A constant tension for any theater is the balance of the need to make money to keep the lights on and the desire to branch out beyond the reliably popular warhorses. Not that there is anything wrong with the familiar, but as a musician, I understand the desire to play something new and different.
Stars Playhouse has had the luxury of being the more experimental counterpart to the mainstream musical dinner theater Stars, which has meant the chance to see some truly unusual and rare plays over the last several years. Most recently, this was John Ford’s (not that John Ford) lurid 17th Century play, Tis Pity She’s a Whore.
Far more modern - 2019 - and by a female playwright - Theresa Rebeck - is this one, Berhardt/Hamlet.
The play is based on a real-life story, and features a handful of historical figures. The name of Sarah Bernhardt should be familiar to anyone who enjoys Victorian literature. She is name-checked pretty regularly, and was quite the sensation in her time.
Bernhardt was born illegitimate, to a higher-class courtesan mother, who had the resources to send her to a good school. She learned her craft, and became arguably the most famous actor of the second half of the 19th Century. Her style these days is perhaps not adapted to current taste, but she could hold an audience.
The play centers on one particular incident in her life. In 1899, realizing that she was no longer able to play her usual ingenuine parts well into her 50s (damn those bright lights!), she decided to take on a rather shocking role: Hamlet.
The problem was, however, that she really didn’t like that Hamlet spent all of his time in self doubt and talked at great length in poetry about it. So, she commissioned a version of her own from a pair of playwrights, with less poetry, less talk, and more decisiveness, and did the deed. The critics in Paris loved it, but the critics in London hated it. Whatever the critics thought, the sensation drew audiences.
Soon after, she filmed the final fight scene for a short movie - footage of that was shown at the close of the play. It is very stylized, and her gestures quite feminine - which is interesting given the character.
There is so much more one could say about Bernhardt - she was truly a larger-than-life character who might have been too implausible for fiction.
The title reveals a good bit about what the play will be. It is essentially a fight headline, like Tyson/Foreman (to date myself a bit). Sarah Bernhardt versus Hamlet. And the fight is a doozy.
Ironically, Bernhardt, for all her dislike of Hamlet’s self doubt and vacillation and wordiness, succumbs to the same faults. She slams back and forth between diva arrogance and crippling doubts. She can’t stop talking about Hamlet’s language even as she expresses her frustration with it. She is on the verge of scrapping the whole project several times. Her son, Maurice - who would take over her theater after her death - tries to talk her out of it, but this only strengthens her resolve.
In the mix with Bernhardt in this play is also the real-life Playwright Edmond Rostand, who wrote the delightful farce Cyrano de Bergerac. Bernhardt was both a friend of the young rising artist, and a champion of his plays. He would write for her, and she would perform the heck out of his roles. When he hit it big with Cyrano, she played Roxanne, despite being less than thrilled with the role.
While there is no evidence that they were lovers, the play treats them as such, and introduces Rostand’s wife as a supporting character. Likewise, in the play, Rostand gets the first stab at doing Bernhardt’s adaptation of Hamlet, but the facts do not support that - she hired Eugène Morand and Marcel Schwob to do the deed from the beginning.
Another historical figure in the play is Constant Coquelin, the veteran stage actor who serves as another foil for Bernhardt along with Rostand. Coquelin was the most popular leading man in France, and he played opposite Bernhardt in her 1900 tour of the United States - playing Cyrano to her Roxanne among other roles.
The final historical figure is Alphonse Mucha, whose wonderful posters for Bernhardt’s productions look every bit as fabulous today as they did back then.
One could perhaps add in the critic, Louis Lamercier, who I think was based on a composite of critics at the time, rather than a single person, as a historical figure.
Rounding out the cast are Raoul, Francois, and Lysette, other actors in the company.
The show was directed by Perrin Swanson (no relation, but we’ll take him), who also designed the sets, and played Rostand. Perrin is and has been everywhere in theater around Bakersfield, whether on stage or behind the scenes. Assisting him in the first two is Bethany Rowlee, another stage veteran, who was not on stage in this one, but who has been fabulous in past roles.
Before getting to the acting, I did want to say some nice things about the costumes and set. Period correct (although I probably should ask my wife about the details - on a low budget, not everything is entirely period perfect usually), with the specifics well suited to the characters.
As far as the set, since Stars Playhouse is located in an industrial building, with a strange long and thin space to fit both stage and audience in, it had to be creative. Depending on the production, it has been either the normal layout or with the stage in the middle between the audience. For this one, they did an even more peculiar layout, with the audience along the long wall at center, with a center stage and two wing stages, allowing three different settings. It worked.
Perrin noted that he deliberately did not see the Broadway production, preferring to avoid copying. Also, neither the space nor the budget for a turntable.
So, about the acting. Great casting, and great acting in this one.
The center of the play has to be Sarah Bernhardt, of course, and that requires a truly larger-than-life actor to play her. Enter Karin Harmon. I had previously seen her as Anne-Marie in A Doll’s House Part Two (part of Stars’ production of Ibsen’s original and Lucas Hnath’s continuation of the story back to back.)
Harmon’s Bernhardt was compelling and riveting. The arrogance and entitlement combined with the self-doubt and near-crippling insecurity. The stage presence and ability to bully everyone else into doing things her way. The snapping back and forth between herself and Hamlet in character. Watching Harmon carry this play was an experience, well worth the price of admission in itself.
And she wasn’t the only excellent performance.
Perrin Swanson had to be more or less the straight man throughout this play - everyone he interacts with is a big personality in one way or another, and his job is to let them play off of him while staying in an understated character. And that is exactly what he did: keep things subtle and understated and let the divas do their thing. Honestly, one imagines the real-life Rostand being the introvert surrounded by all those loud extroverted artists very much in the same way Perrin portrayed him.
Constant Coquelin was played by Scott Deaton, recently seen in Tis Pity She’s a Whore, as the exasperated friar. This was a more major part, and it made me think that seeing Deaton in Shakespeare would be fun. And also as Cyrano (which he does for a short scene - big nose and everything.) Deaton has delightfully clear diction and a gravitas that would play well across a variety of Shakespearean roles.
It wasn’t the biggest part, but my legal colleague Patrick Carrick shined as the stuffy critic Louis. Carrick used to be a theater regular, before an extended absence. It is good to see him back on stage again.
And then there was Adrian Francies as Alphonse Mucha. He made the role into the comic relief of the play. He was so over the top in his “Frenchness” - ironic since Mucha was actually Czech - and campy as hell. I’m not sure I have seen him in anything before, but he has a rubber face and a knack for humorous gestures and postures. He was laugh-out-loud hilarious whenever he was on stage.
Rounding out the cast in supporting roles were Ty Halton (Maurice Bernhardt), Jaspreet Singh (Raoul), Alex Singh (Francois), Alyssa Bonanno (Lysette), and Elizabeth Wurster (Rosamond Rostand.) All of them are local stage regulars, and did well in smaller parts here.
Unfortunately, the run of this show is over - we caught the end of the run - so I can’t tell you to go see it. I can, however, encourage you to go see other productions at Stars Playhouse as well as the rest of our great local theaters.
Let’s end with the money quote from the play:
“What is theater itself but a constant acto of translation? We take a script; we imbue it with life. We translate everything in the theater. We invent what we will and translate the rest.”
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