Cedric watched, as he sometimes did, from a balcony. His actors were accomplished enough that they rarely required his assistance by the time their performances went public; and his stage hands were perfectly capable of looking after the little things that sometimes went wrong, or last-minute details that had somehow gone overlooked. If they desperately needed him, he was only a moment away. But for first performances, in particular, he liked to see what the spectator saw. It allowed him to see if anything needed fixing for the remainder of the run. It also allowed him to better gauge the reception of the crowd, hear the little murmurs that did not reach the stage beneath the laughter and outcries.
This particular debut, he was pleased to note, was a harbinger of good things to come. The prestigious Curtain theatre was filled to capacity. The masses had been appropriately shocked and charmed by the rogue Bartoleme, and they had been scandalized and enchanted by the lovely Lisette. As the climax of the tale neared, they were on the edges of their seats, just waiting to see what happened next.
Renaud could stand to be a little more pithy during his second soliloquy, though...
