Artistic Challenge or Ego Stroking

Bernhardt/Hamlet – Goodman Theatre

Sarah Bernhardt was the most famous female actor in the entire world. She was a celebrity, a new concept that Madame Sarah created for herself. She was a self-made professional artist who had played every major female character in classic dramatic literature. However, by 1899 Miss Bernhardt, now in her 50’s, had tired of always playing ingenues. She forcefully announces to famed playwright Edmund Rostand, her married lover, that she “will not go back to playing flowers” any more. “I was never a flower. Playing an ingenue was always beneath me. It’s beneath all women.” And, thus, Sarah Bernhardt defends her decision to play Hamlet.

In her 2018 comic drama, Theresa Rebeck portrays the famous French actress at the height of her career. Madame Sarah professes that she feels it’s time that females, like herself, be recognized and respected for their ability to create art. She rightfully believed this wasn’t a skill reserved only for men. In choosing to play the role of Hamlet, Bernhardt was determined not to merely “ape virility,” as one nineteenth century English essayist claimed. She wanted to demonstrate that, as the most-acclaimed greatest actress of her day, she was capable of playing  arguably the greatest role in dramatic literature. Sarah Bernhardt’s intention was to elevate her fame, challenge her creativity and strike a blow for feminist artists everywhere, in a sexist society. She’d portray the Prince of Denmark as an gender-free character, bringing to the character as much honesty and passion as any great male actor.

Miss Bernhardt’s problem came with the excessive amount of lines Hamlet had to speak. She felt that Shakespeare had given the character far more words than necessary to convey a simple thought. Part of Hamlet’s verbose verbiage, she felt, was due to his dialogue being written in iambic pentameter. She thought that if the play could be rewritten, simplified from poetry to prose, it would be shorter, more understandable for the audience and easier for the actors to memorize and perform. So, through Ms. Rebeck’s play, we learn that Madame Sarah requested that Edmund Rostand rewrite Shakespeare’s finest play to her specifications. In spite of the fact that we only experience a few tiny excepts from Rostand’s restyled “Hamlet” script, we get a longer scene from Rostand’s classic “Cyrano de Bergerac.”

This exciting Goodman production is guided with spirit and focus by one of Stratford Theatre’s most talented and versatile directors, Donna Feore. She mines all the humor in Rebeck’s script while allowing the play’s dramatic sincerity shine forth when least expected. Oregon Shakespeare Festival Theatre’s Terri McMahon captivates as she captures all the passion and drive behind Sarah Bernhardt. There might be other actresses who are capable of playing this very demanding role—certainly Janet McTeer, who created the role last year on Broadway, is among them. But Ms. McMahon is certainly near the top of this list. She’s strong, manipulative, demanding, romantic and beautiful, as well. Terri McMahon is one of the best reasons to see this production.

The supporting roles do just that: they ably support Ms. McMahon in what is entirely her show. The incomparable Larry Yando, so brilliant in every role he undertakes, brings gravitas and much of the play’s humor to this production. Gregory Linington is delightful and visual artist, Alphonse Mucha. John Tufts is excellent in the role of Edmund Rostand who, in Rebeck’s play, becomes Bernhardt’s fictional married lover. His best moments in his frustration at trying to rewrite Shakespeare for Madame Sarah. William Dick is funny and full of bluster as chauvinistic theatre critic, Louis Lamercier; and Luigi Sottile is terrific as Sarah Bernhardt’s cynical adult son, Maurice. 

The always magnificent Amanda Drinkall effortlessly portrays Lysette, an actress in Bernhardt’s theatre company. Some of her finest moments come when bantering with McMahon and in playing Ophelia while rehearsing “Hamlet” with Sarah. Jennifer Latimore who, like Ms. Drinkall, has been enjoyed on just about every stage in Chicago. Here she holds her own against Ms. McMahon’s Madame Sarah as the intelligent and shrewd Rosamond Gerard, Rostand’s poet/playwright wife. She delivers her husband’s greatest script, so that Sarah can fully value Rostand’s talent when writing his own plays, instead of wasting his time dumbing down Shakespeare for her. She wants Sarah to  also appreciate the high esteem with which Rostand holds Miss Bernhardt. He’s portrayed her as Roxane, the play’s celebrated heroine and object of the two leading men’s affection.

The production is enhanced by Dana Osborne’s sumptuous costumes and wigs, Robert Wierzel’s lovely lighting design and an original score and sound design by Johanna Lynne Staub. Kudos to Matt Hawkins for his fight direction, as well as to Gaby Labotka’s sensuous intimacy consultation.    

Despite that for decades, Elizabethan plays were performed entirely by male actors, even the female roles, Sarah Bernhardt broke ground for women by portraying a leading man in a play. Our awareness and understanding of gender is far more fluid today. We’re far more accommodating, and yet our views are  continually changing. The casting of a female in a male role, and vice versa, or having a trans actor playing either gender, is more easily accepted now by contemporary audiences. The question still surfaces as to whether an actress should try to appear more masculine in a male role or play the character with a female bent. Perhaps the best choice is to simply play the role as genderless. But was Sarah Bernhardt’s goal in playing Hamlet, as debated in Theresa Rebeck’s comic drama, an artistic challenge or a way to stroke her ego? Either way, Sarah Bernhardt’s decision to play Hamlet validated the actress as a bonafide star.   

Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas      

Presented September 14-October 20 by the Goodman Theatre in the Albert Theatre, 170 North Dearborn, Chicago.

Tickets are available at the Goodman box office, by calling 312-443-3800 or by going to www.GoodmanTheatre.org/Bernhardt.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.