Today, Elizabeth Eleanor (Lizzie) Siddal (1829 -1862 ) is perhaps best known as the model for John Everett Millais’ painting Ophelia. At the time, though at first a model for several in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, she was recognized as the muse and mistress of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882).
Rossetti was the son of a well known Italian scholar and a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelites with friends William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. The group’s aim was to restore the artistic principles and practices regarded as characteristic of Italian art before Raphael: abundant detail, intense colors and complex compositions. They focused on history, religion/myth, nature and were considered romantics. Charismatic and impetuous, Rossetti was also a poet.
Much like Impressionists in Paris, the Pre-Raphaelites faced an institution, The Royal Academy, that dictated what was worthy art. The Brotherhood’s path was shorter. Patrons were prized, critics feared and disparaged. The group found both in John Ruskin who supported the movement.
Lizzie was discovered working at a milliner’s off Leceister Square by painter Walter Deverell who needed a redhead to model Viola in Twelfth Night. She was apparently not classically beautiful but tall, slim, and striking with a surfeit of wavy, cascading locks. When Deverell asked Rossetti to help with the elusive color of her hair, the latter fell in love with Lizzie – and asked her to model. He was twenty, she nineteen.
The stage is black. Comments about Lizzie’s image by Millais and Hunt are broken by Rossetti’s wail, “Stop! Stop! I can’t paint! Why do you haunt me, I need to paint! Work hands, work!” Lights up on Rossetti’s Blackfriars studio. The play unfolds as he conjures his life with Lizzie, beginning when they met 13 years ago. His muse enters – for the first time.
Rossetti tells her she should converse with him, then doesn’t let Lizzie get a word in while regaling her about himself and his fraternal brothers. With an explanatory preface on screen or in a program, this would not have to be so thorough = unlikely. The new model had no formal education, but has been taught by her parents to read and write – an anomaly for models, most of whom were prostitutes – which intrigues the painter. They accidentally touch. He kisses her hand.
We watch Lizzie come and go. Familiarity is compressed. When Rossetti discovers a drawing she’s done, he’s impressed and surprised. Will he teach her? she asks. Yes. She sketches. He looks at the drawing and tells her to “dig deeper.” It’s clear, however, there’s something there.
Besotted, Rossetti asks Lizzie not to pose for anyone else. She agrees after her commitment to act as Millais’ Ophelia which required 12 hours of lying in a bathtub filled with water, wearing a heavy brocade dress. She became ill and was never again strong.
We see the toll of John Ruskin’s deciding to subsidize her work while shuffling the painter off to a teaching job, of geographic separations, Lizzie’s exhibition, Rossetti’s philandering. Distraught, she accuses him (correctly) of liaisons with model Jane Burden (soon to become the wife of William Morris) and Fanny Conforth, (who will attempt to replace Lizzie when she dies). “How many fornications does a man need?!” she wails.
Despite his family’s objections, they marry. At first things are rosy, but ill health and the loss of a child drives him to outside pleasure and her to excessive Laudanum and premature death. Aria da capo, Rossetti inhabits the play’s opening agony. Lizzie haunts him. (In fact, he suffered melancholia afterwards, even trying to reach her by séance.)
This is a good (and true) story, dramatically compelling and deftly condensed by playwright Kristin Lundberg. (One might suggest a smidgen more initial resistance by the untutored girl – and breaking the scenario into two acts.) We get a feel for context as well as the volatile relationship. Rarely considered, Lizzie gets equal time, achieving illuminating symmetry.
Greg Pragel’s initial despair lures us in by feeling legitimate rather than over the top. He embodies both the painter and the man. As Rossetti’s self indulgent actions defy his love, we see remorse but no resolution. A scene in which he’s slightly drunk is nuanced. Frustration and jealousy are never one dimensional. Class and pride are apparent. Ego is a visible balancing act.
Kristin Lundberg manifests a young woman thrilled to be Rossetti’s avowed Beatrice (a reference to Dante Aligheri’s love/muse), yet grounded enough for awareness of her untenable social standing. Lizzie’s drive to be an artist in her own right comes across in more than dialogue. Distress at Rossetti’s profligate behavior is as confused as it is angry; the character’s final dissolution, empathetically painful.
Director Jay Michaels has a splendid light touch which is to say highly emotional moments remain credible without losing their effect. The stage is well used, pacing is adroit.
Notes to the production: The medieval costume Lizzie eventually finds waiting for her on a chair should not already be there with curtain up. The first time Rossetti shows her a portrait of herself, we get a glimpse. She’s dressed in green, but the robe she wears is red.
Costumes by Jessa Raye Court are pitch-perfect.
Camera work is dreadful. Hopefully, the worthy play’s next production won’t suffer that handicap.
Muse by Kristin Lundberg
Directed by Jay Michaels
Kristin Lundberg as Elizabeth Siddel
Greg Pragel as Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Performed originally at TFTNC’s Dream Up Festival 2014
Ludlow Fringe 2021- Ludlow, Shropshire
