Writer: Sheena Lambert
Director: Rex Ryan
Bewley’s Café Theatre is fizzing with Christmas cheer this Tuesday lunchtime. Today’s show is sold out and we are happy to be warmly ensconced with coffee and hot chocolate while storm Bram whips up outside.
Novelist, screenwriter and playwright, Sheena Lambert, first became aware of the extraordinary life-story of Cosima Wagner when she was studying music in the 80’s. Referred to as the daughter of the great Hungarian composer and pianist, Franz Liszt or as the wife of the radical German composer and conductor, Richard Wagner, Cosima’s own considerable musical ability was overlooked. Initially, Lambert had planned on writing a novel or a film script about the pianist but became so absorbed in the musician’s diaries that at times she imagined Cosima was speaking directly to her, and in those moments the “sassy” muse presented through the medium of theatre.
The lights come up on Dublin actress Mary Murray of The Magdalene Sisters and Love/Hate fame, standing in her 19th century bedchamber. Dressed in widow’s weeds and clutching a baton, she performs a Wagnerian aria. This is no mean feat as Wagner’s operas are notoriously difficult to sing but Murray commands the stage. Ann Cummins’ set and costume design are beautifully evocative of the era.
Murray removes her weeping veil and superstitiously covers the mirror of her vanity table. Rex Ryan directs and in a cleverly devised plot device, Cosima unpins her wiglets, rearranges her curls, and adding a yellow floral hairclip, becomes the 16 year old daughter of Franz Liszt. Restoring various hairpieces as she matures throughout the play will be an effective and elegant means of segueing between the chapters of her life.
Under the care of an 80 year old Governess, Cosima and younger sister Blandine live separately from their unmarried mother in Paris. Countess Marie d’Agoult is a writer and her infamous salons are considered too unsuitable an environment for children. Their father, Franz Liszt, is in the city for a performance, and has been to visit the girls for the first time in 9 years. Aspiring concert pianist Cosima plays one of his own pieces to impress him and is appalled when her Papa yawns. The composer goes on to vow that no daughter of his would “parade around Europe like a gypsy”. There is only “one maestro of the piano with the last name Liszt”.
This encounter would have lasting repercussions. Following the publishing of an indecorous memoir by d’Agoult in which she denigrates Liszt’s talent, the sisters along with their mother, are banished to Berlin. Cosima bemoans the fact that in the 1850’s, it is a cultural backwater akin to living in Mullingar. Intent on realising her dream of touring the world like Clara Schumann, she contrives to marry her father’s student, Hans Von Bulow, believing it would emancipate her. She is further thwarted, however, when Liszt demands fealty from his son-in-law on the matter, as “having a performing wife is like having an orchestra with two conductors”.
Locked up in her “marital tower”, Cosima endures “marriage to a tolerable man with an average talent”. She dutifully produces two daughters but revenge would be hers and it would be sweet. Having “crossed paths” with dynamic composer, Richard Wagner, on her honeymoon, of all places, she later begins a correspondence with him wherein they admire each other’s musicianship. She is enthralled by his genius and when she falls pregnant for the third time the child would not be her husband’s.
Cosima’s story is fascinating but the writer has, perhaps, attempted to squeeze in too much biographical detail. While the information is all very interesting, there is a danger of the play falling into the category of verbatim theatre rather than drama. Murray is magnificent, especially given these constraints. She expertly conveys the persona of the complex and polarising illegitimate daughter of one behemoth of classical music, and ambitious wife of another.
Meg Ryan’s famous fake orgasm scene in the film When Harry Met Sally wouldn’t hold a candle to Murray’s depiction of the controversial pair’s illicit coupling during a carriage ride. The grief-stricken performance at her sister’s graveside is also impactful. This actress mines and exploits every morsel of dramatic leverage that is available to her. She may be petite in stature but her skill and stage presence is enormous.
Lambert possibly missed a trick here. Every facet of Cosima’s life is examined except one significant aspect. Wagner, Hitler’s favourite composer, was deeply anti-semitic. Cosima, who almost deified her second husband and “did everything to elevate Richard”, was even more violently prejudiced against the Jewish people than he was. While Lambert fully exposes Cosima’s self absorption and self-aggrandisement, her callous abandonment of her daughters with Von Bulow for Wagner, and her spite in playing Wagner’s music at her father’s funeral rather than his own, why not the anti-semitism?
A person cannot be diagnosed posthumously but this production of Cosima certainly describes enough traits as to suggest the woman may have had a serious personality disorder. But the continuing existence of her Wagnerian summer festival in Bayreuth in Germany, is a testament not only of her devotion to her husband, but to her sheer determination to preserve his work.
Such was the woman’s force of will and fixation on success, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Lambert was indeed influenced from beyond the grave, to showcase Cosima and her story. That the muse lucked out in having such an accomplished actress portray her must surely be the icing on the cake. Murray’s standing ovation is richly deserved.
Runs Until 20th Dec 2025.
