The Gilded Stage - The Years of the Great International Actresses

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The age of the international actresses lasted from the 1840's to the 1920?s. During these eighty years the theater was a passionate concern of a large number of people, and it was thoroughly dominated by Rachel, Ristori, Bernhardt, and Duse, who battled for control of the stage. They were the first truly international stage actresses-and the last, for the genre disappeared with them as the film made the presence of their successors a daily synthetic occurrence. But in their time, only these four women managed to transcend the limitation of language and national culture and to perform to international acclaim, for extended periods of time, all over the world. They came like fairy princesses from afar, in their private Pullman cars, after long and perilous voyages on board ship, to bestow--in person-on Lima or Melbourne or Milwaukee, membership in the inner circle of great world culture. Their success was not the result of any one particular style of acting, some sort of melodramatic grand manner. On the contrary, they were strong individuals and their capabilities and ways differed fundamentally. It is Henry Knepler's particular triumph that he has captured them each as they were - in their scandalizing of the middle-class society that made up their audience, in their genius - and as a result has written one of the truly great books about the theater of any age. 24 pages of illustrations. N° de ref. del artículo 000742

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