Shakespeare's Actresses in America

[magid]

Last night I went to see Shakespeare's Actresses in America, a one-woman show created and performed by Rebekah Maggor, at the BCA. The frame is Margaret Webster presenting Shakespearean monologues by a number of famous actresses who performed the parts in the U.S., often the same monologue multiple times, which showed the great differences in interpretation. Every character was portrayed at least twice.

The roles were:

• Juliet (Julia Marlowe, Eva Le Gallienne, Claire Danes, and Ellen Terry)
  
• Katharina (Ada Rehan, Mary Pickford, and Elizabeth Taylor)
  
• Viola (Margaret Webster and Helen Hayes)
  
• Titania (Anita Louise and Kathleen Turner)
  
• Desdemona (Uta Hagen and Celia Adler)
  
• Lady Macbeth (Sybil Thorndike and Eva Le Gallienne)
  
• Hamlet (Sarah Bernhardt and Margaret Webster)
  
• Ophelia (Ellen Terry and Lisa Gay Hamilton)

For most of the time, the actress wore a long pink gown, but for Hamlet she attached the shoulders of the gown to cords before undoing and walking out of it (I admit, I had a few moments of anticipating her flying over the stage), to wear a less period outfit of a somewhat sheer dress over pants and some sleeveless top. This was modified further for Ophelia by taking her boots off, so Ophelia could go mad in barefoot splendor, as is her right.

Each actress was introduced, some background given. I recognized a number of names, but others were completely new to me. I still wonder how Rebekah Maggor did her research, especially for the performers who were mostly before the time of the talkies (not that being on stage meant one was necessarily recorded, either).

There were a couple of things that struck me. The largest was how there have been styles in performance. The earliest actresses rolled their Rs a lot, or sounded rather flutey, which came across to me now as rather affected. After that there seemed to be a perference for Great Performance, always high-brow, as it were. Today's style is much more natural, less affected. (I realize that I'm a product of my times, so of course this seems most right to me. Even so...)

I realized yet again that the bit I don't like about Midsummer is that Titania's concerns about the boy are so cavalierly swept aside, and that Kate in Taming of the Shrew can really be played as a woman now modeled into a perfect wife, her issues (whatever they were) swept under some rug somewhere.

I hadn't realized that in a time when it was considered incendiary to have a black man play Othello (in the States, that is), when none of the New York theaters would touch the kind of trouble they assumed it would bring, it was the Brattle Theater, here in Cambridge, that took the risk, with outstanding success.

The order of Desdemonas was reversed from the printed program, with Uta Hagen first. I realized why when Celia Adler began: she was famous for acting in Yiddish theater, and Desdemona's speech to her father was given in Yiddish. Not being one of the more famous speeches, it was easier to have the English-speaking actress first. (I have pretty much no Yiddish, but I was able to pick out a word or two here and there.) It was fascinating to get a glimpse into theater that feels doubly far away, not only in time but in language. (Side note: apparently many Shakespeare plays were translated into Yiddish, but other than Othello, they were usally "translated and enhanced.")

Interestingly, when it was Hamlet, the first soliloquy was Sarah Bernhardt's, in French. I thought there was a lack here: there was no explanation of American audiences going to a Shakespeare play in French.

A good show. It's running through the 11th at the Calderwood Pavilion. Warning: an herbal cigarette is smoked during the show. I wasn't able to smell it from the fifth row, however.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Sounds so interesting! What a creative idea for a show.

Reverse the order for Yiddish but not for French? I don't get it.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I assume that the reversing the order was partly because more people are likely to have a smattering (or more) of French, plus, just about everyone already knows at least some of Hamlet's soliloquy anyway, so it could be read for tone and style, even if the particular words weren't understood.