Sarah Bernhardt in the U.P. by Mary Jane Williams
UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY for actor in her 60's to play BOTH HELENA MODJESKA and SARAH BERNHARDT!
Here are their photos:
https://www.pinterest.com/ocruz65/sarah-bernhardt/
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS793US793&sxsrf=ALeKk006Wl26m6juu0s2naqWJHXjMptfhw:1601660025371&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=photos+Madame+Helena+Modjeska&sa=X&ved=...
UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY for actor in her 60's to play BOTH HELENA MODJESKA and SARAH BERNHARDT!
Here are their photos:
https://www.pinterest.com/ocruz65/sarah-bernhardt/
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS793US793&sxsrf=ALeKk006Wl26m6juu0s2naqWJHXjMptfhw:1601660025371&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=photos+Madame+Helena+Modjeska&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjpufPGuJbsAhUmvFkKHe4GDVUQjJkEegQIChAB&biw=1394&bih=815
Sarah Bernhardt was the most famous actress in the world for 50 years! In her 60's with a bad knee "the divine Sarah" was still taking her troupe all over the world and starring in every performance. Her leading man, 40 years younger, was her latest lover.
In Act I, 1900, FRITZ and LILLY meet at ages 16 and 21, when she is newly married, secretly pregnant, attending a performance of Macbeth, with the famous actress MADAME HELENA MODJESKA as Lady Macbeth. FRITZ is a boy selling candy in the theatre. After the performance LILLY confides in MADAME MODJESKA about her pregnancy. In Act 11, LILLY and FRITZ meet again in 1911, at ages 26 and 31, during the "Camille" performance of SARAH BERNHARDT.
The next night BERNHARDT plays the son of Napoleon in a different play. That day she had insisted on going down a working copper mine -- the first woman ever to go down in a mine. She descended a mile underground.
Down in the dark, deepest level of the copper mine SARAH BERNHARDT meets this play's "hero," FRITZ, whom we met in Act I. Now he is a 26 year old "trammer" in the mine. Later FRITZ almost dies in a mine accident, something he has been worrying would happen. (Someone died every week in the copper mines of the U.P.)
There is a romance between FRITZ and LILLY. Complications. Misunderstandings. All ends happily!
Much of the play takes place at the beautiful, historic Calumet Theatre, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, still operating in 2020. See pix at:
http://www.calumettheatre.com/about/gallery/