Acclaim and Alcoholism
A PLAYER AND A GENTLEMAN: THE DIARY OF HARRY WATKINS, NINETEENTH-CENTURY U.S. AMERICAN ACTOR
Edited by Amy E. Hughes and Naomi J. Stubbs.
University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Mich., 2018.
352 pp., $80 cloth, $64.95 ebook.
PLAYING TO THE GODS: SARAH BERNHARDT, ELEONORA DUSE, AND THE RIVALRY THAT CHANGED ACTING FOREVER
by Peter Rader. Simon & Schuster, New York City, 2018.
288 pp., $26 cloth, $17 paper (available August 2019), $13.99 ebook, $17.99 audio download.
DANGLING BETWEEN fortune, and artistic fulfillment on one hand and the realities of public indifference, financial instability, and unavoidable compromise on the other, the life of an actor has always been a precarious one. And as two recent books show, that was particularly so in the 19th century. Technological advantages like the steam locomotive and gas lighting made it possible for acting companies and star performers to reach larger and more varied audiences than they ever had before. At the same time, actors and the playwrights who wrote for them began to move from productions that prized flamboyant gestures and histrionic speeches toward those that championed a more naturalistic and intimate performance style.
