Playing to the gods
Subtitle: Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and the rivalry that changed acting forever
By: Peter Rader
Edition: First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 277
ISBN-13: 9781476738376
Copyright date: 2018
Subjects: Actresses; Theater; Biography; History
Other titles: Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and the rivalry that changed acting forever
Description: "Audiences across Europe and the Americas clamored to see the divine Sarah Bernhardt swoon--and she gave them their money's worth. The world's first superstar, she traveled with a chimpanzee named Darwin and a pet alligator that drank champagne, shamelessly supplementing her income by endorsing aperitifs and beef bouillon, and spreading rumors that she slept in a coffin to better understand the macabre heroines she played. Eleonora Duse shied away from the spotlight. Born to a penniless family of itinerant troubadours, she disappeared into the characters she portrayed--channeling their spirits, she claimed. Her new, natural style of acting revolutionized the theater, and earned her the ire of Sarah Bernhardt in what would become the most tumultuous theatrical showdown of the nineteenth century. Bernhardt and Duse seduced each other's lovers, stole each other's favorite playwrights, and took to the world's stages to outperform their rival in her most iconic roles. A scandalous, enormously entertaining history full of high drama and low blows, Playing to the Gods is the page-turning account of the feud that changed theater forever"--Dust jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-264) and index.