“This is Marie Duplessis,” Jill Daly tells me, turning the stiff, slick pages of an oversize book. “She was the original Lady of the Camellias.” She shows me a color portrait from the 1840s: a striking young woman with bright, dark eyes; arching, intelligent eyebrows; and long, shiny black hair framing a gentle, oval face. The woman wears a puffy, white chiffon dress with a daring neckline, and pinned to her bosom a large white flower, a camellia.
Daly was once one of the more prolific actors and directors of Chicago’s off-Loop theater scene–she appeared in or directed productions at the Organic Theater Company, Blind Parrot Productions, Chicago Actors Ensemble, Redmoon Theater, and Curious Theatre Branch. Between the spring of ’90 and November ’91 Daly directed three productions for the Curious Theatre: The Weirdly Sisters, Looking Through Two Johnnies, and an adaptation of Chekhov’s Ward 6. But for the past two-and-a-half years she has devoted all her creative time to writing Camille (Deflowered) and getting it produced.
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Less than five months after her death, Dumas began Camille, and the novel just poured out of him. Written in a month, this thinly veiled account of their affair brought him immediate fame. And when Dumas’ stage version of the novel hit the boards in 1852, his place in the French literary pantheon was assured. Camille went on to become one of the most frequently produced plays of the 19th century. It was also adapted into one of Verdi’s most frequently performed operas, La Traviata.
Is the world ready for two more Camilles? Daly clearly thinks so. “I read [Dumas’] play and I weep every time she says, ‘And so a woman once she’s fallen may never rise again. What man would want to make her his wife? What child call her mother? And go tell your young daughter that somewhere in the world there is a woman who had one hope, one dream, one thought in life, and that she renounced them all and died of it.’ You know, that sort of stuff really gets me. And I want to know why. I want to come to terms with my own relationship with it. I want to come to terms with the myth of the sacrificial, heroic woman, and the man that she’s done this for.”
