Victorien Sardou - Legacy

Legacy

Irish playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw said of La Tosca: "Such an empty-headed ghost of a shocker...Oh, if it had but been an opera!". He also came up with the dismissive term "Sardoodledom" in a review of Sardou plays (The Saturday Review, 1 June 1895). Shaw believed that Sardou's contrived dramatic machinery was creaky and that his plays were empty of ideas. Sardou's advice to young playwrights on how to be successful was to "Torture the women!" as part of any play construction.

After producer Sir Squire Bancroft saw the dress rehearsal for Fedora, he said in his memoirs "In five minutes the audience was under a spell which did not once abate throughout the whole four acts. Never was treatment of a strange and dangerous subject more masterly, never was acting more superb than Sarah showed that day." William Winter said of Fedora that "the distinguishing characteristic of this drama is carnality."

In New Orleans, during the period when much of its upper class still spoke French, Antoine Alciatore, founder of the famous old restaurant Antoine's, invented a dish called Eggs Sardou in honor of the playwright's visit to the city.