1936 On the Continent

carrying on and living on their past fame.
The Opera
    In addition to the Comédie Française and the Odéon, the Opera and the Opéra Comique are also State theatres. As regards the musical standard of the Opera, certain criticisms might be made in connection with the orchestra as well as the singers; but the opera ballet is still unique of its kind and possesses in Serge Lifar, for instance, a young dancer of considerable talent. But in the case of the Paris Opera the merits of the performance do not count so much as the monumental setting and the atmosphere of immortality that fills its foyer, its halls, and under its famous suspension lights. The Opera as a whole is one of the most notable places on earth.
    There are a great many private theatres, more or less good. Successes and flops alternate according to the season. There is, for instance, the “Gymnase,” which belongs to Henry Bernstein, the great master of dramatic technique, who writes the plays for the theatre; whether you like him is a matter of taste. The plays written and performed by Sacha Guitry are always roaring successes and are patterns of French comedy wit, though with aheavy admixture of sheer routine workmanship. This year he was at the. Théâtre de la Madeleine.
    The smaller theatres of the type of Michel or Mathurins, which used to be very good at one time, have considerably weakened. On the other hand, the Athenée, under the management of that actor of genius Louis Jouvet, has received a strong impetus and has this year had sensational and well-deserved successes with two plays by Giraudoux.
    The Théâtre de la Michodière is managed by Victor Boucher, one of the great comedians of the old school, whom it is worth seeing even in second-rate plays. Then there are a few theatres which, more or less successfully, engage in pioneering experiments and aim at a high literary standard. These include the Atelier, the Vieux Colombier, the Théâtre Montparnasse and the Oeuvre.
    The great Pitoeff, unfortunately, has no theatre of his own, and, of course, the theatres with literary aims are continuously beset with great financial difficulties, for Paris theatre-goers are conservative and prefer to see the plays of the successful craftsmen like Henry Bernstein and Sacha Guitry rather than the works of a Crommelynck or an O’Neill, which are far above them from the literary point of view but are not “hits.”
    Among the great comedy craftsmen we include Louis Verneuil, whose latest play is now running at the Théâtre de Paris. The Théâtre Pigalle is in a category of its own. It was built by Henry de Rothschild as a real luxury-bijou theatre, with the sly idea of having his own plays produced in it. The ambitious millionaire flopped badly with his very first play, but fortunately the theatre survived, and has been carrying on with half literary and half snobbish experiments.
    The musical comedy in the classic Viennese sense has been relegated somewhat to the background in favour of a mixture of revue, vaudeville and musical play, in which form the Paris theatres have sometimes produced excellent pieces; for; generally speaking, the Paris theatre is the better the more it leaves literature and reality behind. The Bouffes Parisienne, for instance, recently scored great successes in this type of play with “Simone est comme ça” and “Flossie.”
    Those who like plays that make their flesh creep still go to the classic Grand Guignol, where one-act plays of horror and obscenity alternate like hot and cold douches, so that the audience may easily leave the theatre with a spiritual cold in the head. The demand for thrills is also catered for nowadays by the Deux Masques and the Capucines, which show real detective thrillers.
Home of Revue
    The revue is still the most typical Parisian theatrical product, and the only one that has not deteriorated.
    The revue is not a homogeneous form of art and has many variants. Revues are shown by the big music-halls, the small cabarets, and also the legitimate theatres; but they are very different forms of art. Perhaps the most delicious is the small, literary, satirical revue of which Rip is the incomparable master. This year his “Tout va très bien” goes at the Nouveautés. In the Rip revues the scenery and nudity counts for less than the extremely witty, topical and charming book and the musical hits.
Real Cabarets
    Even more intimate in setting are the miniature revues which are shown in the old