Starring Madame Modjeska: On Tour in Poland and America - Hardcover

Holmgren, Beth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0253356644 ISBN 13: 9780253356642

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2011

Synopsis

In 1876, Poland's leading actress, Helena Modrzejewska, accompanied by family and friends, emigrated to southern California to establish a utopian commune that soon failed. Within a year Modrzejewska made her debut in the title role of Adrienne Lecouvreur at San Francisco's California Theatre. She changed her name to Modjeska and quickly became a leading star on the American stage, where she reigned for the next 30 years. During this time, she established herself as America's most esteemed Shakespearean actress, playing opposite such celebrated actors as Edwin Booth and Maurice Barrymore. Starring Madame Modjeska traces Modjeska's fabulous life and career from her illegitimate birth in Krakow, to her successive reinventions of herself as a star in both Poland and America, and finally to her enduring legacy.

About this title

Review:

Starring Madame Modjeska . . . makes an important contribution to our understanding of Western theatre history. Scholars as well as theatre enthusiasts will surely benefit from this well-organized and meticulously researched study of a true international star of the nineteenth century.--cosmopolitanreview.com

Holmgren's study is a truly transnational biography, elegantly written and immaculately researched. Its real achievement is to make Modrzejewska whole, not just by bridging two national narratives but by integrating her public and private personae. . . . Starring Madame Modjeska will be of interest to scholars of nineteenth-century Poland, world theater, and American immigration.--H-Poland H-Net Reviews

While theater enthusiasts will enjoy the care and detail that Beth Holmgren took with Starring Madame Modjeska, readers of history will appreciate the role this woman played on the world's stage. It makes for great drama.--newpages.com

Starring Madame Modjeska is based on very solid archival research, yet it is written with lightness and grace--qualities inspired by the character of the formidable protagonist of this excellent book.--Slavic Review

The breadth of Holmgren's research is impressive, as is her talent as a writer. Her achievement is to have put together from many disparate sources an immensely readable narrative.--Women's Review of Books

Beth Holmgren's book is a monograph of Helena Modrzejewska/Modjeska . . ., the famous Polish-American stage star. The author's purpose was 'to introduce a little-remembered actress to a new American audience' . . . . This plan was successfully completed. Starring Madame Modjeska is not just a popularized biography but a result of meticulous research and intellectual elaboration.--Pol-Int

About the Author:

Beth Holmgren is Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies and Theater Studies at Duke University. She is author of Women's Works in Stalin's Time (IUP, 1993), editor (with Helena Goscilo) of Poles Apart: Women in Modern Polish Culture and Russia * Women * Culture (IUP, 1996), and translator and editor (with Helena Goscilo) of The Keys to Happiness by Anastasya Verbitskaya (IUP, 1999).

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0253356644
• ISBN 13: 9780253356642
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 428