Goshamighty, these arty fellers and gals are just a lot of drunken, work-shy good-for-nothings! That's what the down-to-earth American voice you hear ought to be saying of the fractious behaviour on view in "When She Danced". That voice, however, full of the rich-tomboy twangs of Katharine Hepburn (a likely model for the equally lanky and self-absorbed Vanessa Redgrave), issues from Isadora Duncan, mistress of these disorganised and sometimes dangerous revels. In 1923, the twilight of her career, she is beached in Paris with a husband, the poet Sergei Esenin, who speaks only Russian, and a maid who speaks only French. Communication between husband and wife is achieved when Isadora takes on Miss Belzer, an awe-struck Russian acolyte who can translate into English, but it's back to Babel when she entertains a diplomat who speaks only Italian. Her newest fan, a homosexual who caresses her worshipfully, can talk to her in English, but his first language is Greek. Though Isadora has shaken the puritanism of America from her bare feet, she has in one room reproduced its cacophony.
In dramatising the extravagance and folly of Isadora's life, Martin Sherman confronts a formidable problem. How can he convince us that the woman who blithely, comically tolerates a boorish alcoholic, who calls for lobsters and champagne when she doesn't have two francs to rub together, who announces, like any witless tourist, in a voice that would blister paint, "I adore the Primavera of Botticelli!" - how can he convince us that this woman is not only worth listening to but is a genius? Besides the dishevelled personal life, Sherman has to contend with the passage of rime that has made Isadora's importance a purely historical matter: the freedom, sensuality, and comfortable dress she espoused have long since been taken for granted. It needs considerable witchery for Isadora not to seem as ludicrous and quaintly fey as Emma Hamilton, striking attitudes in flimsy Greek nightdresses.
Sherman does not make the obvious mistake of having Isadora dance, anticipating our respectful admiration: that's only safe if your audience is in a Forties movie. He ends one act with Isadora motionless, listening to her pianist and preparing a dance in her mind, another with a tunic-clad pupil leaping and flailing, our own mental image of the style of Isadora - who, however, declares herself appalled at this travesty of her art. But these clever negatives don't add up to a reason for taking his heroine seriously - unless, of course, you're already as infatuated with her as Miss Belzer and the Greek pianist, who step forward to tell us about the wonder and mystery of Isadora (not a good idea). While the true drama is happening offstage, a predictably sloppy and campy series of tantrums is what we see, lacking in taste (Esenin's clownish suicide attempt, which everyone jokes about, is not very funny considering that he did hang himself) and dramatic development (the revelation that Esenin has been mocking Isadora's love for her dead children does not make her throw him out or explore why he feels that way).
"When She Danced" does, however - a big however - have Vanessa Redgrave imparting genuine grandeur and poetry to this underwritten role. Redgrave may not be a dancer but, like Isadora, can transfix an audience simply by crossing a stage, and her intense silences are a good deal more compelling than most actresses' vocal flourishes. The accent, though startling at first and somewhat grating throughout, is a better choice than the sighing and mooing of a priestess of art would have been. But, again, the portrayal of Isadora sticks on avoidance, negatives, on the less undesirable choice. Perhaps the solution is for such a fabulous creature to retreat offstage altogether and merely cast a shadow on the other characters' lives. One of the minor parts in "When She Danced" is that of a woman who followed Isadora through Europe for 20 years, who founded a cosmetics company that sold kissproof lipstick, and whose son, Preston Sturges, the movie director, spent his boyhood in a toga. Couldn't an entertaining play be written about Mary Desti?

Submitted by Jane Grey