Thursday, April 21, 2005 | 8:16 a.m.
At the fresh age of 17, Claire Bloom performed as the innocent and tragic Ophelia in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" on the stage of what is now called the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
At 21 she was Juliet at London's Old Vic theater. Then came the roles of Viola, Gertrude, Rosalind, Katherine of Aragon and Cleopatra.
But the idea that Shakespeare's women somehow became a part of Bloom as one might surmise with it having been engrained into her from early childhood is a theory the English actress rebuts, claiming instead that early entanglement with the bard was typical for a thespian of her caliber.
"That goes for most English actors, certainly for my generation," Bloom said via telephone from London.
But how many children memorized Juliet's soliloquies, voiced the verse from the "Romeo and Juliet" balcony scene over and over, and dressed at age 8 as Juliet for a costume party where other children were Little Bo Peep, Little Red Riding Hood or Humpty Dumpty?
Somewhat of a loner, Bloom, who will perform Saturday in a one-woman show at Artemus Ham Hall, replaced a social life with literature. A role in a school play eventually led Bloom to the stage in Stratford-upon-Avon, where her performance as Ophelia placed her opposite Paul Scofield in "Hamlet."
Roles of Shakespearean heroines continued her way. But Bloom, 74, explained, "I had a big stage career, not just Shakespeare, (but) Tennessee Williams, (Eugene) O'Neill, modern plays."
Bloom's resume spills over several pages of stage, film and one-woman performances, presentations and readings with major symphonies. Onstage, she was Nora in "A Doll's House," Alizon Eliot in "The Lady's Not For Burning" (playing opposite Richard Burton), Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and, more recently, Clytemnestra in "Elektra," for which she was nominated for a 1999 Tony Award.
Her film career includes the roles of ballerina Thereza opposite Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin's "Limelight," Lady Anne in Laurence Olivier's "Richard III," Theodora in "The Haunting" and Nan in "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold."
Bloom has also appeared in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and "Mighty Aphrodite."
But this weekend we will see her as Desdemona and Emilia from "Othello," Portia from "Julius Caesar," Viola from "Twelfth Night," Rosalind from "As You Like It," Katherine of Aragon from "Henry VIII" and Volumnia from "Coriolanus" in a show that she created called "Claire Bloom: Shakespeare's Women."
"I put it together," Bloom said, correcting the presumption. "Shakespeare created it."
Life on the stage
Bloom speaks in a lovely, soft voice with a still-detectable English accent as she explains that she has only 15 minutes to be interviewed.
But when talking with a woman of her stature, 15 minutes seems like a stab in the heart. Bloom has played Hedda in Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler," Alice Kinnian in "Charly," Florence Nightingale and Anna Karenina. She's been awarded the Shakespeare Medal by the Shakespeare Society.
She's been romantically linked with Olivier and Burton, married to Rod Steiger, Hillard Elkins and American writer Phillip Roth, and somehow manages to look (naturally) 20 years younger than her age.
Moreover, Bloom has presented a thorough look at women on the stage through her one-woman shows, including "Enter the Actress," which looked at the obstacles British actresses faced in the theatre of yore -- the low-paid woman, the actress who was also a prostitute who kept an open dressing room in order to keep herself on the stage.
"Enter the Actress" was inspired by Fanny Kemble, an English actress who met and married an American slaveholder, then became a Northern abolitionist. The idea came from Bloom's wanting to write a book on Kemble.
"But," Bloom said, "it seems like everybody and his brother has done it."
In "Enter the Actress," Bloom brings stories, dialogue, slide shows and lectures to the stage about a time when actresses first replaced men in playing the roles of women.
"Apart from prostitution, actresses were the first (women) to make their own money," Bloom said. "They were so witty and romantic. I'm sure their lives were not. I'm sure their lives were hard, corrupt. But they made their money, which is a lot more (than can be said) for women of that period."
One woman
Bloom is still acting and still accepting roles. When asked if there is a role she'd love to play, she responded, "I would like to perform in some great modern performance no one has seen."
Whether it's "Shakespeare's Women" or "Enter the Actress," Bloom said one-act plays are challenging.
"What is challenging is to hold the imagination of the audience so they can believe there are two people onstage," she explained. "It does require enormous concentration.
"I have let my mind wander and it just goes."
"Shakespeare's Women," which she began performing in the 1980s, includes mostly dialogue of Viola and Rosalind. The performance has changed over the years. She has dropped Juliet from the roster and it once had the title "Sisters, Wives, Daughters: New Portraits of Shakespeare's Women."
Critics of "Shakespeare's Women" say how fluidly Bloom switches from character to character, but it's not a schizophrenic, multiple-personality showdown -- despite the fact that Bloom doesn't embellish the performances with asides or break them with descriptive insights.
It is, Bloom said, "a performance."
"I've kind of wanted to play parts I haven't always played, and have something I could put in my pocket as my own and not wait around like an idiot for someone to call."
Of Rosalind and Viola, she added, "Those are the ones I do a great deal. I love both women."
There have been other works dedicated to the women of Shakespeare, including Susannah York's "The Loves of Shakespeare's Women," Love Street Theatre's production of "An Evening With Shakespeare's Women Performed by Seven Excellent Actresses" and Libby Appel's "Shakespeare's Women."
There are lectures, papers, articles and books ("Savoring the Brew: A Taste of Shakespeare's Women") devoted to the women of Shakespeare's plays, and the Royal Shakespeare Company has an online quiz of "Shakespeare's Women."
But there aren't stacks of literary examinations on, say, the women of playwrights Williams or Ibsen.
"Tennessee Williams understood women," Bloom said. "But you just can't take them out of context."
Besides, she added, "Shakespeare is more closely examined, more written about."
And he understood women?
"Shakespeare understood everybody and everything," Bloom said. "It was as simple as that."
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