Theatre enthusiasts interested in
stage history might be drawn to a new one-woman show about the life of infamous
celebrity actress Sarah Bernhardt, I, Sarah,
but they might as well check out a biography from the Library of the Performing
Arts. This is the problem with the one-person show about a celebrity -- how do
you show the audience the real person behind the myth (and Bernhardt is most
certainly now a mythical figure) without simply performing the subject’s
resume? Unfortunately, I, Sarah is
little more than a resume production, coming off as a reading of selected
passages from an autobiography.
The production originated with the
Actors Cabaret of Eugene, Oregon, and has toured to small venues in a few
cities. It was directed efficiently by the company’s artistic director, Joe
Zingo. Sarah Bernhardt was played solidly by Mindy Beth Nirenstein.
Lucky for Nirenstein that no one living knows what Bernhardt was like without
researching the details. Even then, save for a few silent-movie examples, no
one living has seen Bernhardt perform. Nirenstein does not have to exactly live
up to Bernhardt’s looks or talents, whatever they may have been. Still, we know
a few things that must be true about Bernhardt. To be as internationally
successful as she was, acting primarily in French regardless of the country in
which she was playing and before the age of microphones, she must have had a
huge voice. If they could hear you in the back row, then stardom was around the
corner. This huge voice is referenced a few times in Cabell’s play, but it
draws attention to Nirenstein’s thin voice, which was at war with the theater’s
air-conditioner. In the tiny space of the Where Eagles Dare Theatre, the
actress could not resonate as Bernhardt describes that she could, supposedly
still sure of voice in her ’70s.
On the other hand, the performance was
at its best when Nirenstein reenacted performances from roles once played by
Bernhardt. She added a costume piece to suggest each new character, the lights
irised down, music came in, and Nirenstein became transformed. This was not an
actress without skill, but she could not bring the same conviction to the
character of Bernhardt that she could bring to the roles of Bernhardt. Part of
it is the writing, with its listing of accomplishments, quoting of reviews, and
determination for the audience to understand Bernhardt’s brilliance. The
audience already knows she was great, for her name endures to this day. It is
the one thing the audience understands walking in, and they don’t need that
fact reiterated throughout the performance. It might have been better off
getting a smaller section of Bernhardt’s life so as to really gain an understanding
of the human being, rather than a 90-minute program biography.
Robert Cabell created a wonderful
environment for the actress, draped in jewel tones, old photographs, and period
details. The costumes, which were given no credit, were evocative and lovely. A
90-minute living lesson on Sarah Bernhardt’s history may be an appropriate way
of learning about this historic figure of the 19th-century stage, and
Nirenstein was a dedicated and hard worker, but in the end she could not
transcend a tedious script.