The Shadow of Great Britain

Moreover, the difficulty of this collaboration is not in convincing the Great Dumas to agree, but rather in circumventing the theater license system in France that dates back to the era of Napoleon.

According to relevant legal regulations, all theaters in France must be approved by the French Government to be established, and even changes in operatives require filing with the government. Foreign capital cannot directly own French public performance venues as a corporate entity, especially those theaters named after the country, region, or historical figures.

Therefore, as per the so-called cooperation agreement, the ownership of the Historical Theatre rightfully remains with the French citizen Great Dumas, but the management rights, program operation rights, and financial dispatch rights have been quietly transferred in a ”Theatre Asset Trust Agreement” drafted by a British law firm to a cultural partnership organization established in Belgium.

This partnership, named ”Continental Cultural Arts Development Trust,” is registered and legally represented by the famous Belgian sculptor Mr. Guillaume Giffes, and its main guarantor is the England Electromagnetic Telegraph Company’s business representative office in Brussels.

As for why the legal representative is Mr. Guillaume Giffes?

I think it’s largely because Sir Arthur Hastings greatly admires this gentleman’s sculptural art.

Also, Arthur holds high regard for his wife, the Irish-born Belgian painter Fanny Giffes and her exquisite painting skills.

Of course, as a meticulous financial investor, we cannot exclude some peripheral factors.

For instance, Mrs. Fanny Giffes has a good friend who happens to be both a French princess and the Queen of Belgium.

However, these hidden details are often only known to the most senior investors, such as the two major shareholders of Empire Publishing Company, Rothschild Bank and Baring Bank.

Compared to the collaboration between Empire Publishing and the Paris Historical Theatre, most people still focused their attention on their acquisition case of the St. James Theatre.

Indeed, St. James Theatre is excellently located, situated between White Hall and Pall Mall Street, diagonally opposite St. James’s Palace, and very close to the Royal Family. As early as when St. James Theatre was founded in 1835, a parliamentarian privately referred to it as the ”unofficial stage closest to Parliament.”

But, for some reason, this theater never managed to shine as its founder John Brahman expected.

The theater invested heavily in several new plays, only to suffer major box office failures one after another.

In recent years, only two plays have made money for this theater, and both were penned by Charles Dickens. One is the farce ”Strange Gentleman,” and the other is ”Oliver Twist.”

In an effort to reverse the downturn, earlier this year Brahman took the costly gamble of inviting the most famous French theater troupe to perform, hoping to make a last bet with this performance.

As expected, his gamble lost again.

Not only did Brahman fail to turn the tide, but he also incurred heavy debt, falling into financial difficulty. To repay his debts, he had to put St. James Theatre up for sale.

Although St. James Theatre’s performance was poor, its location is still an advantage.

Thus, as soon as news of the theater seeking a transfer was released, it received countless acquisition proposals.

Among the many bidders, the most promising seemed to be Alfred Bonn, a super theater manager known in London as the ”great dictator of Drury Lane and Covent Garden.”

But surprisingly, after Empire Publishing Company entered the fray, Bonn, who always had a strong attitude towards others, surprisingly yielded.

He not only agreed to ”humble himself” to jointly acquire St. James Theatre with Empire Publishing Company but also planned to resign from his managerial position at Drury Lane Theatre and Covent Garden Theatre and turn his full attention to operating St. James Theatre.

Reportedly, Bonn made this formal decision after meeting with Sir Arthur Hastings, chairman of Empire Publishing Company’s board.

But what exactly they discussed between them is perhaps the biggest unsolved mystery of the year in the London theater industry.

On that evening, although the twilight over the south bank of the Thames River had not yet fully descended, the newly acquired St. James Theatre was already brightly lit.

On the stage, the organist was familiarizing himself with the new keyboard, and the violinists practiced the main melody repeatedly, while backstage, the carpenter was dragging a wooden backdrop that had yet to be painted, cursing his misplaced hammer amidst the sawdust.

The lights beneath the stage had yet to dim, but the entire theater was already enveloped in an atmosphere of tension on the eve of a significant change.

The gentleman loudly shouting in the center of the stage, ”The brass! Move the brass just half a step to the left!” was none other than Mr. Alfred Bonn, who had just stepped down from his dual roles at Drury Lane Theatre and Covent Garden Theatre, now fully invested in the new battleground of St. James Theatre.

”The Lithograph of Alfred Bonn” by British lithographer Richard Lane, created in 1837

This talented manager who became a theater manager at the age of 29, was once sarcastically referred to by actors as ”a madman who treats actors like typesetters,” but perhaps it is precisely due to this theater tyrant’s iron hand and obsessive personality that every theater managed by Bonn has achieved great success. Currently, more than half of the famous actors in London City have been promoted by Bonn.