Here is enough to nourish a whole career of playwriting, sir.
M. LACOUFF, SCHOLAR
Young man, it is also important to know theatrical anecdotes; they help to fill out the conversation of a young dramatic author; here are a few:
Frederick the Great was accustomed to having his court actresses whipped before each presentation. He believed that flagellation communicated a rosy tint to their skin which was not without its charm.
At the court of the Grand Turk, the Bourgeois Gentilhomme was being played, but in order to adapt it to the taste of the environment the mamamouchi became a Knight of the Garter.[10]
Cecile Vestris, while returning to Mayence, one day, had her carriage held up by the famous Rhenish bandit Schinderhans. She rallied her spirits against this ill-fortune and danced for Schinderhans in the hall of a roadside tavern.
Ibsen was sleeping one time with a young Spanish lady who cried out at the proper moment:
"Now!... now!... Mr. Dramatist!"
An erudite actor admitted to me that he had liked only one statue in all his life: The Squatting Scribe, sculptured by an Egyptian, long before Jesus-Christ, and which he saw in the Louvre. But they are beginning to talk much less of Scribe, and yet he still reigns over the theatre.
THE THEATRE