Benefit Performance

Reading notes

• The Impresario Under the Sofa §18 half a benefit performance

  A benefit performance (бенефис) gave its featured performer the box-office proceeds (minus expenses) for that night, a standard and valuable perk in the Russian provincial theater system; Indyukov's offer of 'half a benefit' is a real, substantial bribe, not an empty gesture -- which sharpens the joke when he withdraws it.

• The Nightingale's Benefit §1 review

  The sketch's whole conceit: a nightingale's song is mock-reviewed as though it were a theatrical benefit performance, complete with program, audience patience, and a beneficiary who is finally caught rather than applauded.

• The Nightingale's Benefit §2 beneficiary

  The nightingale, cast throughout as the evening's beneficiary -- the performer for whom the whole program is arranged and whose turn the audience awaits.

• Kalkhas §3 сегодня его бенефис

  A benefit performance (бенефис) was an evening whose box-office take, or a share of it, went to a single member of the troupe, usually as a mark of long service or seniority. Svetlovidov's benefit -- called out sixteen times, given three wreaths -- is the occasion being celebrated (and drunk through) as the story opens; it also underscores the thirty-five years of service he mentions.

• Revenge §1 benefit

  A benefit performance (бенефис) gave one member of a theater troupe the evening's box-office proceeds (minus expenses), traditionally as a mark of seniority or reward; it fell to the beneficiary to see that the production went well.

• The Tragedian §1 benefit performance

  A provincial-theater custom in which a single performance's box-office takings (or a share of them) went to one featured actor rather than the management, a common way traveling troupes rewarded a leading player.