Duet by Otho Eskin

Theatre at the Tabard, Bath Road, Chiswick, London W4.

I’ve never heard of Cynthia Duse, but apparently it is the 100th anniversary of her death this month and she was a BIG thing last century. I had heard of Sarah Bernhardt. But now I know them both quite well! And I’m glad I do.

It turns our these two last-century showbiz contemporaries could have been friends, but were arch-rivals.

Both had many lovers but one great passion – the theatre. Apparently both died within a year of each other, Bernhardt at home in Paris, Duse in Pittsburgh, the final stop of an American tour. Yet, as is made all too plain in Ludovica Villar-Hauser’s smartly directed production of Duet, while the women did indeed have much in common, they were also as different as chalk and cheese.

We’re greeted by a hazy, theatrical dressing room dominated by a flowing white dress on a tailors dummy.

To explore the parallels in Bernhardt’s and Duse’s private and public lives and their irreconcilable differences, writer Otho Eskin, has invented a meeting, a small ‘Diva-Drama’. The meeting place is, as might be expected, a theatre; specifically, the dressing room of the Pittsburgh theatre where Bernhardt appeared many years earlier during her “second American farewell tour” and where tickets have now sold out to see Duse (Cynthia Straus) as Marguerite in Camille. She is sixty-five, sick and protesting to her manager that she can’t go on, when Bernhardt, (Wendy Morgan) makes a ghostly and typically grand entrance.

You can pretty much guess the rest. The pair trade memories and recreate past scenes. Sometimes they are rivals, sometimes sister artists united by their ambition and success. They compare childhoods. Duse’s career started in Italy at 4 years old in a family of poor struggling actors; Bernhardt’s was plagued by illness and disdained by her courtesan mother who wanted her to prostitute herself. They compare lovers. ‘Use men’, advises Bernhardt after having heartbreak. But ‘no, give yourself to love,’ cries Duse!

Its a charming piece if possibly a little self indulgent in parts. But there are some lovely moments. After heartbreak, Sarah insists that now, “My audiences are my lovers” And the notion of naturalistic performances versus the artifice of trained performance is interesting too.

The performances are strong if very occasionally a little uneven, but credit must be given to Nick Waring who lifts the production with his variety of male characters. It runs 90 minutes without an interval. And credit must go to the creative team. It’s a good looking and sounding production!

Duet is a cute and illuminating piece, that becomes more than just a curiosity or ghost story – and lifts itself perhaps into the realms of a gentle love affair… certainly a love of the theatre and performance.

Nick Hennegan.

Photos: Ali Wright.

TICKETS: £23.50 / £19.50 concessions.
Celebratory performance (21 April): £30, includes post-performance reception
Final week: £25.50 / £21.50 concessions.

Click here for tickets to Duet 

You can book all productions online on the Tabard Theatre web site or call the box office on 020 8995 6035 (leave a message if you can’t get through and your call will be returned). 

Theatre at the Tabard is at 2 Bath Road, Chiswick (W4 1LW).