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PRECURSORS OF THE THEATER
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an advance-guard experiment. The price of seats ranged from fifty centimes to two francs. A hundred free tickets were to be distributed on certain days of the week among the poor children of the primary schools, and to certain workingmen's societies, soldiers, etc. There were Thursday matinees of French and foreign classics, in a subscription series costing ten francs for twelve performances. A subscription series for the premieres of new and original works (of which at least six were promised) was an inducement offered to the "cultured few." The other arrangements of the theater were modeled after the Berlin Schiller-Theater: the payment of dividends to the actors, suppression of the ushers' nuisance, a maximum charge of ten centimes for the checking of wraps, and the installation of a permanent exhibit of pictures, models, photographs, etc.

It was M. Beaulieu's idea—by no means the least original of his project—to send companies from his theater into the Socialist and labor centers of the provinces, and into the neighboring countries: Lyons, Saint-Étienne, Lille, Brussels, Geneva, etc.

His repertory included a large number of thesis-plays, but always of an artistic character. Among others, he was to have produced Hauptmann's The Weavers, Heijermans' The Good Hope, Émile Fabre's La Vie publique, Octave Mirbeau's Les Mauvais bergers, Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness, Anatole France's Crainquebille, Ajalbert's dramatization of the Goncourts' La Fille Élisa, Ver-