To return to the Diplomatic Theatricals at Petrograd, Labiche's
piece, La Cagnotte, is extraordinarily funny, though written over
sixty years ago. We gave a very successful performance of this, in
which I played the restaurant waiter--a capital part. La Lettre
Chargee and Le Sous-Prefet are both most amusing pieces, which can
be played, with very slight "cuts," before any audience, and they
both bubble over with that gaiete francaise which appeals so to
me. We were coached at Petrograd by Andrieux, the jeune premier of
the Theatre Michel, and we all became very professional indeed,
never talking of Au Seconde Acte, but saying Au Deux, in proper
French stage style. We also endeavoured to cultivate the long-
drawn-out "a's" of the Comedie Francaise, and pronounced
"adorahtion" and "imaginahtion" in the traditional manner of the
"Maison de Moliere."
The British business community in Petrograd were also extremely
fond of getting up theatricals, in this case, of course, in
English. If in the French plays I was invariably cast for old men,
in the English ones I was always allotted the extremely juvenile
parts, being still very slim and able to "make up" young.
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