May 1959
Comparatively few people manage to create a myth during their lifetime, and not so many interpretive artists establish tradition of a quality which on their death is born or transformed into inspiration for all those serving their particular art after them: both these achievements are true of Bernhardt, and the second is the greatest gift which any artist can offer - a permanently increased sense of the possibilities, a wider view of beauty, a more exacting idea of what is perfection. It seems to me, therefore, that these rare creatures are well worth reading about, and Miss Richardson’s contribution is both interesting for those who already know something about Bernhardt, and admirable for those who do not.
Sarah Bernhardt was the unwanted child of a Jewish cocotte from Haarlem and a Roman Catholic lawyer from Le Havre who abandoned his career in favour of world travel. The jacket of this book announces that ‘she originally became an actress almost by accident’, but in spite of this one is struck in the early part of the book by exactly the opposite impression - that Sarah’s purpose was certain, her end shaped by a divinity and she rough hewing not at all. Her energy led her in the early days of her career to sculpt, to write criticism of pictures, and to be a hospital nurse, but these activities were all substitutes for continuous work in the theatre which neither the Conservatoire not the Comédie Française recognised her sufficiently to provide.
She grew up into a tall young woman with flaming hair, an enchanting voice and green eyes which changed colour to blue or brown according to her moods - but after that it is difficult to form one picture of her life, and beneath her greatest roles she was playing the continuous part of Sarah - a creature who could excite anything from the passions of adoration, awe, and joy to the affections of desire, respect and loyalty in all who knew her, and thousands who did not. For more than fifty years she dominated the theatre, travelling unbelievable distances for the most gruelling tours - the Americas, Australia, Russia, Canada and much of Europe, playing eight or nine times a week in repertoires that almost make one faint to think of them. Considered to be delicate as a girl, and having enjoyed the effect that could be made from this, she adopted good health with such passionate determination that it served her throughout; her leg was amputated when she was seventy some years after a severe fall in South America due to the carelessness of the stage hands (one cannot help recalling Nijinsky here) - but she continued to tour and to act until 1922: her last performance being in Rostand’s La Gloire.
The following March she lay dying - her own death and the great deaths she had played: Marguerite Gautier, and L’Aiglon - and asked for many flowers; she must have been given more flowers than anyone else in the world, but, as someone remarked, they never ceased to delight her, and afterwards, the flowers poured in, in quantities great enough even for her royal nature, and in keeping with the homage paid to her during her rich life. Her effect is incalculable, but Miss Richardson has given us a nice selection of what the people who knew her, wrote for her, watched her, lived with her, and worked with her, experienced. She had her critics; Shaw is quoted among them, but one feels that being faced with any mystery or excellence that he could not personally account for rendered him peevish; and for the rest it is clear that she gave her less good, better and best performances, but they were so numerous that it must have been perfectly possible to see the best.
There are two other interesting points arising out of this book which I should like to mention. The first is the climate which produces a Bernhardt; she came a little after Rachel, was contemporary with Duse and Réjane (who were, of course, younger), with Irving, Terry, Mrs Patrick Campbell, Cocquelin and Lucien Guitry and many others. Patti gave a benefit performance in aid of a very young Bernhardt whose possessions had all been burnt in a fire. The demand for good theatre, and the standard of the demand was perhaps higher than it had ever been; the poets and playwrights had artists to write for: of course there was plenty of room for mediocrity, but much more important, there was a place for the best: it is then that the best may occur, but there has to be some preparation for it.
The second arises from an account of Bernhardt rehearsing - very quiet, the whole thing small but perfectly pitched to scale. This is interesting, because rehearsals in the straight theatre today are generally conducted at full pitch: with Bernhardt it would seem that she was virtuoso and could therefore give her full attention to the feeling of who she was being and leave her vocal technique to be used only when necessary - i.e. in a large theatre with an audience.
In conclusion, she was once asked her theory of life and said: ‘We ought to hate very rarely, forgive often, and never forget.’