It was through
Antoine that Paris had such magnificent performances of "La Parisienne."
He had long expressed his intention of producing "Les Corbeaux," and now
he has produced "Les Corbeaux" at the Odeon, where it has been definitely
accepted and consecrated as a masterpiece. I could not refrain from going
to Paris specially to see it. It was years since I had been in the Odeon.
Rather brighter, perhaps, in its more ephemeral decorations, but still the
same old-fashioned, roomy, cramped, provincial theatre, with pit-tier
boxes like the cells of a prison! The audience was good. It was startingly
good for the Odeon. The play, too, at first seemed old-fashioned--in
externals. It has bits of soliloquies and other dodges of technique now
demoded. But the first act was not half over before the extreme modernness
of the play forced itself upon you. Tchehkoff is not more modern. The
picture of family life presented in the first act was simply delightful.
All the bitterness was reserved for the other acts. And what superb
bitterness! No one can be so cruel as Becque to a "sympathetic" character.
He exposes every foolishness of the ruined widow; he never spares her for
an instant; and yet one's sympathy is not alienated. This is truth. This
is a play.
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