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Historicist: The Divine Miss Sarah Comes to Toronto
Every Saturday at noon, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today.
A sketch of Sarah Bernhardt drawn during her third visit to Toronto. The Mail, October 31, 1891.
For over half a century, Sarah Bernhardt was one of the world’s most renowned actresses, whose fame was in equal parts derived from her skills on stage and the extravagant, sometimes lurid stories surrounding her personal life. She may have earned the nickname “the Divine Sarah” but, as she discovered during her North American tour of 1880–1881, some religious authorities felt she was the furthest thing from a holy being.
Before the tour began in New York in October 1880, theatre fans were mesmerized by stories of her lovers, tantrums, eccentricities and dramatic stage presence. An editorial in the New York Times set the tone for the criticisms about her private life that followed her around North America. The paper smugly suggested that Americans, unlike Europeans, were not willing to overlook moral improprieties in an artist, even if those sinful attributes were as fictional as the characters she played (the paper helped spread a rumour that she was the mother of four children out of wedlock, when she only produced one son). Crowds were not dissuaded from seeing her, especially in Montreal, where thousands greeted her upon arrival at Bonaventure station in December. Her publicity was aided by a declaration from the local Catholic bishop printed in local newspapers that, because of the adulterous affairs portrayed in the play Adrienne Lecouvreur, and because the performances were being held during Christmas, all good followers needed to understand that “it is their rigorous duty to keep away from such plays.” The bishop’s message wasn’t too successful, as tickets sold quickly.
Advertisement, the Globe, March 19, 1881.
After dipping south of the border, Bernhardt returned to Canada for two performances in Toronto on March 19, 1881: an afternoon matinee of the controversial drama Camille (renamed from La Dame aux camélias at the request of theatre managers expecting trouble based on its reputation) and an evening presentation of the comedy Frou-Frou. The management of the Grand Opera House hoped that the acclaim and attention Bernhardt had received so far on the tour would translate into strong ticket sales. And if any moral authorities publicly declared their outrage, it would be all the better.
Up to the plate stepped William Stephen Rainsford, the assistant rector at St. James Cathedral. That Rainsford was moved to express his disdain at Camille and Bernhardt’s scandalous lifestyle wouldn’t have shocked anyone familiar with him. A native of the British Isles, Rainsford came to North America in 1876 as a roaming evangelist, spending several months at a time on missions in locales stretching from Louisville to Philadelphia. He arrived in Toronto in 1878 and expected to stay no more than three weeks to rouse the spiritual well-being of local parishioners. His sermons proved so popular that, at the urging of his flock, he stayed on for four months. Among the things that enhanced his popularity were fiery attacks on popular forms of entertainment that could form the basis for a nineteenth century interpretation of Footloose. “It was a tremendous wave of religious excitement at time,” he recounted in his autobiography A Preacher’s Story of His Work. “I could not get away from it. I preached against dancing; we all did; I told people they should not go to the theatre; they did not go; dances were broken up. People who came to dance remained to pray, and all that sort of thing.”
Rainsford soon found the strain of devising three sermons a week exhausting and retired to England for six months of rest. He was enticed to return to Toronto when parishioners appealed to him to not forsake the growing community of worshippers he had attracted (they also noted the church dean was ill and likely not long for this world). Rainsford consulted his new bride Emily, who consented to cross the Atlantic with him.
William Stephen Rainsford, photographed in 1898. The Story of a Varied Life by W.S. Rainsford (New York: Doubleday, 1922).
Once back in Toronto, Rainsford soon found his religious fervour had dimmed. His confidence dipped as he doubted the effectiveness of his teachings, though one also suspects stress caused by Emily’s weak health didn’t help. He later recalled the period as one of deep personal crisis.
People did not know what to make of me; my friends would come to me and say ‘Why don’t you preach against dancing and the theatre and worldliness as you used to? Why don’t you come out with your old assurance?’ No one can realize what this gradual failure in Toronto meant who had not felt the intoxication of gathering together thousands of people the stimulus, and spiritual elation, and the joy which comes from leading and swaying a mass of people eager to hear, and the pleasure in the ties of friendship that are formed, and then seen it seemingly all go—melt away; the church get less and less crowded, collections melt away, friends look doubtfully at you, and enemies jeer.
He eventually recovered his confidence and regained his evangelical fervour. He resumed his attacks on immoral elements of popular culture and found Bernhardt a fine example of what was wrong with the arts. Upon hearing of her impending performance, he wrote a letter to the press that was first published in the March 17 edition of the Mail:
SIR,–I wish I saw any prospect of a reformation in the theatre, I wish I could indulge a hope that first-rate comic or tragic representations might at no distant date be acted by actors of good moral tone and pure life. None but a bigot could, I think, fail to welcome such a means of affording to the care-worn thousands of our toiling breadwinners a means at once of elevating relaxation and instruction. Those who go to hear Sara[h] Bernhardt on Saturday will by the act, unconsciously, I dare say, make this most desirable reformation even more impossible of attainment than it seems at present. This woman, of undoubted genius, openly flaunts her immorality in the face of Europe. She, a queen of the stage, having attained a position from which her influence is immense, casts aside restraints, the most vitally important that bind moral, not to say, religious, Society together. Everywhere she is greeted with applause. Are her admirers blind? Can they fail to be aware that in homage rendered to such genius, allied to such overt immorality, they make the path of vicious compliance the easier to the many struggling for success amid the tainted atmosphere that unfortunately already surround the profession of the stage? Moral considerations alone should keep fathers and mothers away—shall those who take the name of Christ on their lips, kneel at His Holy Table, and call themselves His followers, turn aside to worship a genius that persistently,. Defiantly, notoriously disobeys the law he made beautiful—a genius that has made the path of obedience to that law more difficult to be followed. Mr. Editor, I confess that to me the thought is beyond all things repulsive, that so-called Christian husbands and wives, who have not hesitated to turn from their doors servants in their employ who (often more sinned against than sinning) have fallen—fallen once—turn these helpless girls away with every sign of contumely—that these self-same people, I say, will, by their presence, endorse conduct that can urge no such excuses as Christian pity might plead for hundreds in our midst, just because genius sins—not a servant girl. Surely there is need of an utter reversal of earthly judgment. W.S. RAINSFORD
A sketch of Sarah Bernhardt drawn during her fourth visit to Toronto. The Mail and Empire, April 9, 1896.
While some who shared Rainsford’s viewpoint wrote into the city’s dailies to lend their support, most letter columns leaned toward criticizing the preacher for being holier than thou. A common thread throughout these criticisms was that if Rainsford’s views were taken to their logical end, anyone’s exceptional talent was worthless if they possessed any flaws he determined were immoral. As “Abraham” wrote to the Mail, “On this ground we shall have to enquire carefully into the moral standing of an oarsman before proceeding to witness his prowess in a regatta.” In the Telegram, “A Woman for a Woman” noted sarcastically that Rainsford was the only man without sin and found fault with one of his parallels:
As far as I can understand Mr. Rainsford’s somewhat intricate and slipshod English, he holds up his hands in holy indignation because we turn from our doors an erring chambermaid and then by our presence in the theatre “endorse” the immorality of Sarah. This is not a parallel case by any means. We are not asked to throw open our doors to Sarah. I am not so sure she would enter them if we did. We are simply asked to permit ourselves to be entertained by her art, and so long as there is nothing immoral in the play she acts I do not see how the immorality of the player’s life can touch…It seems to me we go to the theatre to be amused and instructed by the undoubted genius of this brilliant actress and not sit in judgment upon her alleged immorality or to throw mud at her because she isn’t married.
Bernhardt performed Camille to a less than half-full house. The culprit seems not to have been attacks of piety among potential customers but high ticket prices and heavy rainstorms (the evening performance of Frou-Frou played to a packed theatre). Reviews of Camille were mixed, with Bernhardt standing out against a weak supporting cast and wooden leading man. The Globe’s review centered on her physical presence:
So much had expectation been raised before Bernhardt’s arrival that the highest praise may consist in the statement that one was disappointed in nothing but her leanness. She is thin but not painfully so; on the contrary, her figure is so graceful and willowy, her sinuous movements so without angularity, that one would hesitate before inviting her to put on an ounce or two more [of] flesh.
The Mail speculated that the small audience encouraged the players onstage to rush through Camille. The reviewer found Bernhardt’s acting affectingly naturalistic, especially a death scene that was “too real to be pleasant,” “the very embodiment of art,” and “almost superior to criticism.” It was noted that having seen Bernhardt at work that “at least a portion of Toronto is happy, for the probabilities are another portion is unhappy, and, perhaps, spent yesterday lamenting that people could be found in this fair city so horribly wicked as to go and see a woman who had sinned.”
After the curtain fell, Bernhardt moved on to her next performance in Buffalo. Her representatives glossed over the mixed reception she received in Toronto to the Buffalo press, declaring that audiences were ultimately receptive to her performances due to the many members of the civil service in the audience who understood French language and culture. Bernhardt returned to Toronto five more times between 1887 and 1911, generally receiving praise for her efforts. Kingsford wasn’t around to send any more letters to the editor; after a new Anglican bishop refused to name him rector of St. James, Rainsford accepted an offer in 1882 to lead a church in New York City supported by millionaire J.P. Morgan. Though Rainsford spent the rest of his career in the United States, he left enough of a mark here to earn several lengthy appraisals in Toronto newspapers after his death in 1933, though none mentioned his criticism of Bernhardt.
Additional material from A Preacher’s Story of His Work by William Stephen Kingsford (New York: The Outlook Company, 1904), Our Lady of the Snows: Sarah Bernhardt in Canada by Ramon Hathorn (New York: Peter Lang, 1996), and the following newspapers: the March 21, 1881 edition of the Globe; the March 17, 1881, March 19, 1881, and March 21, 1881 editions of the Mail; and the March 19, 1881 edition of the Telegram.