THEATRE
Written by Theresa Rebeck, by Melbourne Theatre Company
At
Sumner Theatre, Southbank, until 15 April 2023
Reviewer:
Kate Herbert
Stars: ***1/2
This
review is published only on this blog. I’ll present an audio review on Arts
Weekly, 3MBS on Sat 11 March 2023. KH
 |
| Charlie Wu, Tim Walter, Kate Mulvany,
John Leary
in
Bernhardt/Hamlet_photoPiaJohnson |
Sarah Bernhardt was
perhaps the most famous French actress of the late 19th and early 20th century. She was renowned
for her mellifluous, entrancing, almost musical speaking voice and her
charismatic, presence as she posed, gestured and declaimed, delivering
dialogue in the histrionic acting style of the period. Hers was no truthful,
Method acting.
At the time of this
imagined episode in Theresa Rebeck’s play, it is 1899 and Sarah is 55 and no
longer able to play the ingenue roles that made her so famous, such as the
ailing, and histrionically dying, Camille that sent audiences into paroxysms. (Her
fans were known as ‘saradoteurs’, Sarah doters, i.e. those who dote on Sarah.) To
recoup financial losses and make a splash, she decides to play Hamlet, perhaps
the most famous and most notoriously difficult of Shakespeare’s male
characters. A woman playing this role in 1899 was outrageous.
Kate Mulvany – who
very successfully inhabited Richard III a few years ago – may not have the
melodic voice and magnetism of Bernhardt, but she captures her ambition,
vision, drive, larger
than life personality, her compulsion to maintain
her celebrity and her hearty appetite for sexual adventure, although the
seductiveness and charisma is lacking.
Mulvany’s Bernhardt
is brash, bold, often bullying, although the play also explores her
vulnerability and trepidation. In Rebeck’s play, Sarah’s doubt, uncertainty,
and almost paralysis in the face of playing the enormous role of Hamlet, is an
echo of Hamlet’s own procrastination, self-doubt, confusion and
self-examination.
Although, in
reality, Bernhardt engaged Eugène Morand and Marcel Schwob to write a French
translation of Hamlet for her, in Rebeck’s play, she enlists (bullies and
charms, more like it!) the enamoured Edmond Rostand (Charlie Wu), the
celebrated playwright, and writer of Cyrano, to write a new version of Hamlet
that ditches Shakespeare’s poetry because Sarah finds it too wordy. Do I hear
screams of horror?
The most successful
and compelling moments in this production are extracts from Shakespeare and
Rostand. The first is when Mulvany performs the famous soliloquy, “Oh, what a
rogue and peasant slave am I”, the second is Marco Chiappi’s poignant and
riveting depiction of Hamlet’s father’s ghost, and the last is Chiappi
delivering a poetic excerpt from Rostand’s Cyrano.
In her first directorial role for MTC
since becoming Artistic Director, Anne-Louise Sarks
steers the production effectively, with the often-witty dialogue moving swiftly
and the quirky characters engaging the audience. The evocative set design (Marg
Horwell) is cunningly modular, with small set
pieces moving on and off stage and a spectacularly vivid representation of
Sarah’s exotic salon.
However, the
casting does not do the play any favours, and the script itself sometimes
labours with characters discussing the difficulty, intricacies and complexities
of performing Hamlet and the struggle to deal with the poetry without
annihilating Shakespeare. The pace of the production slows when the action does
not advance and the play spins its wheels, but thankfully, finally arrives at a
resolution.
By Kate Herbert
 |
|
Tahlee Fereday, Kate Mulvany, Marco Chiappi Bernhardt/Hamlet_photoPiaJohnson |
 |
| Kate Mulvany Bernhardt/Hamlet_photoPiaJohnson |
CAST
Constant
Coquelin Marco
Chiappi
Lysette
Tahlee
Fereday
Louis
John
Leary
Maurice
William
McKenna
Sarah
Bernhardt Kate
Mulvany
Francois
/ Worker Dushan
Philips
Raoul
Sahil
Saluja
Alphonse
Mucha Tim
Walter (poster designer)
Edmond
Rostand Charles
Wu
Rosamond
Izabella
Yena
CREATIVE TEAM
Director Anne-Louise
Sarks
Set & Costume Designer Marg Horwell
Lighting Designer Amelia Lever-Davidson
Composer & Sound Designer Joe Paradise Lui
Fight & Movement Director Nigel Poulton
Voice & Text Coach Geraldine Cook-Dafner
Voice & Text Coach Amy Hume
Associate Set Designer Jacob Battista
Costume Associate Sophie Woodward
Assistant Director Tasnim Hossain
Intimacy Coordinator Amy Cater
Assistant to the Fight Director Tom Royce-Hampton
Fight Captain Tim Walter
Assistant Fight Captain John Leary
Stage Manager Whitney McNamara
