The “Treteau de Tabarin,” familiarly known as the “Boîte à Fursy,” is a unique mixture of cabaret and theater in the rue Pigalle. Its owner and manager, Henri Fursy, is the author of the celebrated “Chansons Rosses.” These rough and ready satires are sparkling with wit. To invent a new type of songs is the achievement of an epoch, and this is what Fursy has done. He tells me he is not a poet, that his rhymes are often very poor.
“My style is not always good,” he said to me; “my songs are satires written upon the spur of the moment, and precisely in this crude state I present them to the public. If I worked over them they would lose much of their freshness.”
There is nothing of the bohemian chansonnier in Monsieur Fursy. He is a dapper, smartly dressed, alert, courteous, clean-cut man of business. By his wits, push and energy, he has made a success of his theater.
Photo by F. Berkeley Smith
HENRI FURSY IN THE FOYER OF HIS THEATER
Perhaps he has seen too much of the Parisian method of transacting a business deal. This consists in taking four weeks to think about the proposition, several more of leisurely indecision, and a corresponding length of time to settle the matter. The Frenchman is astonished if in the meantime some other fellow with a little Anglo-Saxon hustle in him has seized the opportunity and signed the contract.
The quaint, rambling, half-timbered interior of the foyer to the Boîte à Fursy is exceedingly picturesque. Rare drawings and etchings line the walls. The foyer has an ancient air about it of having been used as a hostelry during the Middle Ages. The walls are done in rough plaster and quartered beams. In one corner a primitive staircase leads to a rambling gallery, and the audience passes into the quaint auditorium through rough wooden doors running under a low rustic shed.
All of smart Paris goes to the Boîte à Fursy. It is the smallest and one of the most expensive theaters in Paris, but the performance upon the small stage is sparkling with wit from beginning to end. Here short satirical revues are given by Fursy and other famous chansonniers, with Odette Dulac in the principal rôle.
