SNAPSHOTS :
SNAPSHOTS : ByGeorge Middleton FOR A STRANGER in Paris who doesn't speak French, getting the-ater tickets presents complications. The safest thing is to tell the hotel concierge that you want to...
...Even at that she is no more adept than hat checkers in our American restaurant...
...If, however, you should ask your concierge to get you tickets for the Comedie Francaise or the Odc-on, he will do so while concealing his amazement...
...Consequently the box-offices all close about six and open again just before the play begins...
...Then repeating the numbers to yourself, you look madly around for the model of the theater, to see whether you like the seats...
...But even if you should have to wait in line, doing so is not without its adventures...
...So I always took what was offered...
...But you can't tell when you buy your seat what you may draw...
...And sho obligingly explained it...
...As their na.ne indicates, they originally opened the door of the boxes which are always, so numerous in French theaters...
...Then you generously give him a large tip, just to show that you understand the customs of the country...
...For the Parisian quite rightly loves his luncheon hour, and only strenuous Americans wonder what has happened to everybody before two o'clock...
...There are 160 national forests, scattered through 32 states and the territories of Hawaii, Alaska and Porto Rico...
...but, after reading in the Temps that the mystic hour is in reality eight-thirty, you take time for an extra cup of coffee...
...If, by any chance* as it happened frequently to me, you should find your ' seat yourself, she will discover it before the evening is over and come down for her inevitable tip...
...Nobody loves them...
...He will understand the American vernacular and immediately order you seats for the Folies-Ber-ge-re...
...Thrs pad is sometimes turned in to the manager...
...He is always polite, no matter what strange things foreigners may do...
...everybody rails against them, arid yet they are kept alive by the very tips (benefices) which are given them—so great is the force of habit of a Frenchman...
...The point is that it is not done for public convenience, but for private income—hen i0 their persistent attentions...
...The tedium was relieved by a stately lady who pushed us all aside, marching majestically to the head of the line, putting her money down and demanding two seats at once—and getting them...
...This majestic institution is generally a triumvirate upon a wooden throne, representing, so far as I could make out, the "assistance publique," who keeps an eye on the taxes which go to various charities, The Author's Society, who keeps another eye on the author's royalties, and the manager...
...The seat numbers are seldom marked on them and so, before a sale is made, you are told, from a plan the buraliste keeps concealed, exactly which seats you may have...
...All good Americans start there...
...The safest thing is to tell the hotel concierge that you want to see "a good show...
...She is unique and deserves her own paragraph...
...Each one keeps a little pad with the seat number on it, and as she places a spectator he is checked up...
...and there's plenty of "form" at this theater...
...others are paid a small sum each night and the manager collects...
...Then, after being held up on the Boulevard in your taxi, you enter breathlessly at nine, to find the fire curing hasn't even been taken up...
...As I always insisted on having seats down front, I finally learned not to buy an admission unless somebody went in ahead of me and found out whether or not the controle would give me the desired seat...
...Just venture boldly up to the box-office yourself and see what happens...
...This system is being slowly abolished, but even now the overworked woman who sells the tickets must write upon them the seat number and the date...
...And as it is portioned off, no one escapes them...
...Th: y are a tradition, a habit—one of the most venerable and entrenched of institutions...
...As the theaters of Paris don't have to finish at any particular time they generally wait for the audience...
...First, the vestiaire insists m taking your hat, coat, stick and any other little articles she may spy...
...We all protested, this time, but he kily informed us he was "a friend of the manager...
...Dont make the mistake of getting there too early...
...By the time you find this you have forgotten the complicated French numbers...
...I started to complain in my best nervous French, but she retorted with a line of picturesque phrases, the significance of which I grasped without understanding it literally...
...You read the affiche stuck conveniently on the attractive kiosques which dot the street corners, and you find it begins at eight...
...This theater is designed for foreigners...
...In plain English they are the ushers (always female) who show you to your seat...
...but I suspect its real intention is to help her keep tabs on you...
...Of course, all this trouble might have been obviated had I gone simply to the ticket-agents like any other decent American...
...An instant later a well-dressed official obtained his tickets the same way...
...In Paris they do not follow this profession intermittently to piece out a living, as here...
...At every entrance the ouvreuse is waiting to pass you on to the one entitled to you—and that is determined by the number of your ticket...
...One must be personal in Paris...
...But I was trying to do in Paris as the Parisians did — at least as well as I could...
...Thus the average American gets a purely visual impression of the French stage—which is unfortunate and unfair...
...but I defy anyone to give away the secret absolutely in Paris...
...It is generally essential to know approximately when the play is to begin...
...Except for the subsidized theaters, I gave up guessing the hour after two years...
...the box-offices never open before eleven and the chances are that at noon they will be closed again...
...When I reached the buraliste—it's always a woman who sells the seats—she was in a state of exhaustion...
...But now their dominion spreads all over the theater...
...I recall patiently standing for a half hour while six people were getting their seats...
...Sometimes these women get what they make...
...When you present your pass to the man who now has the plan of the house in his possession, he gives you whatever seat may be left...
...When I finally smiled and assured her I sympathized with her, she melted before my personal interest...
...The reason is obvious...
...They play fair among themselves...
...If you jjo to buy a seat the night of the performance, you are given a blank ticket which lets you pass the doorman to the controle...
...This miniature modeb of the auditorium is often standing at the other end of the lobby...
...Meantime the line waits...
...The ordinary play is Greek to the average tourist...
...then she must add and cancel a stamp to comply with the tax law...
...but form and pantomime need no interpreters...
...Then I held up the line myself trying to find out the cause of the delay...
...If you are ignorant of the custom, she may tell you that the French law requires this surrender of all your personal property...
...Once safely in, however, you are immedia' ly welcomed...
...Of course, everything you check must be paid for—generally per article...
...Then, too, the government in its taxation makes a distinction between tickets sold in advance (location) and those iold at the opening of the performance...
...which is troublesome to the American, who, by habit, has been accustomed to feci i >r his rubbers at eleven o'clock on pain of mining that last suburban train...
...This cost me an extra franc or two in tips but I generally succeeded...
...ONCE safely past there, however, vou r in plumb into that other Parisian institution known as the ouvreuse or placeuse...
...The area of National forests is now 158,800 424 acres...
...The man whose turn it was protested, but she scornfully crushed him with the unanswerable argument: "I am older than you...
...Tickets are not generally printed on cardboard with stubs, as with us...
...This isn't left to chance tips, as with us...
Vol. 20 • January 1928 • No. 1
