A GREAT ACTRESS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 928, 24 May 1957, Page 12

A GREAT ACTRESS

RACHEL, by Joanna Richardson; Réinhardt, N.Z. price 21/-. SKED to name the greatest French actress, I would have until recently said Sarah Bernhardt. Now that I have tread this book, I cannot doubt that it is another Jewess, Rachel. She was born in 1821, to itinerant pedlars, and died, all too typically for the times, of consumption, at the age of 37. Her story is a microcosm of 19th century life, with all its dreams, longings and defeats, raised to their highest eminence. As a child, she sang in the streets, was noticed, trained, and in her early twenties was the. leading actress in Europe. She had no formal education, and to the end of her life was uneasy about French syntax, and never learned to speak it elegantly. Her private life’ was a glittering pageant. This Jewish gutter child numbered among her lovers three members .of the House of Napoleon; Count Walewski, son of Napoleon, and Marie Walewska, to whom Rachel bore a_ son; Prince Napoleon, son of the Emperor’s nephew; and Louis Napoleon, first President of France, later Emperor Napoleon III. Rachel was inordinately ambitious, implacable to rivals, ruthless to managers, but ‘she loved her family, who sponged on her all her life, and she received from many people a devoted homage which was as much a tribute to her personality as to her art and fame. Queen Victoria, to whom Rachel in some photographs and paintings bears a striking resemblance, though with physique, be it said, the resemblance

ends, was her passionate admirer, attended all her London seasons, and gave her a bracelet inscribed simply: "A Rachel: Victoria Reine." Joanna Richardson has_ sensitively evoked the enormous power of Rachel’s gift. She lets us feel the labour expended in years of studying what was to be Rachel’s greatest role, Racine’s Phédre, the greatest and most taxing in the French tragic repertory, to which she gave a definite and final form for her generation, perhaps for all time. Her art consisted in the perfect marriage of intellect and emotion, an absolute control of every nuance, every gesture. She moved through her roles like a priestess, celebrating her own intensely formal, yet passionate ritual. Miss Richardson’s book vividly illumines this tragic, enigmatic figure, opens a window on the times, and makes the prospect lively and convincing; and she clearly understands the art of this supremely gifted actress.

Bruce

Mason