Playing to the Gods: Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and the Rivalry That Changed Acting Forever

TMZ meets theater history gravitas in this deliciously entertaining and informative dual biography of late 19th-/early 20th-century preeminent actresses Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse. Their decades-long rivalry played out in theater stages, newspapers, and boudoirs around the world, with a supporting cast that included royalty and some of the most famous personalities of the time. Hollywood screenwriter, director, and insider Rader focuses on the stark contrasts in their approaches to acting. Bernhardt was the undisputed queen of the declamatory pose with its attendant by-the-numbers predetermined broad gesticulations. Her universally recognized golden-throated voice and larger-than-life personality had a hypnotic effect on her audiences and many lovers. The introverted and enigmatic Duse, by contrast, had an almost spiritual connection with acting that enabled her to dissolve into her roles and, in contemporary parlance, "be in the moment." The lineage of method acting, the modern acting technique taught by Stanislavsky in Russia and the emblematic stamp of the Actors' Studio in New York, can be directly traced to Duse.