The year 1674 is a very interesting one for the study of Racine. In that year a quarrel had temporarily separated Lully and Quinault, and the composer needed a new libretto. Racine (aided by Boileau) began work on La Chute de Phaëton, and although the opera was never finished (as Louis XIV forced Lully to work again with Quinault) the fact that Racine agreed, however reluctantly, to compose verse for opera is not without significance. Indeed, Vanuxem has argued that Racine was here showing a continuing interest in this form since he had already been engaged three years earlier on an opera based on the story of Orpheus, of which nothing survives. Quinault's extraordinarily successful opera Alceste was performed at Versailles on 7 July 1674 while, in the same year, Boileau celebrated his increasing importance at Court and in literary circles with the publication of a translation from the Greek of a Treatise on the Sublime, a work traditionally attributed to Longinus. And finally, in August 1674, Racine's Iphigènie received its first performance in a spectacular setting, in a theatre, built at the entrance of the Orangerie at Versailles, created for the occasion by the Vigarani brothers. The play was much applauded, and yet the excitement it aroused was outdone by the illuminations and fireworks which exploded immediately after its performance. Some 30,000 varied fireworks were invented by Le Brun to celebrate the magnificence of Louis XIV triumphing over his foes despite ‘L'Envie representée par le Dragon’ belching forth from every orifice torrents of flame and thick smoke.

In the process of concluding my thesis, ‘Alfred de Vigny and the French Romantic Theatre’ (Cornell University, 1973), I had written to France requesting permission to publish the various iconographic material relevant to the productions of Vigny's plays. A note from M. Sangnier was forwarded to me via the Association des Amis d'Alfred de Vigny concerning the existence in M. Sangnier's collection of two costume sketches by Delacroix ascribed to Vigny's La Maréchale d'Ancre. This ascription came as a pleasant surprise to me as there is no mention of Delacroix' association with the production in either his or Vigny's published papers, or in contemporary reviews of the production. A quick check of Delacroix biographies and catalogues confirmed my suspicion that the sketches (Plates I and II) had been heretofore unknown.

J. T. Grein, a Dutchman who was the founder of the Independent Theatre Society, first stated the aims such a body should have in the article he wrote with C. W. Jarvis in The Weekly Comedy (30 November 1889). It should be ‘a theatre free from the shackles of the censor, free from the fetters of convention, unhampered by financial considerations’.

Was the Abbey Theatre company partly responsible for the original Playboy riots? Synge's comedy would have shocked Irish patriotism and propriety under any circumstances, but did the author and Frank and William Fay provide fuel for the flames by the manner in which they produced the work? The reaction of Dublin has been readily dismissed as mere philistinism, but without any attempt to assess how much the audience was provoked. Yet one thing is clear: the first night audience of Saturday, 26 January 1907, did not come to riot. On the contrary, they gave the play a fair critical hearing, and all accounts are agreed that vocal protest (far short of a riot) did not break out until late in the evening. It is also known that after the death of Synge and the departure of the Fays, the interpretation of the play was radically revised to make the production more palatable. It is reasonable to enquire, therefore, what the company originally had in mind.

The story of the production in 1928 by the Moscow Arts Theatre (MKhAT) of Valentin Kataev's play Rastratchiki (The Embezzlers) is of interest both in itself, as part of the history of the Russian stage, and for the light it sheds on the character and artistic ideas of the theatre's leading figure K. S. Stanislavsky. In order to understand the importance of the staging by MKhAT of modern plays written by young, relatively unknown authors, one must appreciate the uniquely prestigious position of the theatre and its directors in the cultural life of the country. The fact that Chekhov's plays had first been performed by the theatre, the importance of the new style of acting propounded by Stanislavsky and the venerability of Stanislavksy and Nemirovich-Danchenko secured for MKhAT a position of great cultural importance.

This is the way in which in 1882 the journalist and writer Julius Hart — later one of the founders of the Freie Bühne – experienced the magnetic attraction of the young German capital. Like Hart, hundreds of poets, journalists, writers, actors rushed to the rapidly expanding metropolis which seemed to offer opportunities for all talents. From 1880 until the 1930s, Berlin represented a sort of theatrical Mecca. Writing and performing artists alike were completely captivated by the Berlin theatres, looking for their inspiration particularly to the Deutsches Theater, the Lessingtheater, the Schauspielhaus am Gendarmenmarkt; similarly, the editors of the entertainment sections of the provincial newspapers took as gospel the reviews in the Vossische Zeitung, the Berliner Tageblatt and the Berliner Börsen-Courier.