BERNHARDT: A RETROSPECT

Evening Star, Issue 18375, 8 September 1923, Page 12

BERNHARDT: A RETROSPECT

COMPARISON WITH RACHEL AND DUSE. [By James Agate in tho ‘Sunday Chronicle.’] Sir Georpo Arthur’s little book, ‘ Sarah Bernhardt,’ tempts mo to take up my pen again for’ yet another word or two about the great actress so recently gone from us. Sir Arthur was Sarah’s friend of many years, and) in this book he does not solve her secret nor explain her magic. We get a glimpse of the artist’s great career, of her indbmitablo will, of her extravagant caprice, her artistic integrity, the kindness and charity of her later years. Wo even get a few flashes of her wit. ‘‘You must see mv Theresa,” she once said to Mr Edmnndi Gesso; “she is a bore, but a magnificent bore.” Again, on the famous occasion when August Vital said! in tiro ‘ Figaro ’ that she played Dona Clorindo in Emile Angler's ‘The Adventuress ’ like Zola’s washerwoman in ‘ Drink ’•—on this occasion wo find her confessing that she looked ugly on tho stage, “ like an English teapot.” But we get little more. For soma whoso business it is to write of the .theatre it was, when Bernhardt died, ns 'though beauty had veiled her face, so determinate, so utterly beyond repair was the sense of loss. It_ia not that tho stock of loveliness became diminished for a time, as tho blossoming earth is subdued by winter; wo knew that there would bo other flowers, but also that the roso was gone for ever. Those who would charge mo hero with phrase-making can have known little of Bernhardt: she can have meant little to them, and their praise was lip-service. To them such a lino as “ Elio Wait un petit diademe on dentollo d’argent ” brings up no picture the like of which thev will not sec again; for them ‘Ruy Bias’ can find other queens wearing a diadem of silver lace. I hear it objected that this great actress has been dead, in all that matters, these twenty, thirty years; that she outlived even the memory oi her splendors. They would havo her dead whoso old ago and infirmity hurt them so. But not for us. To know not only bravery in tiro maimed presentment, but also the imperishable soul of beauty; to reoopiiso the heart hound with triple brass, Dio spirit scorning an end 1 in sandy deltas —this, tho pain of others, was rvur orivilerre. I say without hyperbole that for those to whom the art of * Sarah Bernhardt was their most intimate communion with beauty her bodily passing left a gap in Nature. AN UNIMPRESSIVE REQUIEM.

I could never have believed that a, requiem Mass at Westminster Cathedral could have been so little impressive. The stage was sot at least ns magnificently os Irving’s church scenes in ‘Bechet and ‘Much Ado’; the eye was rested by the humility of brickwork raised to grin-dour by its ordering. The Cathedral sec-mod to wait for some more imposing celebrant, for Sarah herself. One had read something of tho iortitudlo o! thoso last hours. How little of Sarah was conveyed by that media rai wan of tho “ guilty, suppliant, and groaning ’ I God's creatures dlo most lionor to God when itbev face death as lugft a heart as they faced life. This Bernhirdb did. If there is a Heaven, then it is not groaning and suppliant that she comes, but as a warrior carving rightful entry like tho good man in Banyan, giving and receiving many wounds. It was the voice which rot Sarah above any other actress. The other evening 1 was bidden to a party given by a French actress, and as I*was about to enter her drawing room my hoart gave a great leap and then seemed! to stop. For beyond tho folds of the portiere I heard tho very voice and accent, rhythm and cadence of Sarah. First cam© the great tirade in ‘ Athalic,’ which seemed to shako Heaven and Hell. Or you might have said tho mid-night sky firing with tho lightning's silver sheets. Then came the exquisite pathos with which Marguerite Gautier, folding her hands over tiro letter of old Duval, used to recite it -by heart. And last, the passage where tho dying courtesan _ turns to tho window and waves to the child at play. It was my hostess who revealed the most remarkable gift of imitation of which I have ever been made aware. Imitation is the wrong word; she brought the great actress before me in that hey-day which ono thought imperishable and which in the spirit cannot fade. People have often asked me what this voice of Sarah’s was like, whether it was a higher power of Ellen Terry’s woodnotes wild, or of Mrs Patrick Campbell’s mutinous surgo. Ho, it was not in the least like these actresses’ beautiful voices. To attempt to describe it is useless; the most illustrious stylists have tried and failed. You might have Bald tho odor of bruised violets, or waves of liquid pearls breaking upon a diamond shore, that each word was os a precious alone dropped into some well of felicity. But that’s not it- “It was,” says Mr Arthur Symons, “as though a caressing finger were kid upon tiro spine.” But again that’s not it. To those who never heard it, or heard it only In recent years, to describe it is as vain as to try to define color to a blind man. RACHEL AYD DUSE.

It is become a commonplace that in physical resources Rachel wan superior to Bernhardt. Radiol is always supposed to have been tho only actrecs who ever coped successfully with those frenzied sixty lines in ‘Phedro’ which eneUjvilh tho wrenching»of tho sword from Hippolyto. The great Clairon frankly confessed that she could never deliver this passage to her satisfaction. The difficulty, of course, is to attain tho hnman passion and preserve the classic grandeur. Rachel may have achieved this} Sarah throw compromise and Racine and grandeur and tho Theatre Francais overboard, and played the woman ns thouvj* she were of our own day. but her frenzy and feverishness were of the spirit, and not of tho body. And I cannot believe that any actress can ever have surpassed tho pathos of this Phedro. Let us grant, however, that Rachel was greater than Bernhardt in purely classic tragedy. And, if you like, that Duse outdid her in modern “sincerity.” But there wore two “linen’ of Sarah’a which I am persuaded Rachel could never have approached, and in which Duse, I am certain, failed. One was romantic rubbish, the other pure poetry. Quito

how Rachel would havo tackled lardou and his kind wo cannot know; It ia improbable that she could have given ns the lender banter of tho church scene in ‘La Tosca.’ In ‘Fedora’ Duse found nothing that she could act, in the role of Cleopatra she pock’d and pined. I saw Duse in ‘ Adrienne Locouvreur,’ and in that cue performance Sarah took full revenge. Duse is a greater artist than she is actress : I must deem her talent less than supremo in that it needs masterpieces to feed on.

Half tho function of the great player ia to make brides without straw. Sarah did this, and the mortar between tho layers was of molten gold. BELLEAS AND MELISANDE, I remember one scene in particular which she played in Manchester—a tower in Goland’s Castle and tho roadway beneath. At tho window Melisande is combing her hair and chanting. The words are Pelleas! “’Hola! Ilola! liol” Melisande:, “ Qui eat la!” Pelleas: “ Moi, moi, et mol! Quo fais-tu la a ila fonetro en chan tent comma un oiscau qui n’est pas d’ici?" It is not possible that anything lovelier was ever heard than Sarah’s cry from tho wings “Ilola 1 Ilola 1 hoi” or that happiness can ever again so flood tho spirit as it did with that onrushing “Mol, moi, et moi!” The whole porformoneo was in a key of beauty, as if not of this earth, of ecstasy like that of a child singing. To sum up, consider thisii that in classic drama Bernhardt ranked nest to Radhol; that in modern realistic plays she was within measurable distance of Duse. In romantic rubbish, which she galvanised l into semblance of life by personality alone, she was a/dimittedly unrivalled; in pure poetry elro achieved heights which no other actress has over begun to scale. In other words, whatever Rachel and Duse could) do Sarah did almost as well; that which she did supremely they could not attempt. There is no question of other rivalry. Take Bernhardt for all in all, it is, in my humble opinion, rank nonsense to pretend! that the world baa ever looked 1 upon her like. THE DYING MARGUERITE. If_ I were asked to name my most exquisite recollection of Sarah, I think I should choose that moment in ‘La Dame aux Camelias ’ when the dying Marguerite, kneeling on the sofa* and looking up at Armand, would say i “ You don’t know, Armand, Nidhette ia to marry Gustave to-day. We shall eeo them. It will ho a blessed thing to bo tgether in a church to pray God and look upon tho happiness of others.” The joy which she used to put into that Ni-chette se ma-ri-io!” cut tho heart to ribbons. They say that Duse’s Marguerite died among her pillows—a wistful little creature blotted in the folds of the ■huge hod, pathetically withdrawn from Die world and into her frail, wan seif. It must be confessed that Sarah’s choice in dyings was more spectacular. I remember a perfomiiince in London of ‘ La Tosca.’ Tho actress was grown too old to care about jumping into tho Tiber, and it was arranged that tho platoon of soldiers which had shot Cavaradossi should shoot her, too. But on this occasion something went wrong. No soldiers appeared, and the curtain came down upon a Sarah baulked of her agonising. And then from behind the curtain proceeded, not, as a critic has put it, an obscure sensation of peril such as ono feels when tho lioness leaps into Dio cage, but a sense of very real danger and a commotion like that of a hundred l forest-bred in conclave. The curtain drew up, and Sarah was discovered in a fury Dio like of which cannot be described, beating her breast, lashing her flanks, and roaring with open mouDi: “ Mais tuez-moi done! Tucz-moi! Tuez-moi 1” And, sheepishly, Die platoon appeared, lined up, and killed her. _ When I came to know Sarah she had lived down old! legends. Emperors, they said, once waited upon her, and popes failed of an audience. Her chariot was horsed by captive kings. Sho loosed none too tamo cheetahs upon unwelcome visitors, . , . Of all this I saw nothing, INFINITE DIGNITY. The actress whom I know was an old lady of infinite dignity, I remember her on her seventieth birthday, seated over tho fire in my mother’s drawing room at Eoclcs, near Manchester, telling stories, and in manner and spirit as young and fresh and radiant as a girl of twenty, I remember her now as she left, gathering round her that mantle of misty grey, and filling Dio October garden wiDi a seabird’s splendor. I remember the look of affection •which she threw to my mother as the carriage rolled away. I remember bow wc gazed after it, and that presently, from tho window, a bunch of flowers was waved.