Dueling Divas

Since the middle of the 19th century, photographs have given us an idea of how actors of the era performed; since early in the last century, we have had some film records. But the evidence remains scant, unsatisfying, and the truth is that we can’t really understand what the allure was of anyone who trod a stage much before the 1920s.

This is true of the two actresses who are considered the consummate mistresses of 19th-century acting: Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse, the subjects of Otho Eskin’s Duet. George Bernard Shaw compared the women’s art in a famous essay, saying that Bernhardt “does not enter into the leading character; she substitutes herself for it,” while Duse “touches you straight on the very heart.” But how much can even this basilisk-eyed observer tell us?

In Helen Sheehy’s biography Eleonora Duse, she writes about the actresses’ initial encounter. “Duse left no record of her first meeting with Sarah Bernhardt,” according to Sheehy, “but the Comte de Montesquiou said he introduced them. ‘It was more like a collision than a meeting,’ he said, ‘The two women grasped each other so tightly that it looked like a mad wrestling match.” In bringing the celebrated thespians together in his 80-minute play, Eskin has a different meeting in mind: He imagines the legendary French Sarah, played by Laura Esterman, visiting the legendary Eleonora, played by Pamela Payton-Wright, during a fevered dream. (The third cast member is Robert Emmet Lunney, who plays a variety of men in the two women’s lives.)

Eskin and director Ludovica Villar-Hauser call on the actresses to play that fantastical encounter and to provide their own versions of the vaunted Bernhardt and Duse approaches to acting — the former thought to be flamboyant, the latter subtle. Payton-Wright and Esterman recently spoke with TheaterMania about some important stages in this project.

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On being approached to do the show:

PAYTON-WRIGHT: “I thought, ‘This is something I never thought of doing or wanted to do.’ It was audacious to play Duse. I knew about her: I had Eva Le Gallienne’s book A Mystic in the Theater. I’d been given that by one of my colleagues. I wasn’t predisposed to do the play but I met with Ludovica and she even asked me which part I wanted. I honestly didn’t know. I’m inclined to choose the part that’s the least like me; I guess most people thinking about the two parts would see me more as Duse, but I sometimes think you get interesting results if cast against type.”

ESTERMAN: “I was called to meet with Ludovica. I walked into the room and she said, ‘You look just like Bernhardt.’ I wanted to play Duse, of course; I felt I would be able to get inside that easily. Every actress wants to think they’re like that. A few days later, they called about Bernhardt and I thought, ‘Okay, why not? I can’t not do this.’ It was scary though, because everyone thinks she was a big ham. I thought I couldn’t do it justice — but would have felt that way about either part. Now, I’m so glad I’m playing it.”

On deciding to sign on:

PAYTON-WRIGHT: “My agent, Mark Redanty, kind of nudged me in that direction. His name should come up in this context because he puts up with artistic choices — sometimes for a whole career. He doesn’t just think about the money job. I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll go and do it. I like this woman Ludovica.’ I wanted to do it once I was assured that the script was still being worked on and that we would have something to contribute to that — they would be interested in my thoughts about it.”

ESTERMAN: “The whole thing happened really fast. I knew about it on a Friday morning. I happened to find in my house a book that Bernhardt wrote called The Art of the Theater, a James Agate book about Bernhardt, and a copy of the novel we call Camille. I had been given Duse and the French by Victor Mapes, which is about when she went to Paris. Once I’d been offered the part, I realized I had all these books about Bernhardt. They were all incredibly helpful; I raced through the biography. Isn’t she amazing? I’m so into her now. She was half Jewish, and that’s really cool.”

On their preparation:

PAYTON-WRIGHT: “Once I decide to do something, I give everything I’ve got to it. You can get a great deal in Duse’s case from photographs because she was totally unadorned. I’ve known Helen Sheehy for years; she called me when she heard about what we were doing, and she’s been an immeasurable help to me. Laura loaned me a copy of an early book, Duse in Paris by Victor Mapes, who was there that night and saw Duse’s opening [unsuccessful, as Camille in La Dame aux Camillias]. He was in the audience and saw Bernhardt looking at Duse. I know how Duse felt: She was so much in her mind that she was unable to do the work she had to do.”

ESTERMAN: “There wasn’t much time. I read some of Bernhardt’s own books, her memoirs — parts of which I got into this play. There are accounts of exactly how she died as Camille. I read millions of descriptions of what it was like to see her act, what her body language was. Some descriptions say she was wraithlike, almost ethereal. I can relate to that; my body can relate to that. She was the epitome of the art of the gesture, the emotional truth. Her Phaedra was supposed to be very still. She was supposed to be sexy, too, and I felt intimidated by that. I found out that her voice was high, a light soprano.”

On invoking the legends:

PAYTON-WRIGHT: “I try not to think about [Duse] too much. It’s not a docudrama. But I do often think of her when I’m not on stage; I honor her in my thoughts. This is a play about what she represents. It’s done in the spirit of honoring both of these women and I had to get over feeling too precious about it. Because it’s a play, it’s kind of a fantasy. This never happened. I know Duse had great respect for Bernhardt all her life and let her know it.”

ESTERMAN: “It’s really funny, I think of Bernhardt a lot. I like her joie de vivre and I feel like I want to protect her. Here was Duse, considered truth in art, but she isolated herself from her own children. Bernhardt lavished love on her illegitimate child.”

On the Bernhardt/Duse rivalry:

PAYTON-WRIGHT: “It was on both sides. I think, artistically speaking, Duse was not in a state of rivalry with Bernhardt because she had no desire to be her; Bernhardt had inspired her to do what she wanted to do. She wanted to achieve greatness and she saw this other actress who had done that, but she didn’t want to do the same kind of work. In that sense, it was not a rivalry. But there was a sense of wanting to be the best, of wanting to be recognizable. That was useful to Duse.”

ESTERMAN: “The rivalry comes and goes in the play. Since I’m dead, I’m a little less invested in the rivalry.”

On how Duse and Bernhardt affected contemporary acting:

PAYTON-WRIGHT: “What Duse did was totally not done until she did it. It’s like a miracle. I had no idea, for most of my life, that this was the case; I never separated many of these things out. She just went off in a different direction, and that’s the direction I go in. On the other hand, I also like to do Restoration and 18th century comedy, and I think of that as requiring some of the chutzpah of the Sarah Bernhardt tradition.”

ESTERMAN: “If we knew more about Bernhardt, we might be a little more charitable. You always need clarity in acting, of course, but there are plays where there is a need to be big — as long as it’s full.”

On playing excerpts of scenes from the Bernhardt/Duse repertoire:

PAYTON-WRIGHT: “I just hated it at first but I’m making my peace with it. Bernhardt would get up and do what I call a party piece; Duse would never get up in somebody’s house. I don’t. I won’t do it! It’s serious work to me and I don’t want to be used as sort of an amusement.”

ESTERMAN: “We do dueling Camilles. There are pictures of Bernhardt’s death scene — step by step, actual photographs. I do two Camilles and Hamlet. The Hamlet is fun! Some said Bernhardt was ludicrous and some said she was really great. She was described as being like a rushing stream, like smoke from a burning paper. Can you imagine? I can’t reproduce that!”