|
|
Jan. 26, 2007
A legend in her own right
Bernhardt remains one of the most celebrated actresses of all
time.
EUGENE KAELLIS
Sarah Bernhardt was the world's foremost actress during the second
half of the 19th century. The "Divine Sarah," as she was
known, was unbelievably popular and sent countless hearts aflutter,
even in her 70s and with a leg lost after a stage accident. Not
only did she charm the multitudes, she won the acclaim of critics
in Europe and the Americas. In 1923, almost a million people attended
her funeral in Paris, where she is still honored as France's, and
perhaps the world's, foremost stage actress.
Bernhardt was born in Paris of a Dutch-Jewish mother, a successful
courtesan who lived comfortably on the gifts of her wealthy "friends."
It is uncertain who her father was.
As an adolescent, Bernhardt entered a convent school and was baptized
a Catholic, but she never took religion (or religious morality)
seriously. For her, Catholicism's attraction was not its theology
but ecclesiastical esthetics – adornments, ceremonies, incense,
music and the drama of the eucharist – which she found irresistible.
The latter half of the 19th century saw the full flowering of the
Age of Romanticism. Actors were expected to master a range of facial
expressions, postures, vocalizations, walking, sitting or standing
– each emotion paired with a display evident to patrons as
much as 20 metres from the stage. With no voice amplification, each
line became a declamation.
Contemporary acting reflects the replacement of romanticism by realism
hastened by cinema and, later, television. These technologies allowed
close-ups that could show relatively subtle, and more realistic,
displays, making exaggerated movements of the arms, legs and trunk
unnecessary and unnatural-looking. With the arrival of amplification,
shouting lines became unnecessary; a hushed expression of love or
grief became possible and evidently more appropriate.
Additionally, Konstantine Stani-slavsky, director of the Moscow
Art Theatre, developed what came to be known as "The Method."
He demanded of actors that they search their own lives for an emotional
experience much like the one they were portraying and then allow
their own feelings to take charge of their acting. The expression
had to come from an identified motive and internal experience, instead
of from a series of memorized and practised displays. In addition
to making acting more realistic, it became more personal and individualized.
What was amazing about Bernhardt was that, as her stagecraft matured,
she introduced realism to the stage without supportive technology,
and the critics and patrons loved her for it.
Bernhardt's first major triumph took place only after a series of
national disasters. France had quickly and decisively lost a war
with Prussia, Paris had been besieged, the incendiary Commune was
crushed and the Prussians finally withdrew, after staging a humiliating
parade down the Champs Elysées. The proclamation of the Third
Republic allowed Victor Hugo, France's foremost writer, to return
from political refuge abroad.
Under the Third Republic, the theatre, and especially Bernhardt's
life in it, improved remarkably and provided more performances by
the romantics – Hugo, Musset and Dumas – than the classicists
such as Racine, Voltaire and Corneille. Bernhardt, who preferred
the romantics, although she very successfully performed in either
style, starred in a production of Hugo's Ruy Blas and astounded
not only Hugo, who became one of her enthusiasts and probably her
lover, but the critics and the audience, as well. Bernhardt had
reached the pinnacle of her acting career and was to remain there
until the end of the century.
Talent often comes in bunches. Without abandoning her stage career,
Bernhardt turned to sculpting and was remarkably good at it, as
well as at painting and sketching. By today's standards, Bernhardt's
looks would be right in style: thick, reddish hair and a svelte
figure. While most men admired her appearance, some women, at a
time when the buxom female body was in style, thought her far too
thin. This nonetheless permitted Sarah, in her own theatre, to take
male roles such as Hamlet, much to the chagrin of "proper"
people.
But there was a downside – perhaps not for Bernhardt, who had
her personal ideas about proper behavior – but for others.
The life of Bernhardt, as of many actors, then and now, was characterized
by an apparent inability to distinguish between roles and personality.
One could say that the charm she displayed on stage was part of
her genuine identity, yet there is ample evidence that segments
of what most people would call a normal, wholesome personality,
were missing in her life. They had been "theatricalized"
by exaggeration, excision or failure to develop. It seems that,
while there were many affairs, true, abiding love was not for Bernhardt.
She couldn't or wouldn't be faithful, leaving a succession of frustrated
and angry heartbroken lovers in her wake. She was the ultimate charmer
of men, only too eager to be vanquished, pretending that it was
they who did the seducing.
In these circumstances, Bernhardt could quite easily forget her
Jewish roots, but others did not. Anti-Semitic caricatures of her
appeared from time to time in the press. When she performed in Chicago
and Montreal, each bishop of the diocese excommunicated her and
threatened to do the same for anyone attending her performances.
The archbishop of Avila, in Spain, ordered the faithful to circle
the town walls to prevent performances of a play written by a Jew,
Mendes, and performed by Bernhardt. When she appeared in Odessa
and Kiev, mobs hurled anti-Semitic insults at her.
And then, of course, there was the Dreyfus Affair, which exposed
the anti-Semitism of a number of celebrated Frenchmen, including
the artist Degas, the composer d'Indy and, ironically, Bernhardt's
own son, a supporter of the Church and the army and, therefore,
an anti-Dreyfusard. It is claimed that it was Bernhardt who went
to see Émile Zola, convincing him to enter the case. He became
the key figure in the eventual restoration of Dreyfus's freedom
and honor. Army and Church supporters did not take kindly to Bernhardt's
position. For a week, stirred by some combustible newspaper headlines,
mobs picketed the theatre in which she was performing. Even in death,
she could not escape Jew-hatred – during the Nazi occupation
of Paris, a statue of her was disfigured.
Bernhardt appeared briefly in early films, but there has never been
a film about her. It could have been a lost opportunity for Barbra
Streisand, who would have been ideal in the role of Bernhardt. Now,
alas, it is probably too late.
Eugene Kaellis is a retired academic living in New Westminster.
^TOP
|
|
