REVIEW: SARAH Quand Même at Drayton Arms Theatre 20 Feb – 2 Mar 2024

“a theatrical tour de force” ★★★★

Last year marked a hundred years since the death of the legendary actress, Sarah Bernhardt. The artist who scandalised polite society was both adored and vilified by the press who cast her as decadent and immoral. The woman and single mother who relaxed in a satin-lined coffin, kept a cheetah as a pet, took opium for her nerves, young lovers and male roles. She was adored by Oscar Wilde and inspired his Salome, despite it being banned and he being imprisoned before she could honour the role in London. Sarah Quand Même. (Sarah, Despite All!) originally created and performed in Paris for the 100-year anniversary of her death, now premiers in Chelsea’s Drayton Arms Theatre.

One of theatre’s magic tricks is it can bring the dead to life and this one woman show, reanimates the spirit of le divine, as she was described by Wilde. Written and embodied by pedigree performer Susie Lindeman, whose many film credits include BAFTA and Oscar-winning film Howard’s End, we re-enter the Bernhardt hemisphere with energy, style and wit. The chalk-faced, tousle-haired spectre is revived in physicality, image and voice. Lindeman wafts around the stage in white diaphanous gowns, bird-like with a breathless, child-like voice. She strikes poses, an audience always in mind, drapes herself artfully over the chaise lounge and camps it up like nobody’s business, “I love to swoon.”

For those without the time to read the multiple memoirs and biographies of one of the first modern celebrities, this 80-minute production (with no interval) is like a speed read across an extraordinary life that starts with histrionics in a convent and finishes with her spirit flying over Paris’s Père Lachaise cemetery. Key scenes are re-enacted as she addresses the audience directly - for the audience must never be forgotten. Always preparing for her moment, close up and spotlight, the sound of a ringing bell that indicates she must prepare for stage, punctuates this passionate performance. Playing both Bernhardt and her granddaughter, Lysiane whose memoir informs much of this script, Lindeman is a theatrical tour-de-force.

It’s this distinction between what’s real and what’s constructed that forms a key pivot on which the play moves forward. Bernhardt feels when she acts, she tells the truth “I never fake it on stage” yet when she breaks down in moments of genuine despair, she’s accused of putting on a show. The gender question also underpins everything. It was because she was a woman who chose to live a free, independent life at a time of societal restraint that she's castigated in the media as an attention-seeking diva: Madame Revolt. A prototype feminist, radical thinker and bohemian, it’s hard to distinguish if there was more drama in her life or in her work. It’s a close call.

The costumes are beautiful, the delivery captivating and the set suitably plush. Bernhardt was inspired by Britain’s own Ellen Terry, the “epitome of Victorian femininity.” As you leave the Drayton Arms Theatre, you’ll see framed photographs of Terry on the stairwell. It was also in London that Bernhardt felt most free, like she had been “let out of a cage” so it is entirely fitting that she should be back here in body and soul to remind audiences what an icon she was.

Photography: Darren Struwig

SARAH Quand Même at Drayton Arms Theatre 20 Feb – 2 Mar 2024

Box Office SARAH Quand Même at Drayton Arms Theatre 20 Feb – 2 Mar 2024

SARAH Quand Même is written and performed by Susie Lindeman, and is directed by London-based international director, Wayne Harrison, former Artistic Director of the Sydney Theatre Company. Production design is by Justin Nardella and Lighting design by Martin Kinnane.

Reviewed by Nilgin Yusuf https://nilginyusuf.com/