Rover Dramawerk’s Bernhardt / Hamlet was an intriguing supreme pleasure. We find ourselves in 1897 France, where world renowned actor (actress?) Sarah Bernhardt has found herself in a pickle. Her last show was too cerebral for the hoi polloi (critical success though it was) and now she’s low on the dough and gambling on a Hail Mary! Notorious for her extravagantly eccentric antics, Sarah has cooked up a gimmick that will doubtless bring them flocking to the box office, the public and intelligentsia alike. Well, perhaps not a gimmick, exactly, but she’s confident that her choice to play Hamlet will be just the thing to resuscitate her floundering career. On this premise turns the drama.
When Bernhardt / Hamlet opens, Bernhardt is rehearsing Shakespeare’s difficult and taxing Hamlet (the Prince of Denmark) that many have called his most powerful and best. Sarah is crabbing about the excess verbiage and obtuseness of the script, carrying on and trying desperately to find her focus. Though she’s not the kind of diva who takes out frustration on colleagues. Close friends, critics, cast members, her son, and even her paramour, the brilliant playwright Rostand, say with admiration and respect, that she’s not in her right mind. She defends this dubious decision in various ways. In Shakespeare’s day, male actors played women. Succeed or fail, it will net a tidy profit. There is nothing that she (visionary genius) can’t achieve.
Playwright Theresa Rebeck has written a poignant narrative, a quandary on the nature of genius, based on historical fact. It raises all kinds of provocative questions, without assaulting the audience with a hammer. It’s not obsessed with the obvious. Bernhardt kvetches so much, you’ve got to wonder why she’s chosen this project. When she asks Rostand to write a simpler version, he asks why she wants to change “what makes Shakespeare, Shakespeare.” Rebeck depicts a woman, an iconoclast, who pays no attention to the petty concerns and gossip of unenlightened culture. It’s why she’s gained a reputation for being intrepid and unapologetically defiant. And yet Rebeck also suggests the reason for Sarah’s endeavor, is that mommy told her not to put jam on the cat.
Experienced, cunning director extraordinaire, Janette Oswald has taken on Bernhardt / Hamlet, guiding the performers with her nuanced, intuitive touch. She juggles the amusing, the despondent, the inquisitive, the skeptical, with skill and panache. She expertly steers this poised, introspective, pensive cast: agile enough to do comedy with panache, and the somber just above a whisper.
I must express my profuse apologies for not delivering my review in a timely fashion. Rover Dramawerks (who consistently presents scintillating theatre) has always welcomed me with open arms, and treated me with warmth and gracious kindness.
The Magnificent Cast
Carol M. Rice (Sarah Bernhardt) Brian Hoffman (Constant Coquelin) Jorge Marin Lara (Edmond Rostand) Chuck E. Moore (Alphonse Mucha) Ian Grygotis (Maurice) Scott Hickman (Louis) Jenny Wood (Rosamund) Marissa Mayfield (Lysette) Alexander de la Cruz-Nunez (Raoul) Sean M. Lewis (Francois).
Rover Dramawerks presented Bernhardt / Hamlet from October 12th-28th, 2023. 1517 H Avenue, Plano, Texas 75074. 972-849-0358. roverdramawerks.com.