SOURCE: "Two-a-Day Redemptions and Truncated Camilles: the Vaudeville Repertoire of Sarah Bernhardt," in New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 37, February, 1994, pp. 11-23.

In the following essay, Woods analyzes Bernhardt's roles on the American vaudeville stage, contending that her portrayals of complex and conflicted women produced a significant marriage of high and low cultures and allowed Bernhardt to continue performing despite illness and advanced age.

Sarah Bernhardt's forays into American vaudeville came in lengthy tours while the form was at its height, in 1912-13 and 1917-18, essentially at the same time as the heyday of the British music hall—in which Bernhardt also toured half a dozen times between 1910 and 1920. For her, these tours involved escapes, of a sort, from a legitimate theatre that could no longer easily accommodate her advancing age and worsening health.

Bernhardt's repertoire in vaudeville, although borrowed in part from her legitimate career, is striking for...