Stage Presence!

I too was one of the lucky people to Alan Rickman on Broadway in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Stage presence is a gross understatement for him. He reeked of evil and charm. His every word resounded over the audience and he was the person on stage who commanded your attention. To add to his great performance, he dueled with steel swords that was convincing enough to wonder how, on the small stage area, he didn't impale his adversary and a call to audience for a doctor in the house would follow. m/r

Rickman's Worth :: SteynOnline

by Mark Steyn  Mark at the Movies  January 16, 2016

More or less exactly thirty years ago, I saw Alan Rickman in the role that made his name - as the Vicomte de Valmont in Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Barbican Pit. Theatre critics are overly fond of the phrase "a commanding performance", but I've rarely seen anything as commanding as Rickman on stage that night: he was a very palpable flesh-and-blood embodiment of the title. From about 20 minutes after his entrance, you could feel all around you that approximately 90 per cent of the female audience and 30 per cent of the male were just longing to be taken by him. I made the mistake of inviting a young lady along, and at supper afterwards she did her best not to make it too obvious that she found me wanting by comparison.

A year later, Rickman and Lindsay Duncan reprised their roles on Broadway and were the toast of the town. Another year later, Hollywood anglicized the title - Dangerous Liaisons - and Americanized the cast - Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer. Like Julie Andrews getting passed over for Audrey Hepburn in the film of My Fair Lady, it must have distressed Rickman. But his Mary Poppins came along in the form of Die Hard, and from then until his death a few days ago he was always in demand.

Ruining Bruce Willis' Christmas, he more or less inaugurated what ought to be an Oscar category - Best Brit Villain in a Hollywood Blockbuster. Hans Gruber is a German terrorist but played by Rickman with an icy Englishness so irresistible that, as political correctness scared the studios off any too obviously ethnic bad guys, he paved the way for a decade of supercilious sneering anglo-psychos - Jeremy Irons, Gary Oldman, Charles Dance... Rickman himself was hard to beat on this turf: indeed, he brought something of his Die Hard English villainy to the ascetic, bespectacled Eamonn de Valera opposite Liam Neeson in the Irish biopic Michael Collins. One wonders whether Kevin Costner had any regrets about letting him steal the show quite so thoroughly as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - although it's hard to think of anyone else who could pull off lines like, "No more merciful beheadings! And call off Christmas."

-go to links-