The Comedie Francaise at Orange by Thomas A. Janvier

In this perfect poetic setting the play went on with a stately slowness -- that yet was all too fast for the onlookers -- and with the perfection of finish that such actors naturally gave to their work amidst surroundings by which they were at once stimulated and inspired. Even the practical defects of the ruinous theatre were turned into poetical advantages which made the tragic action still more real. The woeful entrance of _Oedipus_ and the despairing retreat of _Jocasta_ were rendered the more impressive by momentary pauses in the broken doorway -- that emphasized by its wreck their own wrecked happiness; in "Antigone" a touching beauty was given to the entry of the blind _Tiresias_ by his slow approach from the distant side of the theatre, led by a child through the maze of bushes and around the fallen fragments of stone; and Mademoiselle Bartet (_Antigone_), unable to pass by the door that should have been but was not open for her, made a still finer exit by descending the steps at the side of the stage and disappearing among the trees.

But the most perfect of those artistic utilizations of chance accessories -- which were the more effective precisely because they were accidental, and the more appreciated because their use so obviously was an inspiration -- was the final exit of _Oedipus_: a departure "into desert regions" that Mounet-Sully was able to make very literally real.