Francisque Sarcey

[1] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, he was a masterly judge of acting and of stage effect; his views as to the drama itself were narrow and indifferent to artistic progress.

[1] For example, in 1896, he reviewed the premiere of Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi—a precursor of the Theatre of the Absurd—and called it "a filthy fraud which deserves nothing but the silence of contempt."

Between 1886 and 1893, the writer and humorist Alphonse Allais published a notorious series of newspaper columns under Sarcey's name with titles such as "How I Became an Idiot."

Sarcey published several miscellaneous works, of which the most interesting are Le Siège de Paris, an account compiled from his diary (1871), Comédiens et comédiennes (1878-1884), Souvenirs de jeunesse (1884) and Souvenirs d'âge mûr (1892; Eng.

Quarante ans de théâtre (1900) is a selection (in 8 volumes) from his dramatic Feuilletons edited by Adolphe Brisson.