“Then there are the critics, who are always watching for ‘the little beast,’ as we say, and who seem to discover only elephantine faults, and finally there are the directors of the theaters, who are constantly torn between their desire to please the public, satisfy the actor, protect art, and fill their purses.”
“It is different with us,” I replied; “we have syndicates in charge of our amusements. The personal desires of the players are not considered, and the managerial head of the enterprise rarely knows or cares about art.
“It is purely a business with him, like the running of a series of big dry-goods stores, and so he hustles out on the road his companies number one, two and three, and sits twirling his thumbs in his office computing how much cash they will bring him back.
“And what were the conditions which brought this crisis you speak of?” I asked, returning to the main subject.
“Ah, then you have not heard,” he replied, “of the investigation made by Messieurs Allard and Vauxelles, who addressed themselves to the directors of the principal theaters: Messieurs Porel, Claretie, Antoine, et al., and to authors like Brieux and Hervieu. They explained clearly where the trouble lies. In the first place, it is a fact that the growing popularity of outdoor sports in France constitutes a real danger for the theater. The love of physical exercise, of bicycling, automobiling, of field sports and ballooning, increases daily with us.
“It is excellent for the muscles, but when one has steered one’s “tuff-tuff” all day or been driven through the clouds in a balloon, the tired sportsman is in no condition nor frame of mind to enjoy in the evening a serious play. Is it not so? It is imbecile to expect it of him.
“Notice,” he went on, “that I am speaking of the Frenchman upon whom physical exercise has more effect than on the Anglo-Saxon who has been accustomed to it from his youth. With our impetuosity we overdo things. Besides, the athlete is not a good spectator, for what is won for the biceps is lost for the brain.
“What our good man of the world returning from a hard day’s sport must have, is either his bed, or a light, gay revue with perfect brain rest during it. So he dines late and goes to the circus, or to the performance of a revue, or to one of the small theaters, or to the bouis-bouis, where the lightest of farce comedies sends him home in a good humor. These latter miniature theaters have become so popular with us that nearly every quartier now has its bouis-bouis. They have sprung up like weeds and steal an important part of the audience of the serious theaters.
Photo by Stebbing, Paris