Shakespeare's Women & Claire Bloom

Claire Bloom has performed leading and important supporting roles in numerous plays by William Shakespeare, starting while she was still in her teens. In this documentary, she discusses her experiences and performs monologues and soliloquies from 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'The Merchant of Venice,' 'As You Like It,' 'Richard III,' 'Hamlet,' and 'King Henry the Eighth,' among others. Film and television footage from her earlier performances is also featured, as is a brief clip of Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet in a 1900 silent film version of that play.