Snug in the corner of an ancient alley called the Cité d’Antin is the “Théâtre de la Robinière.” Its official address is “3 (bis) Rue La Fayette,” that is, you are requested to enter there and, following your nose around the corner, grope your way in the obscurity over the cobbles and make a second turn to the right. At last a green lantern over the doorway glimmers ahead of you. It is the Robinière now installed in what was once the Théâtre Mondain.
The Robinière once existed on the first platform of the Tour Eiffel; since then its proprietor, Monsieur François Robin, has moved it to its permanent address, all of which speaks well for its success. It is filled nightly with Parisians of the vicinity.
Much of the success of this tiny theater is due to the indefatigable effort of its director, Monsieur Robin, who literally passes his life in his playhouse, assisted in its management by his wife. These two, without help, without even a secretary, run the theater, often working from early morning until long past midnight, writing their own posters, watching the rehearsals of their excellent small company (in which Madame plays), attending to press notices, receiving authors and artists, and, in short, making a success of this old “Salle d’Antin” where all its preceding owners met with ruin.
There is nothing elaborate about this stuffy little bandbox of a theater. Its narrow auditorium is plain, dingy and old-fashioned. A piano serves for the orchestra, but the comedies are clever and the acting excellent—two things which Parisians demand first of all.
The Robinière is but one of a number of miniature theaters in Paris beginning at eight-thirty or nine o’clock, and producing each night four short realistic comedies, often with some clever chansonnier singing his creations during the entr’actes. No two of these theaters are alike, and in all of them there is good acting; even in the smallest of these so-called bouis-bouis you will find the actors to be men and women who have worked patiently through the National Conservatoire studying their art under the best masters.
Fortunately in France the woman who has become suddenly notorious through her divorce or the latest scandal is not snapped up by theatrical managers as a star before the ink is dry on the Sunday papers detailing her disgrace. In Paris there are music hall revues to receive these meteors when they fall and where they may parade their beauty and their clothes, or their lack of them, with the rest of the demi-mondaines.
During the intervals between the plays at the Robinière a single aged “garçon de café” takes the orders for the refreshments in the cold, stuffy little “fumoir,” while behind the bar one of the leading ladies of the comedy graciously assists him by opening the bottled beer and attending to the drinks, very much as a good-natured woman would help by cutting the cake at a children’s party.
When the bell rings for the curtain Madame hurries out of her apron and back to her part in “Les Deux Jarretières,” a farce so replete with amusing complications that the small audience is kept in a continual titter of good humor. In the comedy following, entitled “Le Sofa de Monsieur Dupré,” the story is even more simple. A respectable widow, Madame Dupré, living alone in her old age, is attended by her maid Pauline, whom she has come to regard as an indispensable companion. Pauline makes the old lady comfortable in her favorite chair, tucks under her feet her foot-warmer, and, leaving her mistress, goes out to post a letter.
In the interval which elapses before her return a neighbor calls and kindly informs Madame Dupré that the indispensable Pauline has been the mistress of Madame Dupré’s revered husband. When Pauline returns, Madame, in her indignation, turns her out of the house. The foot-warmer grows cold, the fire in the grate goes out, a thousand little comforts have not been attended to, and the old lady decides to send for Pauline and forgive her, preferring that her few remaining years should pass in peace and comfort.
Quite different is the Théâtre de la Bodinière, founded by Monsieur Bodin, the former secretary of the historic Comédie Française. The Bodinière is devoted to interpreting the work of young authors by celebrated artists. It is a theater where respectable jeunes filles may be taken in safety. The plays are as harmless as the Rollo books.