BOHEMIAN GIRL: Blanche Yurka's Theatrical Life

by Blanche Yurka ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1970

As indicated, Miss Yurka's autobiography rarely departs from a sprightly if somewhat partisan review of her acting career. Since her perspective spans nearly seventy years of the American theatre, the foreshortened Girl-hood may be excused for the first-hand impressions of dramatic history in the making. To spotlight success--playing the Queen to John Barrymore's Hamlet; Nurse-ing Katherine Cornell in her production of Romeo and Juliet; a now-classical interpretation of Gina in the original 1925 The Wild Duck; private conversations with Shaw in London, Stanislavski in Russia and a choirmaster in New York who happened to be Leopold Stokowski. In Miss Yurka's ambitious repertoire, Shakespeare and Ibsen share company with Aristophanes and Congreve; in films she was Madame DeFarge in A Tale of Two Cities; current plans return her to the off-Broadway Sokol Hall, scene of her debut in Bohemian Girl, now playing the title role in Madwoman of Chaillot. For Miss Yurka, however, acclaim has proven to be uneven at best. For this reason, perhaps, she clings a little tightly to reviews from the past, and the absence of dates is irksome to anyone who is not her contemporary. She nonetheless rehearses the expected speeches of gratitude, and if she can find the ""dear audience"" she needs, it will be reciprocal.

Pub Date: April 1, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Ohio University Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION