"Eleonora Duse represents something so fine, I had such reverence for her. I felt it was audacious for me to be playing her. In the beginning, I believed everything I did on stage had to be greater and grander. Now I just play her. I'm not as reverential. I see her as a human being who had been foolish in some areas of her life -- her personal choices, her loves." -- Pamela Payton-Wright
"It's burdensome to try and represent someone like Sarah Bernhardt, who is known by everyone but probably seen by no one alive today [Bernhardt died in 1923]. She had a larger-than-life reputation. She went in for broad gestures and was a notorious liar. There was the danger of being ludicrous on stage and I was afraid audiences would think that her style of acting was mine. I had to keep it truthful. I've grown to love her and I've become proprietary towards her." -- Laura Esterman
Undoubtedly, Pamela Payton-Wright and Laura Esterman face daunting tasks in taking on the roles of two legendary theatre women -- each of whom was a great star, defining an era's aesthetic and acting styles -- in a wholly imagined encounter. Indeed, the two groundbreaking performers barely knew each other. Duse was almost a generation younger than Bernhardt. But in "Duet," a play by Otho Eskin that bowed Off-Broadway at the Greenwich Street Theatre on Dec. 4, Duse and Bernhardt are presented as lifelong rivals who, in the end, come together, reconciled to each other and the fact that, perhaps, they had a great deal in common. Both were lonely girls from troubled families, unlucky in love, and, most central, savagely ambitious (although Duse might have disputed the last).
"Duet" opens in a dressing room in a Philadelphia theatre; the year is 1924 and Duse (1859-1924), frail and sickly, does not want to perform. Suddenly, Bernhardt (1844-1923), who has been dead for a year, makes a spectral appearance, coaxing her nemesis to go on. As the women recall their lives, replaying their defining moments on and offstage, the resentments and recriminations surface. Throughout, they debate their philosophies of life and acting. Bernhardt was an embodiment of stylized acting -- not unlike performers in a silent movie -- while Duse has been credited with paving the way for the "Method," with its emphasis on reality and truth. Bernhardt was the flamboyant, temperamental star currying favor with the press and public. Duse, on the other hand, was (or perhaps played) the tortured artist, interested only in the human spirit.
Consider this revealing exchange in "Duet." After Bernhardt demonstrates how she takes a curtain call -- it is a baroque performance all by itself, complete with wobbly legs and weepy eyes -- Duse quips, "It has nothing to do with art." To which Bernhardt responds graciously -- she is downright baronial, sweeping across the stage -- "It has everything to do with theatre."
On some level, Esterman has come to see Bernhardt's point of view. In fact, she is convinced that Duse's public and private selves were as carefully molded as Bernhardt's.
"They both knew exactly what they were doing and the effect they had, although Duse was a teeny-weeny pretentious." She adds, "Still, they were both galaxies ahead of their time."
One Brave Lady
Esterman and Payton-Wright -- interviewed individually on the telephone -- are veteran actresses, boasting extensive Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional theatre credits, not to mention TV and film.
Esterman is perhaps best known for creating the role of Bessie in "Marvin's Room," for which she received the Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Obie awards. She appeared on Broadway in "The Show Off," "The Suicide" (with Derek Jacobi), and "The Waltz of the Toreadors" (with Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach). Regional credits include Yale Rep, Great Lakes Theater Festival, the Goodman Theatre, Center Stage, Coconut Grove Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Rep, and the Old Globe.
Payton-Wright launched her career on Broadway with the APA-Phoenix Repertory Company, appearing in productions with such luminaries as Eva Le Gallienne, Helen Hayes, and Uta Hagen. Subsequent Broadway credits include "The Crucible" and "M Butterfly." Among her Off-Broadway credits: "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" (Obie and Clarence Derwent awards, Variety Critics Poll citation), "Jesse and the Bandit Queen" (Obie), and "Fifth of July" (Lucille Lortel nomination). Most recently, she served as Vanessa Redgrave's understudy in "Long Day's Journey Into Night."
Despite their impressive backgrounds, Payton-Wright and Esterman acknowledge that playing Duse and Bernhardt, respectively, are among the most difficult roles they've tackled, personally as well as professionally. When Esterman, for example, heard about the project, she assumed that she'd be playing Duse; Bernhardt felt so far afield.
"I'm a much more retiring person," notes Esterman. "I have nothing of Bernhardt's ability for self-promotion and publicity. She was also a very brave person physically. I could never do what she did."
Bernhardt had excruciating pain in one leg, yet she continued to act; and when the pain became unendurable, she had the leg amputated rather than give up the stage or try other medical treatments that might or might not work. Nevertheless, in the most fundamental way, Esterman identifies with Bernhardt. They both, she says, share "the need for self-expression."
Physically and vocally, the challenges weren't insurmountable. "Sarah [Esterman pronounces it Sah-ruh, accent on the first syllable] had a high soprano silver voice. And although I couldn't do the high soprano voice, I could do a lower version of it. I have to keep in mind that no one would know the difference anyway."
One major similarity: "Our bodies are both long and sinewy. As a young woman, Sarah was slender. People don't know that. Since I come back as a ghost, I could be any age at all. I chose to be a young Sarah, who was also sensual and sexual.
"She was always conscious of herself physically," Esterman continues. "She understood body language. I helped with the costume, choosing the dress that was slender in the middle, full at the bottom. I wanted the high neck and the long graceful sleeves."
Interestingly, Esterman refuses to put too fine a point on her role as a ghost. "I accept the fact that I'm a ghost and that I'm there. That's it. I believe Sarah is there to help Eleonora, although in life she couldn't concede Eleonora's reputation and greatness. But in death, she acknowledges that they shared a great deal. She's saying, 'It's okay to be you. It's okay to be me. It's okay to die.' Eleonora is dying and Sarah has come back to help her make the transition. But she can't sound sanctimonious."
In preparation for the role, Esterman read several biographies of Bernhardt, studied photos, and even screened the silent film "Queen Elizabeth." Still, Esterman is interpreting Bernhardt, not impersonating her, and hopes she evokes "Sarah's incredible joy in life, her fearlessness." Esterman adds, almost as an afterthought, "And within her tradition, she was a great actress. There were many actors in that tradition. She's the one we remember."
Stripping Away the Artifice
By contrast, Duse embodied a new breed of performer and is, at least in part, remembered for that. "She was the first modern actor," remarks Payton-Wright. "She was not interested in grand physical displays on stage. She wanted to present reality, a complicated reality with subtlety and nuance."
To mine the depths of a character like Duse, Payton-Wright discovered that her approach was, ironically enough, Duse's, the stripping away of all artifice and just doing what has to be done in each scene. "It's not helpful to analyze too much. Eleonora talks about a doll she had as a child and how when she took it apart to see what it was like inside, it was broken and she couldn't fix it."
Defining Duse's relationship with Bernhardt was a potential stumbling block, Payton-Wright recalls. On the basis of what she read, realistically, a meeting between the two stars would have been "more like a collision than an embrace. It's not stated in the script, but I decided that this was the night Eleonora would die and that she needs to see Sarah more than anyone else, not that she knows why. Sarah appears and Eleonora has to deal with a ghost in the room. She understands that Sarah is there to help her make the transition. At the end, when Sarah convinces Eleonora to go on stage and helps Eleonora into her costume -- I find it incredibly moving."
Curiously, neither Payton-Wright nor Esterman has any doubt that their onstage alter egos would be actresses today. Their acting styles, especially Bernhardt's, would have evolved; nonetheless, they'd be performers, opportunities in other fields (that did not exist for women of their era) notwithstanding.
"You can't sublimate a need to act," says Esterman. "If you have to act, you have to act, and that has nothing to do with the era. And if you're acting as a substitute for anything else you think you should be doing, you're not going to be a very good actor."