COMEDIE FRANCHAISE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20038, 5 January 1928, Page 2

COMEDIE FRANCHAISE

A 20-YEAR-OLD MONOPOLY. | I ACTRESS TO PAY DAMAGES PARIS, Dec. 24. By a judgment secured in the First Chamber of the Civil Court, the Comedie Fraacaise, the principal theatre in France has once more vindicated its claim to hold a monopoly for twenty years of the services of actors ami actresses who me admitted to its company. The ease was a claim by the theatre for 300,000 f damages against Mme. Huguctte-Duflos and M- Lehmann, manager of the Porto Saint Martin Theatre, the claim being based on the contention that by resigning from the Comedie Franeaise company after having b'een a member for only ten years Mme Huguettc-Duflos had broken het contract and that M. Lehmann, by engaging her to appear in a revue which he was producing, had made ‘himself a party to this offence. The rule which obliges artists of the Comedic Franeaise to servo that theatre and no other for twenty years has been the subject of much criticism, but it remains as it was laid down by Napoleon Bonaparte when by decree he fixed the constitution of the National Theatre. Madame HuguettcDuflos and M. Lehmann have, therebees ordered to pay jointly 150,000 f (about £1,200) damages.