The stage of the Folies BergÈre during a spectacular revue is a busy place. Sunday evening is always a crowded night at Parisian theaters and a hard one upon players, since all the theaters on that day give matinÉes as well.

There are few persons in an audience who realize the amount of hard work required of every one behind the scenes in the staging and playing of a spectacular revue.

It was nine o’clock Sunday evening and the revue at the Folies BergÈre was about to begin, as my friend, a successful writer of many Parisian revues, Monsieur RenÉ Louis, led me through the crowded promenoir of this thoroughly Parisian music-hall and through a small iron door into another world. I say another world, for it was peopled with fairies—coryphÉes in pink tights whose eyes were stenciled and lined with blue until they appeared as almond-shaped as an odalisque’s. The stage was crowded with scene-shifters in black caps and long white linen dusters, with ladies protected from stray drafts by warm woolen dressing gowns, with hair-dressers in their shirt-sleeves, with firemen in shining brass helmets, with ballet girls in white tulle and fleshings, and pink satin slippers with padded toes.

We came upon all this suddenly, for, as we entered the iron door leading to the coulisses, we found ourselves in a small entresol and in the midst of a dozen coryphÉes who were giving a final touch to their make-up before an extra mirror.

The air was heavy with the odor of scores of different cheap perfumes.

Down a narrow winding stairway leading from the dressing-rooms above, poured a stream of other coryphÉes, principals, ballet girls and figurantes, a moving kaleidoscopic procession of pink tights, glittering tinsel and bizarre head-dresses.

Groups of chorus girls gossiped in safe corners out of the way of hurrying scene-shifters.

“Attention! s’il vous plait,” shouted two of the latter as they dodged past with a section of a Venetian palace, while two others followed with half of the Bridge of Sighs and eight feet of canvas water.

“Dis donc, ma chÉrie,” said a petite brunette costumed as a gray pigeon to another pigeon whose dresser was attaching to her shoulders a pair of white wings, “did you find the tailor whose address I gave you yesterday? A hundred francs for a dress like my little brown one, and tu sais trÉs, trÉs chic. Tell AmÉlie I am coming to see her to-morrow À trois heures, n’est-ce pas?” and the gray pigeon hurried away to her place in the wings.

High up above the busy stage hung the great drops suspended from a network of ropes. Hoisted by the side of an Italian lake hung the back flat of the palace of diamonds, and next to it a dark wood through which at ten thirty-five, by the stage manager’s watch, fluttered nightly a ballet of bats.

My friend led the way through a back corridor to the director’s office. I found the director a serious man of affairs, who looked more like a scientist than a man of the theater. His greeting was most cordial, even hospitable, for, as he left me to attend to the performance, he added, with charming courtesy: “Monsieur, vous Êtes ici chez vous; go where you will or, better still, let me present you to our stage manager. It is he who is really captain of the ship in the storm, for we have some rapid dark changes to make during the revue, when you will be safer in a corner.”

From the wings behind the blaze of the footlights, the crowded house lay like a flower-garden in the dusk. Here a patch of red flamed brighter than the rest from some theater hat; there the white of a shirt-front gleamed.

The prompter sat huddled under his wooden hood with his prompt-book in readiness for the raising of the curtain.

Behind him, the leader of the orchestra wiped his eyeglasses, looked at his watch, passed a word by the second violin to the oboe concerning a late correction, and, tapping his baton, began the overture.

Bang! Bang! Bang! pounded thrice the stage manager with measured precision, and, with a final glance at the people on the stage, gave the signal to the head electrician who turned a switch. Up went the curtain.

The night’s work had begun.

For the three hours that ensued during the revue, ballets succeeded ballets. There were burlesques upon current topics and singing choruses. All through this the stage management was perfect.

When you consider the lack of room it was all the more remarkable.

“You see,” said the stage manager, during one of his free minutes, “we are terribly cramped for room here upon this old stage. Our biggest flats we set with this panorama arrangement”—and he pointed to two giant rollers, one on either side of the stage. Then, leading the way beneath the stage, he showed me the two great wheels and the dynamo that moved them.

“Look out!” said he, as we returned to the stage, “that is the finale of the commÈre’s song and we are going to make a quick change. Stand there!” he said, and instinctively I jumped for the spot he indicated. At the same instant the two electricians pulled a combination of switches and everything went black.

Scene-shifters hurried through the gloom with awkward sections of scenery, all of which had to be taken back through a doorway and replaced in order where they had come from. Others hurried on the stage with properties and sections for the new set.

The stage was, fortunately, warm, otherwise many of the petites Parisiennes who were descending the winding stairs would have suffered from even the slightest current of air, for most of their clothes had been left in the dressing-rooms above.

I saw among this “big family,” that are together during a long season, the best of camaraderie and unusual deference and courtesy by every man toward the women.

During the second act I found that exceedingly chic and attractive comÉdienne, Mademoiselle LÉa Dorville, in her loge.

Every available corner of her small room did good service. Rows of pink and Nile green silk petticoats, frous-frous and things hung from hooks under cretonned shelves.

Other hooks held mademoiselle’s stage hats, some of them as big as circus hoops. Her duchesse table was a veritable museum of little necessaries: hare’s-feet and powder puffs, mirrors, sticks of grease paint, a pot of cold cream with a silver top, a box of poudre de riz, rouge for her lips, for her nails, for the tips of her ears. It was all artificial, but it was nevertheless one real side of life. Serious gaiety if you will, since to survive the daily routine of the stage is hard work.

Being Sunday, that day they had already gone through a matinÉe. There is but little time to rest between the matinÉe and the evening performance, and in Paris the theaters are not out until midnight.

All this activity behind the scenes of the Folies BergÈre seemed in strong contrast to the idle leisure of the audience in front, who during the entr’actes strolled among the demi-mondaines in the promenoir or lounged comfortably in arm-chairs pulled up to the cafÉ tables of the alcoves, and with a cooling drink listened to the band of Neapolitans.

The curtain fell upon an apotheosis representing the palace of gems; upon La Belle OtÉro clothed in solitaires; upon the commÈre and the compÈre bowing to an appreciative audience; and finally upon a stageful of figurantes and coryphÉes who, as the final curtain fell, made a rush for their dressing-rooms. Half an hour later they all said bonsoir to the doorkeeper and scattered among the highways and byways of the city. Some who passed out wore sables; others, who half an hour before stood flashing in gems, went away in modest clothes of their own making. Some departed to meet their sweethearts, others to their families or their children; some to supper at the CafÉ de Paris, to Pousset’s and to the CafÉ Riche, others to little snuggeries where the cheapest dish was the most popular, and where the vieux monsieur with the purse of gold never came.

I found the stage of another big music-hall, the Olympia, differing widely from the cramped and picturesque old stage of the Folies BergÈre. Here there was plenty of room and sufficient stage height for scenic spectacles. Back of all this, wide corridors led to the offices of administration and comfortable dressing-rooms. Here again I found a safe corner behind the proscenium, out of the way of changing scenery and the toes of the agile mademoiselles of the ballet.

One seldom sees a more beautiful woman than the present commÈre of the Olympia revue, Germaine Gallois. She is tall, lithe and queenly, with clear-cut features and a wealth of golden hair. With Lucien NoËl and the statuesque Graziella the revue is not lacking in talent. From the shadows of the wings framed by the side of the proscenium in deep shadow against the flood of orange calcium light, the glitter of the scene upon the stage seemed even more brilliant than when viewed from the house.

Three fourths of the performers in Parisian vaudeville are Americans, English or Austrians. These naturally can not be employed in the revue following the vaudeville, for they do not speak French.

It is the custom to print in English the billposters announcing these artists. It seems more of a novelty to Parisians if the lady on the high wire appears on the bills as “Miss Dorita Gayford, Queen of the High Wire.” In London you will see this lady who is on such good terms with the attraction of gravitation, billed as “Mademoiselle CÉleste Pirrizetti, Reine du Fil de Fer.” It is more interesting, just as a “Chateaubriand aux pommes soufflÉes” is more attractive upon a bill of fare than plain “steak and fried potatoes.”

To us Americans who are accustomed to our modern theaters fitted with every appliance for safety and comfort, the old-fashioned playhouses of Paris, seasoned by time and tradition, seem quite primitive in construction. Many of them have remained for nearly a century materially unchanged. The narrow semi-circular corridors leading to the orchestra through little velveted doors have low ceilings.

That the most sought after seats are those in the first balcony is due to the fact that in many of the theaters the first rows in the orchestra are sunk so low below an unusually high stage that it is impossible to see more than the upper half of the performers. Then, too, the hood of the prompter’s box is invariably placed in the middle of the stage. Add to this a lady in front with a theater hat of such dimensions that it would serve much better as a sunshade, and the spectator near the front row has left to his vision a little triangular space bounded on the base by the footlights, on one side by the prompt-box, and on the other by a bobbing ostrich plume. Across this aperture, provided the ostrich feather keeps still, you may, by good luck, from time to time see the villain pursue the heroine.

The French playhouse is a slave to traditional custom. The stone stairways worn by the feet of generations of audiences have sunk badly out of plumb. There are comfortable old foyers and fumoirs to which the audience pour during the entr’actes, but the approach to these is painfully slow through narrow corridors and up winding flights of stairs.

The boxes lined along beneath the first balcony and circling the orchestra are narrow, and insufferably warm in summer. Besides the open loges there are boxes screened by grilles of gilt lattice, where madame and another madame’s monsieur may secrete themselves, discreet even in their indiscretions—but why gossip of the happiness of others?—there is enough misery in the world as it is.

Those gray-haired old ladies, the ouvreuses, are traditional, too; they hang the coats and wraps along the wall of the narrow corridor into which the audience goes out, with the result that at the end of the performance the corridor is jammed with people in search of their belongings.

There is no orchestra except in those theaters in which the performance as in opÉra bouffes and musical comedies requires one. During the entr’actes Frenchmen stand in their orchestra places and carefully look over the audience who have remained in their seats, with their opera-glasses, until the stage manager pounds his staff solemnly for the rising of the curtain. It is the custom, too, to use hideous drop curtains between the acts covered with advertisements of perfumery, automobiles, and of winter and summer resorts.

But if there are many little discomforts within Parisians theaters, the interiors themselves are rich in works of art. The foyers contain superb busts and rare pictures. There are ceilings, mellowed in color by time, which were painted by the best masters. If many of these auditoriums are uncomfortable, they possess a charm and a dignity which age alone can give.

Take for example the old Palais Royal. This famous old playhouse has a cozy old-fashioned auditorium and a foyer with a quaint gallery, and a rich frieze which illustrates the history of the theater since the day when Mademoiselle de Montansier in 1789 bought the Beaujolais, a little playhouse constructed as a thÉÂtre des marionnettes. From that year the old theater existed under many names, until in 1848 it adopted the title of the “ThÉÂtre du Palais Royal,” a name which it still retains. One feels within it that but for the modern costumes of the audience he might be living in the time of the First Empire. The windows of the foyer look out upon the dimly lighted courtyard of the palace of Richelieu.

Like the ruddy back of some old violin, the interior of the ThÉÂtre du Palais Royal has become rich and polished by the hands of time. It has become a Parisian institution, beloved by men and women of culture because of its associations.

If you ask a Parisian at which theaters you can see the best plays, he will invariably answer: The ThÉÂtre Antoine and the ThÉÂtre FranÇais. He adds the latter as a matter of habit, for the French have been brought up for generations to regard the immortal house of the great MoliÈre as the best stage.

It is there he received his first impression of the theater when in his childhood as a reward of merit he was taken to the FranÇais to see classical plays. He was told it was the best theater, and this impression has remained with him since infancy. For French children are taken as a matter of education to the FranÇais and the OdÉon.

True, the ComÉdie FranÇaise possesses finished actors; true, also, they are trying to keep up traditions there more than anywhere else; true, as well, the scenery and costumes are of the best. But it is also true that many of the good actors of the FranÇais have in late years deserted the house of MoliÈre for freer fields, that the managers have refused scores of good plays in late years which have been subsequent successes at other theaters, and that most of the present actors of the FranÇais, wishing to create a “genre,” or shall we call it a mannerism, of their own, do so at the expense of the true character of the rÔle which they play. Many of them who have become celebrated refuse to play small parts and, what is even more to be regretted, disdain to learn the classical repertoire which is the raison d’Être of the house of MoliÈre.

But if the FranÇais does not choose to present new plays and encourage modern authorship for which purposes the government gives it yearly a large subvention, other theaters do, and the public have filled them.

But even these latter theaters are hampered by the system of stars and the desire to attract the public by the well-known name of a successful author on the bill.

Sometimes the play of the successful author, like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, is very, very good, and sometimes very, very bad, but it is always very, very expensive. On account of these stars and successful authors, the seats have to be sold at a high price. Once the expense of production of the play is covered, the play is forced to a long run, thus limiting the chance of a new one being given.

For these reasons and many others M. Antoine, a young man who was an employee of the city gas company, conceived in 1887 an idea of an entirely different theater where all old traditions would be put aside, where a play would not be given more than two weeks, thus opening the door to a great many authors, and where a company of thirty-six actors would play impartially all rÔles and each one would receive for his services the same pay.

The plays given should be upon every-day life, therefore no expensive costumes or elaborate scenery would be needed.

The actors were not to come from a dramatic school, but teach themselves by experience.

Realism was to pervade everything: acting, costumes, scenery and properties.

In March, 1887, M. Antoine organized the first representation of “Jacques Damour,” which was such a success that it was taken immediately by the OdÉon. The performance was given in a cheap little auditorium in Montmartre, hired at as low a figure as possible for the occasion. None of the actors were professionals. In this first representation of the “Puissance des TÉnÈbres,” the cast was: Men—Monsieur Antoine, still employee of the gas company, an employee of the Minister of Finances, a secretary at Police headquarters, an architect, a chemist, a drummer and a marchand de vin. Women—a dressmaker, a bookbinder, an employee at the Post-office, etc., etc. All this cast rehearsed in the evening after long hours in office and store.

In spite of keeping expenses as low as possible, Antoine was in debt after the first representation and was obliged to wait two months before he could give another performance.

Finally the company succeeded in giving seven or eight representations in a little salle of the rue Blanche, and from there went to the ThÉÂtre Montparnasse, and thence to the Menus Plaisirs, where the ThÉÂtre Libre exists at the present day under the name of the ThÉÂtre Antoine.

With this little company it was not always easy sailing. Had it not been at the time for the generous help of the press and the kindness of the director of the vaudeville who sub-rented his hall to the ambitious troupe for next to nothing, it would have met with financial ruin. But the plays they gave attracted attention. Nowhere had such daring realism and freedom from old traditions been attempted.

From 1887 to 1890 the ThÉÂtre Libre produced one hundred and twenty-five new “acts,” and presented the plays of thirty dramatic authors whose work had never been heard before. Besides these, they produced the plays of fourteen authors whose work had been represented in Paris only once.

They had upon their programs among others the plays of Zola, Tolstoy, TurgÉneff, and Ibsen, and introduced many plays which subsequently were reproduced upon the best stages of Paris. The good that Antoine has accomplished by his indomitable energy and the efforts of those who have been with him through these experiments is sufficiently proven by the fact that while the company produced one hundred and twenty-five plays, the FranÇais during that same period of time produced only twenty-five new plays and received seven hundred and twenty thousand francs from the government as subvention, a sum given towards the expense of mounting new plays. The OdÉon during this time produced sixty-seven “acts” and received three hundred thousand francs from the government!

Monsieur Antoine does not believe in considering that a room has only three sides. That is why he maintains it is legitimate to turn one’s back on an audience if by reason of stage position the situation calls for it. Neither does he believe the room in which the drama occurs can be surrounded by imaginary apartments of dingy canvas, so the doors upon his stage have real locks and open upon other rooms as realistically furnished as the one within whose walls the action takes place.

In the matter of costumes he is equally realistic, and every detail of the style is genuine.

If it is a question of a library, there are real books upon real shelves. These important attentions to detail are carried out through all his plays. He does not believe that, because an object is at the back of the stage, it should be made of papier machÉ or, what is worse, painted on the back flat.

When you have seen three of his late productions, “La Fille Eliza,” the story of a girl condemned to death; “La Bonne EspÉrance,” a tragedy of a Holland fishing town; and “L’Indiscret,” a modern society play; you will realize the genius and capability of Monsieur Antoine and his rare company who work conscientiously together for the ensemble of a finished production rather than for individual applause.

Among the haut monde of Paris the finesse of the most complex social intrigue is understood to perfection. The Parisian society play deals with a series of risquÉ situations.

The noisy, cruel, villain of the society play as we know him is not seen here. The three principal characters are the “Charming and Beautiful Wife,” the “Distinguished Husband,” whom she does not love, and the “Jolly Young Man,” whom she does. Her attractive salon seems to be especially adapted to the furtherance of the amours of certain of her women friends whose husbands, it is to be presumed, are having tea and conversation elsewhere.

Matrimony is taken for granted as a calamity, an unfortunate episode to be remedied as soon as possible.

In the second act the Charming Wife heavily veiled sweeps into the Jolly Young Man’s modest apartment.

“Enfin!” he cries, and the lovers embrace as if in a dream.

This is quite an exciting part, for it is not long now before you will hear the heavy foot of the deceived husband upon the stairs.

“Ah! voilÀ! here he comes!” The Charming Wife emits a little stifled scream as she recognizes his step, and the Jolly Young Man, failing to hide her in his wardrobe, puts on as bold a front as possible and awaits the opening of his door.

Enter the Husband!

Not in a frenzy, with cocked revolver as we are used to seeing him, not a bit of it. He comes in pleasantly and bows formally to madame and to the Jolly Young Man. Through all he preserves the dignity of a visiting general with a flag of truce. He even begs the pardon of the Jolly Young Man for his interruption.

“Will you have the goodness, monsieur, to leave madame and myself alone for a moment; I have something which I wish to say in private?”

“Parfaitement, monsieur,” answers as ceremoniously the Jolly Young Man, and goes out.

When the Jolly Young Man has gone, madame attempts the usual distracted flood of explanations, then, realizing the artificiality of them all, shrugs her shoulders.

It is at this juncture that the Husband, as if speaking to some indiscreet comrade, addresses madame as “my friend.”

“Mon amie,” he begins, “you must know that I, too, love another.”

“You have a mistress, of course,” replies madame, accepting this foregone conclusion as a preliminary to what may follow.

“Naturally, my friend, but it is not of Mademoiselle de TrÉville that I speak, it is of one of your best friends, une femme sÉrieuse, exquise, ravissante!” and he clasps his hand and looks toward heaven.

“Louise?” asks madame.

“Parfaitement, mon amie.”

“Tiens! That is funny,” replies madame, with a little amused smile; “but what of her husband?”

“It will be difficult, but I think it can be arranged,” replies monsieur dramatically.

Upon the reentrance of the Jolly Young Man, all three begin a breezy conversation touching as lightly as possible upon the painful episode of the interrupted rendezvous.

“I leave for Nice to-morrow,” says the Husband, picking up his silk hat and his yellow kid gloves. “Bonsoir, mes amis,” and he bows himself out through the modest portal of the Jolly Young Man’s apartment as the curtain falls.

All Paris poured into the Grands Boulevards on Mardi Gras. From the Madeleine to the Place de la Bastille, this broad thoroughfare was a compact surging sea of human beings. Those who had space enough danced, some as clowns, some as harlequins. There were women in doublets and hose, in boys’ clothes, in every conceivable get-up that could be dragged from the boxes of cheap costumers. This human sea laughed at each other in the best of good nature and threw paper confetti tit for tat all day and half the night. Paris seemed to have been visited by a vari-colored blizzard that roared whirling by, a February wind, over the heads of the sea of merry-makers. It piled itself in great kaleidoscopic drifts in the gutters and got down thousands of people’s necks. The air was filled with dust, and from the balconies shot long streamers of paper ribbons, some caught in the trees below, others fell entangling themselves round the chapeaux of the passing crowd.

At certain points the busses crossed amid cheers, but otherwise no vehicles were allowed on the boulevards. A rabbit would have had hard work getting through in a hurry from the Madeleine to the Bastille, so compact was the crowd. In all this fun and gaiety I did not see a fight or a drunken man, and I observed the show as long as it lasted. It began on Sunday, when a procession of students started from the Sorbonne and marched across the Seine, a somewhat disappointing cavalcade in length but which, nevertheless, half of Paris turned out to see and applaud.

The carnival reached its height on Tuesday and in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

There were bal masquÉs galore, for nearly every one had dressed for them in the morning.

At the Bullier, the Gay Tivoli, and the Moulin de la Galette, carnival reigned supreme.

At the Bal Bullier one had to take more than a passing glance to tell the boys from the girls, for the Mimis and Fantines had often tucked up their hair and donned sailors’ clothes or a Tuxedo. Others went in scantier attire and were more distinguishable. There were feminine MÉphistos, Spanish dancers, little brunettes as bullfighters, and blondes as Oriental favorites of the harem. When the ball was over, this motley crowd romped down to supper along the “Boul Mich” in their fantastic clothes, and had Marennes vertes and cold champagne and beer and sandwiches in the hostelries of the Quartier Latin.

But all this was only a slice in the carnival pie, for Montmartre was a bedlam, and the boulevards were still packed and as jolly as they had been when I crossed that thoroughfare on the top of a bus and saw a surging sea of color. Such screaming and cheering I have never seen elsewhere.

Clowns were everywhere, acrobats did flip-flaps from the sand bins along the route of the Metropolitan, street bands blared away from the terrasses of the cafÉs, sidewalk venders did a thriving trade in confetti, sold in paper bags, which were warranted to hold a true kilo. Later some of these confetti hawkers began replenishing their stock from the sidewalk where it could literally be gathered by the shovelful.

All this happened a day ago; before noon Wednesday, Paris had been swept as clean as a whistle.

Alas! the famous Bal MasquÉ de l’OpÉra is no more in its splendor.

The bal masquÉ to which once upon a time all of gay Paris went in domino and mask is now filled by the daughters of concierges, by barbers and jockeys and a general riff-raff, most of whom have entered by billets of favor. Besides these there are a few dominoed ladies in the boxes who may once have graced the ball in the old days, and now and then a pretty woman in black silk tights passes through the foyer, and is ogled by the remnant of the aged rouÉs who stroll about comparing the present with the glitter and beauty of the OpÉra ball when it was one of the sights of the world, frequented by the most celebrated and beautiful of women. All this has gone; the crowd is motley, noisy and common. The leading feature at the OpÉra ball this year was the cake-walk, over which all Paris has suddenly gone mad.

It is an amusing sight to see the Parisian dance it; he forms his ideas of the cake-walk mostly from some of the exaggerated illustrations published in the London journals, and combines these with a touch of plantation grace taken from the steel engravings out of a French history of early Alabama.

I know a celebrated French ballet master who has had his hands full training Parisians in the art of cake-walking. As a maÎtre de ballet there is none better to be found, but his ideas upon the innate grace of “Syncopated Sandy” are somewhat vague.