In the grand hall of the Tuileries Palace's East Hall, the Gozzi Troupe from Venice was performing the classic play Turandot.
This was the signature work of the renowned playwright Carlo Gozzi. Though it had been performed throughout Europe for over twenty years, it remained immensely popular.
Meanwhile, Joseph and his family were in the South Hall, watching Puss in Boots, a new work by the young Prussian playwright Johann Ludwig Tieck.
When he had seen that title on the Drama Festival registration form last month, he had briefly felt as though he had returned to a movie theater in the twenty-first century.
But he soon confirmed that this was indeed a script the Prussian had written only last year. The animated film of later generations had likely borrowed the play's character settings for its adaptation.
Thus, he decisively selected this play as one of the productions to be staged on the first day of the Drama Festival.
Under the festival rules, two plays would be performed simultaneously each day. The judging panel would then assign a score, while the audience on site would also give one. The average of the two would serve as the play's final score.
This new scoring system, which allowed audience participation, further ignited people's enthusiasm—who would not want to indulge in being a judge themselves, especially the kind of judge who could influence the award results of a world-class Drama Festival?
Quite a few people had even traveled thousands of miles to Paris, buying tickets to enter and watch, all in hopes that a play from their own country might win an award.
In the VIP seats on the second floor of the South Hall's grand hall, Queen Mary and Alexandra kept their eyes fixed on the actors moving across the stage, smiles of