1979 NY Times article on Anthony Hopkins

In looking up something this morning I ran across the September 9, 1979 New York Times article Anthony Hopkins: ‘Acting Is Like Being in a Public Confessional’, which had been behind a paywall when I was watching and researching the actor starring in Jean-Paul Sartre's play Kean. I had posted a 'bleg' for a copy of Hopkins performance, which I still have yet to see, but if you're interested in the actor or the role I recommend checking out the article while it's available.

I'll include two quotes from the article below. First:

‘It's a comic way of making a living, saying lines, but I can express something through acting. I can express myself through parts. I'm not good at expressing myself otherwise.’ Mr. Hopkins prepared for “Kean”—a demanding role of long, impassioned speeches, mercurial changes of mood, drawing‐room repartee—as he always does, by learning his lines, “Laurence Olivier has said, ‘Learn as much as you can, then throw the text away,’ ” Mr. Hopkins said. “And it was something Noel Coward used to require. I like to learn lines. I feel secure. I learn the whole part parrot fashion, by rote even for television and movies where the filming, of course, is done in segments.

Second:

Mr. Hopkins also read a couple of biographies of Edmund Kean and discovered that Sartre's play, a slapstick farce delightfully out of keeping with the playwright's more serious image, really has little to do with fact. For. instance, In the Sartre play, Kean and the Prince of Wales are rivals for the affections of an ambassador's wife.

“Kean did not have a friendship with Wales,” said Mr. Hopkins. “And Kean had only one known affair. He was not really a womanizer. He was obsessed with acting and drinking. He wanted to be a buffoon and was uncomfortable being a celebrity. Kean was used as a prototype by Sartre: the actor trapped by the illusion of the parts he plays. The actor has to be careful not to cross the line between reality and illusion, or he will go mad.”

Does Mr. Hopkins identify with Kean? “I'm a perfectionist. I think it's a vice. I'm very demanding. Kean was also like that. I'm terribly insecure as an actor. It's fear. I've tried to modify it, but I get very wrapped up in work and then lash out because of fear. I don't trust people to do their jobs.

“When Kean did his first performance in London,” he continued, “it was after he had struggled for years in the provinces, as I did. He was offered Shylock. He waded in with an interpretation no one had ever seen. But the audiences loved what he did. He was a very modern actor, with a great eye for detail. But he was very exasperating for the people around him. He wanted to rehearse all the time, like Olivier.”

It's a lengthy article with more information on Hopkins and some of his roles.


My previous posts on Kean can be found here.

Kean (1924 movie: France)

Ivan Mosjoukine (Mozzhukhin) as Edmund Kean

I thought I was through with my Kean project, but Sunday evening I checked to see what was on TCM and the onscreen guide promised Kean with Anthony Hopkins, the version I had blegged about a while back! Knowing this slot was usually reserved for silent movies I had my doubts, though, so I checked out TCMs page on Kean and it promised the 1924 film version, which is what was shown:

Dashing Russian actor Ivan Mosjoukine stars in the 1924 silent production of Kean, an engrossing dramatization of the life of British stage actor Edmund Kean, widely considered to be one of the greatest actors of the 19th century. Based on an 1836 play by Alexandre Dumas, this seldom screened gem covers Kean's celebrated career along with his freewheeling lifestyle as a libertine and eventual decline fueled by heartbreak and alcohol.

Kean, directed by Alexandre Volkoff, was a major production from Albatros, the famed company formed near Paris by a group of Russian migrs who made several notable contributions to early French silent film. Russia's answer to Rudolph Valentino, Ivan Mosjoukine shines in his nuanced performance in the title role.

I believe they meant Russian émigrés. See this article for information on the production company and some of their films available for sale (I have no connection to the site). Here’s what they have to say about the film:

This movie is basically a showcase for Ivan Mosjoukine who plays the title role. The movie begins with a 20-minute sequence from Romeo and Juliet, and there are extended scenes of Kean playing other roles from Shakespeare. It a great vehicle for Mosjoukine to declare that he's a serious and talented actor, which he undoubtedly is, but it doesn't work as well as it should. When Kean is on stage, Mosjoukine seems to be in 'acting' mode, using exaggerated gestures and deliberate, thought-out motions. This makes the "performances" seem more wooden than the rest of the film where he has a more natural style. The fact that we can't hear Kean speaking and have to read title cards instead also subtracts from the performance. Still, it is a good film, even if you didn't know anything about Kean aside from that one famous quote [Kean supposedly said “Dying is easy, comedy is hard,” although there isn’t much evidence for the attribution]. There are some very good scenes, like when Kean gets drunk in the pub, and double exposures were used in a very effective manner.

I’ll address some of these issues in this post, but I’ll agree there are some very good scenes and I thoroughly enjoyed the overall film. Previous posts related to the actor and the play can be found at these links:

• Alexandre Dumas’ play Kean, upon which the movie is based
• A little about the life of Edmund Kean: fact, myth, and everything in between
• Jean-Paul Sartre's Kean, which was also based on Dumas’ play (this post contains the most detailed synopsis, which does vary from Dumas’ play and this movie version)

The introduction said the movie was adapted from Dumas’ play and historical documents, although both claims are a little misleading. The first half of the movie is fairly faithful to the spirit of Dumas’ play, showing some of the backstory and other scenes referred to in the play, but begins to diverge as secondary plots are omitted and a painfully long death scene ends the movie. The original title of the film was Kean but has alternately been titled Edmund Kean: Prince Among Lovers or Kean: Or Wildness and Genius. The restored print TCM aired used the latter and that really is the focus of the movie—his talent and his disordered life.

The best part of the movie for me was the interaction between Kean and his servant Solomon (I’m going to retain the spelling used in the Sartre post even though there is some variation in the Dumas play and the movie). In his version of the play, Jean-Paul Sartre emphasizes this more than Dumas does and I think it works extremely well. In the movie it’s clear they both love each other, Solomon declaring that he is Kean’s only friend in the world. The servant obviously cares for Kean, helping him out of scrapes while facilitating getting into others. In this version, Solomon is also Kean’s on-stage prompter. The funniest scenes of the movie involve these two interacting, whether it’s Solomon practicing fencing with Kean, Solomon dressing up in a tiger rug to scare off creditors, or Solomon in drag to avoid the creditors as they leave the house. Kean can be a little rough with Solomon at times (bordering on abusive) but it’s clear he values his friendship. Solomon attempts to make things better for Kean, providing advice even though the actor ignores it most of the time.

There is much more of an emphasis on Kean’s dissolute life, emphasizing the “wildness” part of the subtitle. Dissipation in this case equals dancing, drinking, more dancing, and a lot more drinking. One bar scene does a good job in piecing these actions together to make Kean appear manic, dancing and drinking the night away with sailors. Occasionally excuses are given for his behavior, especially the class differences and how actors are treated, but I think the movie intends to show that this is a major part of Kean. In other words, it is a part of his very being, as is his brilliance in acting.

Kean's acting on stage, as noted in of the review above, looks exaggerated and deliberate, wooden instead of natural. I find some humor in the fact that the movie (1924) is almost exactly as far removed from the play (1836) as the movie is from today. This style of acting is what silent movies did—the exaggeration is only slightly toned down when Kean isn’t on stage, but there is that added level when he performs and the audience loves it. I found that the exaggeration on stage helped drive home the point that the public loved Kean “the actor” and not Kean “the man.” Sartre’s play emphasized this distinction more than Dumas did, and I think the movie is doing the same thing. When Kean “the man” steps forward from behind his character during his last performance (when he insults the Prince of Wales), the crowd turns on him, booing and throwing food at him. They have no desire to see him, they want to see him perform. The real man is despised and derided—even the livery men at the Danish embassy mock him (via Solomon). There is an additional scene where Kean reads to his actor friends and his delivery and motions are much more normal, highlighting the artificiality of the stage. He notes before his charity performance that he works in a “Damned profession. Where we are masters neither of our joys nor our pains. Always a mask, never a face.” Sartre highlights this difference more, but it’s in Dumas’ play and the movie notes it as well.

A large part of Anna Danby’s escape from her fiancé Lord Neville is not included in this movie version, with no negative impact. Anna was a weak character in Dumas’ play so her cut scenes are fine with me (Sartre makes her a much stronger character). The confrontation between Kean and Lord Neville in the bar, though, is very important to the play and the movie suffers from its exclusion. The worst addition to the movie, by far, is the death scene. As noted in the IMDb.com link, this is supposedly the longest death scene on film. The only other film that had me muttering “Die, already” was to Debra Winger in “Terms of Endearment.” This scene was around 17 minutes and outside the tender moments with Solomon and Elena it is way too long. To demonstrate his love of Shakespeare Kean asks Solomon to read from his plays for him, but Kean ends up quoting several death scenes. I guess the storm breaking at his death and blowing out the candle, emphasizing earlier lines about Kean being England’s sun or light, was OK but by that time I just didn’t care. The closing of the movie, with a curtain being pulled on the scene as if it were on a stage, was a nice touch.

Even with that complaint it’s a decent adaptation and the first 90 minutes has some great moments. Robert Israel adds the new score for the film. Definitely recommended if you happen to stumble across it.

A few additional links on this film:

The flyer for a viewing of it at the Edison Theater at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, California. If you find yourself in the area, I strongly recommend a stop in at the museum.

Another review of the recently released French Masterworks – Russian Emigrés in Paris: 1923-28 set.

Ivan Mosjoukine as Edmund Kean
(and possibly what Cap'n Geech & The Shrimp Shack Shooters would have looked like if they used the Who instead of The Wonders)

Edmund Kean: or, The Life of an Actor by Alexandre Dumas

Edmund Kean: or, The Life of an Actor by Alexander Dumas
The English adaptation by G. H. Jessop and J. St. Maur (published 1881)

Note: I'm not sure what happened but this post returned to draft status after being posted. There have been no changes since the original post yesterday.

After I read the pictured "adaptation", of course, I find there is a translated copy of the play available online. The translation is by Frank J. Morlock. I only looked at the first few pages and found numerous differences, probably because of the adaptation vs. translation issue. I will be quoting from my copy of the Jessop and St. Maur adaptation.

There is a good reference page on the Dumas play at The Alexandre Dumas père Web Site, including notes on the question of authorship. It includes a very good synopsis of the play.

Before I go any further I wanted to make sure and include a link to Stuart Fernie's page with his reflections on Kean. I initially forgot to include it in my post on Kean but included it in an update. Unfortunately the update was well after many people viewed the post, so I want to correct my error here.

Related posts:

• Edmund Kean: fact, myth, and everything in between
• Jean-Paul Sartre's Kean
• Kean, 1924 movie (France)

Dumas got to see Kean perform in 1828 (eight years before the play Kean) when an English company, including the actor, gave a series of performances at the Odéon in Paris. The eight years between seeing him and Dumas’ play, though, saw many changes in France, not the least of which is the 1830 Revolution. Dumas’ play is decidedly reflects a post-revolutionary France, presenting an intermingling of classes as they work through their changed relationships with each other. More importantly, I think, is that Dumas’ Kean reads not just as an actor’s place in society but an author’s place, too. It is probably too much to say Kean is Dumas, but the there are some parallels to be drawn between the two.

While Kean does not include the melodrama common in Dumas’ novels, Kean does appear as a Romantic hero in the play. Kean plays many roles in the play, such as libertine, friend, counselor, gallant, cavalier, but his relevance as an actor seems to be forgotten at times. Dumas’ Kean rarely worries about the distinction between acting and reality, rationalizing his life of excess and disorder as a way to feed his genius in acting. Sartre’s Kean, on the other hand, acts all the time in various roles, on and off the stage and worries that he may never be authentic. Dumas presented a Romantic view of art, where literature/theater can help a reader/viewer experience the same emotions they read/see. Anna’s love of the theater punctuates this view—she had been sick and listless, full of melancholy until her doctor suggested a trip to the theater. That visit lifted her spirits, changing her and providing “a strange new warmth” in her heart. Anna believes the theater is just as real as life, while Kean trumps her in his declarations—he tells Lord Melville (Neville in Sartre) that the world is a lie while the theater is truth.

Even with such exuberance, Dumas marks a clear delineation between acting and living. After the fiasco during the benefit performance, the servant Solomon tries to convince Kean to continue to feign madness to reduce the dire penalties from insulting the prince. Kean will have none of it:

Solomon: Now if you would only keep up the deception for a week. You act the part of King Lear so remarkably well.

Kean: Mr. Solomon, I’d have you to know that my hours for acting are from 8 p.m. till midnight. I never act out of the theater.

In both Dumas’ and Sartre’s plays, Kean plays the rebel while accepting the status quo. Dumas’ Kean targets the privileged, those who don’t “deserve” their wealth and privilege. He still defers to and respects royalty, even as he denounces them. Dumas has Kean develop awareness, limited at a societal level. Here is part of Kean’s attack on Lord Melville while protecting Anna in the dockside bar:

Lord Melville: There is on little difficulty in the way, sir [in giving satisfaction]. An earl, a nobleman, a peer of the realm, cannot meet an acrobat, a mountebank, a strolling player.

Kean: You are right. There is too great a disparity. Lord Melville is a highly estimable gentleman, belonging to one of the first families in England, descended, if I am not mistaken, from the rich old nobility of the Conquest. It is further true that Lord Melville has squandered his heritage in cards, dicing and horse-racing and cocking-mains; that his escutebeon is tarnished by the stain of his base actions and licentious life; that instead of endeavoring to rise, he has steadily sunk lower and lower into the depths of degradation. Whilst the stroller, Kean, born in a kennel, and exposed in the public square, commencing his career without any aid from fortune or a great title, has made the name he bears the peer of the most illustrious, and has wealth enough to compete in expenditure, when it so pleases him, with the royal princes themselves. But all this does not make Lord Melville any the less respectable, nor Kean the less a buffoon. It is true that Lord Melville has sought to rehabilitate his dissipated fortune at the expense of a young and defenceless girl. Forgetting that her rank is beneath his own, he has persecuted her with professions of his noisome love, and has spared no efforts to compel her to marry him. And the mountebank, Kean, affords his protection to this poor fugitive who came to him for aid, has cared for her as a brother would care for his sister, and will send her hence, pure as when she came, and all the more because she is so lovely and so helpless. Nevertheless, Lord Melville is an earl, and Kean is a mountebank.

There is much more in this tirade that Kean uses to contrast the two—it is quite the denouncement of any deferment toward nobility. Yet Kean continues to defer. Sartre’s Kean expands his targets to include the bourgeoisie, those that exploited him and “made” him an actor, an illusionist for their amusement. This Kean also develops awareness but it is on a metaphysical level. Sartre updates Dumas’ Romanticism to a 1950s Existential view of man.

A little more on some differences between the two plays…
Sartre tends to cut corners on Dumas’ plot development in order to allow actors, especially Kean, time to muse on the questions of appearance and reality. Sartre also develops the secondary characters quite a bit more. In Dumas’ version, Anna Danby initially shows initiative, then disappears back into herself. Sartre shows a much more brazen and self-assured woman, determined to get what she wants. Elena/Helen is also more fully developed under Sartre, where she is torn between her love of the actor Kean (not the man) and her privileged role in society. She realizes much of her life is a sham while highlighting the roles she plays as a woman and a countess. These aspects of her character are hinted at in Dumas, but Sartre plays up her inner conflict. The servant Solomon is also more aggressive in Sartre’s version, going beyond a simple comic foil.

Reading Dumas’ Kean was enjoyable on its own. Even better, though, was the heightened appreciation of what Sartre achieved in using Dumas’ play. Fun stuff all around. Since I provided some of Kean’s pointed comments to the prince from the stage in my previous post on the play, I want to include Dumas’ version of lèse-majesté committed by the actor. Dumas makes it clear Kean is doing this as himself, not as the actor:

Kean: Who calls me Hamlet?

Ophelia [Anna]: Kean, you must be demented.

Kean: No, I’m not Hamlet. I’m Falstaff, merry companion of the Prince’s revels. Here my jolly comrades. Poins, Bardolph, Dame Quickly. Give us a cup of sack, and let us drink the Prince’s health, the most dissolute, the least trustworthy and the vainest of us all. Here’s to the health of the Prince, to whom all women are fair game, from the bar-maid in the riverside tavern to the lady of honor who drapes the royal purple on the shoulders of his mother!

Lord Melville (from box): Off, off with you! Off with Kean.

Constable (from pit): Silence, order.

Kean: Falstaff; no, I am not Falstaff, nor yet am I Hamlet. I am Punchinello, the Falstaff of the high road. A horsewhip here for you miserable caitiff who steals innocent maids, and refuses to meet the man whose name he has stolen, and this, forsooth, on the brave pretext that he is a noble, and earl, a peer of the realm. Yes, I say; a horsewhip for my Lord Melville, well and lustily laid on, and let us enjoy it.

Update (22 Jun 2013): An audio performance of the play is available on YouTube: Kean, ou Désordre et Génie - 03/03/1949. French Radio and Television hosted a performance of the Dumas play (Sartre's play was written in 1953) starring Pierre Brasseur as Kean. The story goes that Brasseur played Lemaître in the film Les Enfants du Paradis and asked Sartre to update Dumas' Kean, but I wonder if this performance wasn't a major reason, too.

Update (16 May 2014): A translation of the play by Frank J. Morlock can be found here.

Advertisement on the back page of this edition

Kean by Jean-Paul Sartre

Kean by Jean-Paul Sartre (1953)
Based on the play by Alexander Dumas
Translated from the French by Kitty Black
The Devil and the Good Lord and Two Other Plays by Jean-Paul Sartre
(New York: Vintage, 1960)

Related posts:

• See this post for an introduction to Edmund Kean and some history on Dumas’ and Sartre’s plays.
• This post looks at Alexandre Dumas' play Edmund Kean: or, The Life of an Actor, as well as some differences between the two versions of the play.
• Some comments on the movie Kean (1924: France)

Kean: Do you believe I am paid to act? I am a priest; every evening I celebrate mass, and every week I receive the offerings of my public, that is all. (Act I, page 180)

The play begins at the Danish Embassy in London. Elena, Countess de Koefeld (the Danish Ambassador’s wife) is preparing the Embassy for a ball that evening. She confesses to Amy, Countess of Gosville, That she is in love with the actor Edmund Kean. The Prince of Wales arrives and informs the women that Kean has eloped with Anna Danby, a businessman’s daughter. Anna was a known admirer of Kean but was engaged to Lord Neville. Kean appears at the Embassy asking for help to clear Anna’s name. He gives a letter to Elena to read—on the front is a letter confirming Kean rebuffed Anna’s attempt to elope with him. The back of the letter, in Kean’s handwriting, contains an invitation for Elena to visit the actor in his dressing room.

The next night in Kean’s dressing room the actor nervously awaits Elena’s visit while Solomon, Kean’s factorum, tries to get Kean to understand they are broke. The Prince of Wales arrives and draws Kean’s intentions from the actor, confirming what he suspected (since he has seen this before from Kean). They wager whether or not Elena will appear. The Prince hears a knock at the secret entrance and leaves, assuming Kean has won the bet. It is Anna Danby telling the actor she has run away from home in order to become an actress in Kean’s troupe.

After the play Kean goes to his old haunt The Black Horse, a bar and brothel by the docks. The troupe Kean used to perform with is there but they are glum because a key member has broken his leg. Anna appears at the bar, following instructions she received in a letter she thinks is from Kean but is from her fiancé. A very drunk Kean offers to perform Othello the next evening with Anna playing Desdemona as charity for the troupe. Lord Neville comes to the bar but Kean, seeing through his intentions, embarrasses him and avoids his thugs’ attempts to murder him.

The next day Anna rehearses her part in Kean’s dressing room. Elena arrives and tells Kean she couldn’t show up the previous evening because her husband is suspicious. Kean realizes the Prince of Wales desires Elena, too. A contest of wills follows as Kean and Elena demand favors from each other. The performance falls apart and Kean harangues the prince and the audience from the stage. The next day Anna tells Kean she is leaving for America. Elena and Kean agree to part but her husband shows up demanding satisfaction. The Prince of Wales saves Kean from the count, from the court, and protects Elena from discovery. Kean is exiled for a year and he chooses to go to America and marry Anna.

Kean: What am I, if not the man you have made of me?
Prince: I?
Kean: You and all the others. We believe that men need illusion—that one can live and die for something other than cheese. What have you done? You took a child, and you turned him into an actor—an illusion, a fantasy—that is what you have made of Kean. He is sham prince, sham minister, sham general, sham king. Apart from that, nothing. Oh, yes, a national glory. But on condition that he makes no attempt to live a real life. In an hour from now, I shall take an old whore in my arms, and all London will cry “Vivat!” But if I kiss the hands of the woman I love, I shall find myself torn in pieces. Do you understand that I want to weigh with my real weight in the world? That I have had enough of being a shadow in a magic lantern? For twenty year I have been acting a part to amuse you all. Can’t you understand that I want to live my own life? (Act II, pages 188-9, emphasis mine)

Sartre’s play was written as a favor to the French actor Pierre Brasseur so the focus is on the playful performance. As I mentioned in the earlier post on Kean, Sartre was intrigued by Kean, seeing him as an archetypical existential man, alienated from himself and everyone around him. Sartre used the play to include expressions of philosophy but don’t try to hang all of existentialism on the play—it can’t sustain it. What it does, though, is add funny and moving commentary on this alienation. Kean succeeds as an “existentialist play” because it follows a traditional format. In this case the framework was Dumas’ play, of which I will have more on in a separate post. As you can see from the synopsis it faithfully follows a Romantic comedy format. The rest of the post will look at the commentary Sartre adds.

Kean: “Are you unhappy? Are you in love?” Every woman asks the same questions. To be or not to be. I am nothing, my child. I play at being what I am. From time to time, Kean himself plays a scene for Kean. (Act II, page 195)

These musings focus on reality and illusion as well as how the two interact. There are plenty of opposites in the play involving variations on image vs. reality, action vs. play-acting, authenticity vs. disingenuousness. Showing these tensions in a theater is common since it falls within the normal course of business. For Kean, though, the lines are blurred. Since a “play” exists both on the stage and in the audience’s mind, Kean acts in order to move the audience and involve them inside the world he creates. His affirmation comes from the applause in the theater and the adulation outside it, but there are major differences between the two worlds. Kean “rules” while in the theater, but while he may seduce countesses off the stage he is considered an inferior being—an actor. Kean and Sartre highlight the role theater plays in our lives, where we enter the world of fiction in order see representations of ourselves. Under expert hands the theater becomes a mirror.

Kean becomes a hall of mirrors highlighting the many roles we play in life. While the actors play a role on the stage, the audience also has a role to play in the theater. And, as everything folds back on itself in the play, while the audience escapes from reality while attending the play (in order to see their own representation on the stage), Kean hides himself from the reality of his life. Despite his tendencies, Kean works toward self-realization and achieves it just as the curtain falls. Like the audience understanding life from the artificial machinations it sees, Kean uses the unreality of his situation to reach self-awareness.

Kean (on stage, out of character, addressing the Prince of Wales): Where do you think you are? At court? In a boudoir? Everywhere else you are a prince, but here I am king, and I ask you to be quiet, or we will stop the performance. We are working, sir, and if there is one thing the idle should respect, it is the labor of others. (Act IV, Scene ii, pages 248-9)

Kean continually attacks the status quo but he also revels in it. He enjoys the notoriety and benefits of being famous while at the same time bemoans his troubles. He understands that people love Kean the actor but don’t care about Kean the man. Usually Kean’s focus is on Kean and no one else, so when he genuinely helps someone else it stands out. Often his generosity comes at high expense, such as throwing the last of his money to a street musician. His concern for former troupe members is genuine, even if the performance turns into a fiasco. Consistent with Shakespeare, the play within a play reveals the true state of things.

The choice of Othello (a change from Dumas’ play’s choice of Hamlet) works perfectly. Othello’s jealousy becomes Kean’s as he watches Elena talk with the Prince of Wales. Instead of a murder, though, we watch Kean’s self-destruction by committing lèse-majesté. When Kean walks to the edge of the stage, out of character, to insult the prince and draw his prop sword, the handle of the sword symbolically comes off in his hand. Kean is impotent off the stage, but he eventually finds his own voice. The illusion of the play has been destroyed, but the reality of his life receives the audience’s laughter and contempt. For a man that has acted in order to deceive himself, reality provides a bracing wake-up call. Kean’s exhortation that they only care for illusion could be equally applied to himself for much of the play.

Kean: Come, sir, you need not be afraid. It is only Kean the actor, acting the part of Kean the man. I am the man who makes himself disappear, night after night. And you, who are you? You are playing the part of the Prince of Wales? Very well, we shall see which of us wins the greater applause. And the Countess? I would say, of we three, she is by far the best actress. [He laughs] What shall we call the play? As you Like It, no doubt. Or Much Ado about Nothing? Wait, we must make sure of a happy ending. The prince and the countess must have plenty of children, and the old count must receive a great many decorations. As for the buffoon—ah well, his debts will be repaid. (Act II, pages 191-2)

The differences between the two lady-interests helps us understand Kean’s progress toward self-realization, too. Elena is typical of Kean’s attention and conquests. Well-placed in society as a countess, Elena makes it clear she fell in love with Kean the actor. Anna Danby, on the other hand, comes from a Danish merchant family (there are plenty of jokes about cheesemongering in the play) but she falls in love with Kean the man. Elena and Anna are similar people though from different classes, but Anna rejects the societal upgrade thrown to her from her engagement to Lord Neville.

Anna represents an absolute, doing what it will take in order to act on the stage and get what she wants. From this perspective she’s an uncorrupted version of Kean. Anna treats Kean as a man, not an actor, which he has trouble handling even though he calls for this throughout the play. The only other person that treats Kean as a man instead of an actor is his servant Solomon, but Kean brushes him aside time after time (ironically, in part, because of Solomon’s role in society). Anna’s force is confirmed by Solomon as she practices her role of Desdemona and breathes too much life into the character. Anna, in acting as in life, refuses to be a victim. On the other hand, Elena accepts her place in society and gives up Kean. She refuses to give up her role in real life, as shown by the handling of the return of her love letters. Kean goes straight to the resolution by handing the letters to her while she delays accepting them because she follows the ‘form’, as shown in plays, she must adhere to in their return. Kean accuses Anna of wrecking his life but she allows him to live the life he claims he wants.

Kean (to Elena): Listen—we are three victims. You, because you were born a woman—he [the Prince of Wales], because he was too highly born, and I, because I was a bastard. The result is you enjoy your beauty through the eyes of others, and I discover my genius through their applause. As for him, he is a flower. For him to feel he is a prince, he has to be admired. Beauty, royalty, genius; a single and same mirage. We live all three on the love of others, and we are all three incapable of loving ourselves. You wanted my love—I yours, he, ours. What a mix-up. You were right. Three reflections, each of the three believing in the existence of the other two; that was comedy. (Act V, page 269)

As I mentioned earlier, the play is a hall of mirrors, with theater and reality constantly reflecting each other. It turns out the existence of Sartre’s play follows nested reflections, too. I’ll end with a quote I found that concisely captures some of that mirroring. Next week I’ll post on Dumas’ play (if he did write it, that is) that Sartre’s Kean uses as its basis.

In short, Sartre’s Kean is a play about an actor [Kean] requested from him by an actor [Brasseur], and adopted from a play about an actor [Kean] requested by another actor [Lemaître] from an unknown author [Théaulon and de Couey], but signed by a great novelist and playwright of the day [Dumas].
- Sartre’s Theatre: Acts for Life by Benedict O’Donohoe (Peter Lang: 2004), page 170

I'll admit my bias about the play. Kean has been a personal favorite since I saw it at Shakespeare Santa Cruz in 2000. Bias aside, I think it's a marvelous play. Very highly recommended.

Update: I inadvertently left off a link to Stuart Fernie's page with his reflections on Kean. If you're interested in the play, please take time to visit his page.

Edmund Kean: fact, myth, and everywhere in between

Edmund Kean by James Northcote (1819)
Picture source at the National Portrait Gallery

Edmund Kean (1787 – 1833), an English actor noted for his leading roles in Shakespeare, was as famous for his personal life as for his professional one. His messy divorce, many affairs, adultery trial, and riotous excesses were fodder for gossip. His stage performances alternated between laughable and brilliant—in his last performance (Othello) he received an ovation while he was suffering what he thought were his death throes. Six weeks later he died. His was a life of celebrity that other notables found memorable, good or bad. About the actor Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, "Seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning." Harry Houdini collected Kean memorabilia.

Jeffrey Kahan in The Cult of Kean (Ashgate Publishing Co., 2006) traces the celebrity of the actor, looking at the cultivated image Kean tried to project, and sometimes live up to. Kahn also looks at the various hagiographic treatments his biographers published, adding to the actor's reputation. Three years after Kean’s death, Alexandre Dumas wrote the play Edmund Kean, Or, the Life of an Actor at the behest of the actor Frédérick Lemaître. In an ironic case of symmetry, after the French actor Pierre Brasseur played Lemaître in the film Les Enfants du Paradis he asked Jean-Paul Sartre to write a play based on Dumas’ work so he might play Kean. Sartre was intrigued by Kean, seeing him as an archetypical existential man, alienated from himself and everyone around him: “He [Kean] was the Myth of the Actor incarnate. The actor who never ceases acting; he lives out his life itself, is no longer able to recognize himself, no longer knows who he is. And finally is no one.” (140)

Sartre based his portrayal of Kean not on the actor himself but on Frédérick Lemaître, who is said to have “become” Kean on the stage and in his personal life. The legacy of Kean continued with a musical comedy, Kean by George Forrest and Robert Wright, playing on Broadway in 1961. It was based on Sartre’s play which was based on Dumas’ play, emblematic of the way in which the legend-building Kean’s life comes to us. Kean, as a character, has become as famous as his performances during his life, on and off the stage. His death scene as played by Ivan Mosjoukine in 1924’s film Kean (renamed Edmund Kean, Prince Among Lovers) is larger than life, setting a record for the longest death portrayed in cinema—ranging between 16 and 20 minutes depending on the speed of the projector. Note in the review they even take pains to point out that the portrayal is “more like the popular idea of the famous actor” instead of an accurate depiction.

Brian Moyes has a great post on Kean leasing a Scottish house on the Isle of Bute. Check out the pictures of the busts adorning the gate: Edmund Kean, William Shakespeare, Philip Massinger, and David Garrick. As Brian notes, “Obviously modesty wasn’t one of Kean’s traits.”

Related posts:

• Alexandre Dumas' Edmund Kean: or, The Life of an Actor and some differences with Sartre's play
• Kean by Jean-Paul Sartre
• Kean (1924 movie: France)

Update (19 Jun 2013): Edmund Kean at Richmond, a page providing detail on Kean's life in the Richmond Upon Thames borough of London. There's a link for further reading on the topic, too.

Playbill for a performance of Richard II, 13th March 1815, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Featuring Edmund Kean as Richard II.
Picture source at the Royal Shakespeare Company