It shows the touring cast of the Irish Players The Playboy of the Western World, when it was first raising a fuss in America. _ Below, a photo from the New York Star in December of 1911. But still, for historical interest, here it is: Bernhardt's recitation doesn't really make for very good listening. I considered using some of this audio for the podcast episode, but I had to admit that not only was the sound quality just too low, but that Mme. Here it is, next to another photograph of Bernhardt in the role: A recording of Bernhardt reciting from Rostand's La Samaritaine exists on a 1903 gramophone disc. There is, of course, a famous Alphonse Mucha poster of this play, which would go on to decorate many American homes in the following century. As Bernhardt protested to the American newspapers, up until 1910 it had never come under a hint of criticism for blasphemy - not in Europe, anyway. She would bring it out every year for Holy Week. When asked to describe the play, Rostand told a journalist to imagine a well-known Parisian courtesan of the day, Liane de Pougy, meeting Christ, "then going back to Paris to preach the Holy Gospel to her depraved friends." La Samaritaine was originally written for the Easter season, but then had gone into Bernhardt's repertory for a dozen years at the Theatre de la Renaissance in Paris, before the events of this episode. It gave Bernhardt the chance to enact a fallen woman being saved from debauchery - which of course was her stock in trade, as it were. As a play, in fact, La Samaritaine has language rather reminiscent of the Song of Solomon, with a lot of evangelical uplift. He had already written the failed play La Princesse Lointaine (a medieval romance), and would go on to create L'Aiglon (The Eaglet) for her as well. At the request of Sarah Bernhardt, he wrote the title role of La Samaritaine for her, giving her character the name of "Photine" (a name which could mean "she who has seen the light"). In 1897 Edmond Rostand chose this story for his next play - the same year he wrote his heroic comedy Cyrano de Bergerac, the work that would make him immortal.
They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” And many more believed because of his word. Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there two days. When she asks him how he knows so much, he reveals to her that he is the Messiah, she believes it, and goes to tell the other people of the village: Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” Jesus then astounds the woman, because although he had never met her before, he knows every intimate detail of her life - especially her relationships with many men. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samar′ia?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
There came a woman of Samar′ia to draw water. In the English language Revised Standard Version, the text describes Jesus traveling in Samaria, to the north of Judea, and he comes the city of Sychar: Jacob’s well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. In Chapter Four of the Gospel of John we find the story of The Samaritan Woman at the Well. Below, a photo of Bernhard onstage in the role of Photine, and another actor (Bremont) as Jesus. Above right: a photo published in many American newspapers as word spread about the controversy over Bernhardt's production of La Samaritainein December of 1910. Kerrigan ("Shawn Keogh"), in the Irish Player's 1911 production of The Playboy of the Western World. Above left: The actors Sara Allgood ("Widow Quin") and J.
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