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Playing to the gods : Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and the rivalry that changed acting forever / Peter Rader.
Kislak Center for Special Collections - Furness Shakespeare Library (Van Pelt 628) PN2205 .B47 2018
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Rader, Peter, author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Bernhardt, Sarah, 1844-1923.
- Bernhardt, Sarah.
- Duse, Eleonora, 1858-1924.
- Duse, Eleonora.
- Actresses--Biography.
- Actresses.
- Genre:
- Biographies.
- Nonfiction.
- Physical Description:
- 277 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
- Edition:
- First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Simon & Schuster, 2018.
- Summary:
- Traces the infamous rivalry between two renowned nineteenth-century actresses, sharing insights into their personalities, ambitions, and relationships with each others' lovers.
- "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.
- Contents:
- Sarah Bernhardt
- Eleonora Duse.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-264) and index.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.
- Other Format:
- Online version: Rader, Peter, author. Playing to the gods
- ISBN:
- 9781476738376
- 1476738378
- OCLC:
- 1006810622
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