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Sarah Bernhardt Impact On Hamlet

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Sarah Bernhardt was a renowned French actress of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her portrayal of Hamlet, one of William Shakespeare's most complex and dark characters, left an indelible mark on the world of theater. Bernhardt's portrayal of the Danish prince was groundbreaking, questioning social norms and traditional gender roles of the period. Bernhardt's Hamlet was a breakthrough and transformative performance that displayed her extraordinary acting skills, artistic diversity, and unwavering resolve to push the frontiers of theater as a pioneering woman in a male-dominated industry. Sarah Bernhardt's groundbreaking portrayal of Hamlet, her influential impact on theater as a pioneering woman in a male-dominated industry, …show more content…

Her age set her apart from many of the other actresses of the time. Cobrin writes that “Bernhardt’s use of the breeches genre utilized performance to reconstruct her aging body into an active and youthful body” (Cobrin 49). As soon as Bernhardt stepped onto the stage embodying a young male character, her body spoke a visual language that compelled acknowledgment of its youthful attributes. Through costumes, gestures, and vocal agility, she adorned her identity with the trappings of youth, though her aging body remained ever-present. Her renowned status as Sarah Bernhardt, one of the era's most celebrated actresses, anchored every performance. The actresses playing “male characters required audience members to take a leap of faith that theatre normally asked in order to bridge the gender chasm created between actress and role” (Cobrin 51). Bernhardt’s portrayal of young male characters presented her audience with a chance to intimately scrutinize, admire, objectify, challenge, accept, and analyze the presence of Sarah Bernhardt as an aging woman. Unlike the conventional idea of older bodies fading away from the public eye, Bernhardt's body demanded attention and was not shy to be …show more content…

She had damaged her leg falling on the deck of a ship decades earlier, but it was during the climax of a performance of La Tosca, that she damaged it even further. In 1915, “she determined that she could no longer live with it: She would have her leg amputated” (Gottlieb 167). Rejecting the notion of an artificial limb, crutches, or a wheelchair, she opted for a palanquin of her own design, carried by two men on long shafts. Her palanquin, adorned in the opulent style of Louis XV with white sides and gilded accents, was her preferred mode of transportation. Despite the amputation of her leg, she persevered in taking the stage at her theater, with scenes carefully arranged to accommodate her seated position or supported by props that concealed her missing

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