There is a small foyer, too, with a Gothic stairway, which contains a unique collection of steel engravings of players of bygone days. Snug in an alcove beside this interesting promenoir there is a tiny bar. At nine the boxes beneath the Sunday-school gallery are brilliant with women’s toilets, framed by the white shirt-fronts and sombre black of their well-groomed escorts. Such is this charming after-dinner theater, which has been so appropriately named “The Big Punch and Judy,” where very cleverly constructed short plays are presented, such as “Scrupules,” “Une Affaire de Mœurs,” “La Coopérative” and “La Fétiche.”
They are plays of dramatic incident rather than of plots. Some of them are as risqué as the most daring at the Rabelais. Some are full of pathos, others screamingly funny, and still others revolting in their realism.
Photo by F. Berkeley Smith
LA FÉTICHE AT THE GRAND GUIGNOL
Enter the Murderer
Of the last class is “Une Affaire de Mœurs.” In this the identity of a famous judge of the high court is discovered by two demi-mondaines who are dining with him in a cabinet particulier. The judge has at one time sentenced the lover of one of the women and she threatens to expose him in revenge. He offers money, and finally half his fortune to quiet her, but the woman is determined to avenge her lover. Then his terror at the thought of scandal and disgrace brings on a stroke of apoplexy. The two women, now thoroughly frightened, send the old waiter out for a doctor. He hurries back with a young physician whom he finds carousing with his friends in the café below. The young man stands aghast as he recognizes the form in the chair; it is his father. He listens at the heart, then buries his head in his hands. The judge is dead. The women huddle in a corner terrified. The room is in disorder, reeking with the odor of cigarettes and spilled wine.
“Come, monsieur,” gently urges the aged garçon. “Pull yourself together, we must get the body into a cab unnoticed.”
The realization of the disgrace and publicity of the affaire when it will be known in the café below, braces the son to act quickly. He suggests to the garçon that the body be removed by the back stairs.
“There is no back stairs, monsieur,” confesses the garçon. “The only way out is by the main stairway and through the café. We will walk monsieur out and support him between us. I have helped to do it once before that way; no one will suspect—they will think monsieur is drunk.”