Janet Suzman's strength is the intelligence of her delivery: complicated dialogue stays clear, and politeness can sting. We rate her restraint, especially in The Draughtsman's Contract, while acknowledging how remote its formal conversations can make people seem.
Fi1m perspective
In The Draughtsman's Contract (1982), Janet Suzman's Virginia Herbert makes a civil exchange worth listening to twice. Her restraint leaves us alert to the insult as well as the joke, without making the delivery itself the centre of attention. We laughed at the courteous nastiness because she lets it register without pressing for a reaction. This is the precision we value in Suzman: she can handle elaborate dialogue while keeping us interested in what the speaker means to achieve.
Her early prominence as Empress Alexandra in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) did not lead to a succession of leading film roles. Theatre remained her principal work through the 1970s and 1980s, with selective film and television appearances. Her Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1972), on stage and television, belongs to that continuing classical work. Period and literary adaptations suit her articulate delivery, but the screen career also includes Edmea Tutua in Federico Fellini's And the Ship Sails On (1983). These are reasons to look beyond the Greenaway appearance, rather than treat it as the whole account of her work.
It is Peter Greenaway, though, who gives us the clearest demonstration of what she contributes. Anthony Higgins's Mr Neville has enough assurance to make his cleverness entertaining, and a less attentive film might have let that settle matters. Suzman's Virginia Herbert and Anne-Louise Lambert's Sarah Talmann stop the exchanges becoming his private display; both make restraint an effective response to a man so pleased with himself. The country-house mystery is funny and exacting, but its mannered conversation sometimes keeps the people remote. We rate Suzman's work here without pretending that her presence removes that difficulty.
That formality is a useful caveat for anyone beginning here with her screen performances. What we recommend in The Draughtsman's Contract is the close attention to words, and the pleasure of hearing civility used so unkindly. Start there if an evening with difficult company and carefully phrased insults sounds worth the trouble.
Biography
Janet Suzman is a South African-born British actress. Born in Johannesburg in 1939, she trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before making her professional stage debut in 1962. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963 and became known for her performances in Shakespearean roles.
Her film work includes the role of Empress Alexandra in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), for which she received an Academy Award nomination, and Virginia Herbert in The Draughtsman's Contract (1982). She has also appeared in A Dry White Season (1989) and television series such as The Crown. Suzman was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2011 for services to drama. She has directed several stage productions.
