class and gender that sheds a gentle light on both a remarkable character and our own times.

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Celebrity News

Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam

Kylie Minogue made surprise appearance alongside gay icon

Published

13 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

Kylie Minogue with Madonna at the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam on Aug. 2, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Cejlon Studio)

AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam.

The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.

“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.

Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.

Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”

(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”

Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kylie Minogue (@kylieminogue)

Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.

Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.

“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”

Theater

Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth

First five shows a reminder that ‘pressure is a privilege’

Published

22 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Patrick Folliard

Reggie D. White (Photo by Ambe J. Williams)

Madly talented and preternaturally energetic, Reggie D. White, 38, is about to launch his first season as artistic director of D.C.’s boundary-pushing Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

White brings a lot to the job. As actor, playwright, and director, his varied resume includes a 2019 Broadway acting debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning play “The Inheritance,” his semi-autobiographic play “Fremont Ave.” that opened to acclaim last season at Arena Stage, and a number of exciting regional directing credits.

A longtime admirer of Woolly, the out theater-maker was selected from a pool of candidates before receiving the offer last November and starting work in January. His season of five world premieres kicks off with gay playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (Sept. 9-Oct. 4), a darkly funny study of modern relationships told through two lesbians looking back on their first encounter.

White was introduced to Woolly Mammoth as a pre-law student at Cal State Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area, long before he foresaw a life in the arts. “As part of a random theater history course, I was assigned to write a paper on a counterculture company called Woolly Mammoth,” he recalls “Strange name. I was like what the hell is that?”

Nineteen-year-old White was intrigued. Research acquainted him with Howard Shalwitz who co-founded Woolly in 1980, and the company’s commitment to living playwrights and new work. He also learned how theater could be used as a tool for difficult conversations and shape the way people thought about social issues by employing imagination and rigor.

“Never in a million years did young me envision that one day I’d be Woolly’s third artistic director in its 46-year history,” says White. “It’s kind of serendipitously insane.”

WASHINGTON BLADE: Was there a moment when the enormity of the job hit you?

REGGIE D. WHITE: After I’d signed my contract and finished all the paperwork, I got my keys and sat in the theater by myself in the dark and thought about what an incredible honor it is to be trusted with what happens in this beautiful space [in D.C.’s Penn Quarter]. I might have cried. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember it’s real.

BLADE: Are you curating the upcoming 2026–2027 season?

WHITE: Yes, I am. It’s very rare that an incoming artistic director gets to program their first season, but I was lucky in terms of time. After being hired late last year, I asked Woolly’s managing director Kimberly E. Douglas, if she thought it would be crazy if I programmed the season. She warned me it would be hard.

I invoked tennis legend Billie Jean King’s maxim “pressure is a privilege” and got to work.

These plays [dubbed White’s “first five”] represent both the kind of theater that Woolly can do really well and speak directly to my voice as curator and how I want to contribute to the larger theatrical conversation in the DMV.

Getting here has meant a lot of late nights. But I knew the juice would be worth the squeeze.

BLADE: As a queer artistic director, what makes you unique?

WHITE: When I was playing in “Inheritance” on Broadway, after a performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer came backstage to meet the cast. She spoke about how her lens on the world as a Puerto Rican woman shapes her decisions. Similarly, because I’m a queer Black man I see through a lens that shapes my work.

I know I’m not the only queer artistic director in town. For me, it influences how I make editorial decisions. Out of this season’s five plays there are explicitly queer characters in four [“Venus,” “Chanukkah Spectacular,” “Ten Grand,” and “Love I Awethu Further”] and I’m directing two [“Venus,” “Ten Grand”].

BLADE: Will we see familiar faces?

WHITE: Every show this season will feature a Woolly Mammoth company member in its cast. Our company also includes designers and directors who we’ll include. I’m invested in continuing to provide a showcase for their work.

BLADE: How do you think queer audiences will receive the season?

WHITE: Very well, I think. For queer people who’ve had to navigate the world subversively and solve problems in unique ways, I think it will be especially interesting. I find theater a potent place for questions.

Like all artistic directors. I’ll show up for the job in my own way. I’m just excited that I’ve been invited to bring the fullness of myself to the role.