The Empire of Varieties

The Theatre is dark the audience long gone; now across the empty stage the phantoms pass. The unseen interlocutor bangs his gavel as each crosses the apron: A fantastic carnivorous bird-winged beast half woman half lion a gentleman lothario with seven tentacles a cadaverous doctor carrying a pick and shovel and then a slow procession of nuns at their rosaries dead sailors duellists and star-crossed lovers and bringing up the rear a haunted antiquarian and his scuttling shadow... May I Present...For This Night Only....The Empire Of Varieties!