The Comedie Francaise at Orange by Thomas A. Janvier

After a lapse of nearly fifteen centuries, the Roman theatre at Orange -- founded in the time of Marcus Aurelius and abandoned, two hundred years later, when the Northern barbarians overran the land -- seems destined to arise reanimate from its ruins and to be the scene of periodic performances by the Comedie Francaise: the first dramatic company of Europe playing on the noblest stage in the world. During the past five-and-twenty years various attempts have been made to compass this happy end. Now -- as the result of the representations of "Oedipus" and "Antigone" at Orange, under government patronage and by the leading actors of the National Theatre -- these spasmodic efforts have crystallized into a steadfast endeavour which promises to restore and to repeople that long-abandoned stage.[4]

[4] As yet (1902) these high hopes have not been fully realized. In the past eight years dramatic performances repeatedly have been given in the Orange theatre, and always with a brilliant success; but their establishment as fixtures, to come off at regular intervals, still is to be accomplished.