Emerging from the director's office at the Comédie-Française, the cold Parisian winter wind felt like a bucket of ice water thrown in Lionel's face.
Émile Perrin's hesitation and his continuous grumbling about the budget were entirely expected.
The first reaction of any person managing a huge and traditional institution like the Comédie-Française, when faced with such a "crazy" list, was bound to be resistance.
But Lionel was not disappointed; he had laid out the facts and handed over the power of choice.
Now, the pressure was on Perrin.
He wrapped his coat tightly and did not call a carriage, instead walking quickly along the Rue de Richelieu.
In his mind, the outline of Thunderstorm was becoming clearer.
What he wanted was not just a Thunderstorm story set in France, but a revolution in stagecraft in the true sense of the word.
A Doll's House broke the virtuality of classical theatre with its realistic sets, but Lionel intended to go further.
He wanted stage technology to become part of the narrative, making lighting, sound, and sets no longer mere backgrounds, but direct participants in the performance, stimulating the audience's senses.
The core of Thunderstorm—the family tragedy brewing in oppression and finally erupting violently, the sense of fatalism entangled with blood ties, class, passion, and destiny...
These dramatic effects required a matching, more impactful stage presentation to be perfectly rendered.
The autocratic Zhou Puyuan, the tragic Lu Shiping, the desperately resisting Fanyi, the weak and struggling Zhou Ping style...
The core essence of these characters could be completely transplanted into 19th-century France, given new flesh and soul.
As he walked, he rapidly devised "localization" concepts in his head.
The story setting must be in the 1870s, and it must be Paris; no other city could represent France adequately.
He wanted to retain the original work's confinement and oppression, yet integrate the unique turbulence and transformation of French society following the collapse of the Second Empire.
That "Zhou Puyuan" was originally the son of a large landlord in the countryside of Rouen, who, by marrying a noblewoman of the Second Empire, transformed into a major capitalist.
That "Lu Shiping" was originally a manor maid who bore the young master two children before being driven away when the young master was set to marry the noblewoman.
And "Fanyi," this woman imprisoned in a gilded cage—her pain, her resistance, her passion verging on destruction—symbolically and in terms of character tension, far surpassed Nora from A Doll's House.
She was not just a person, but a symbol of the power that becomes twisted in suppression and finally seeks explosion.
As for Zhou Ping, Zhou Chong, and Sifeng, their tragedy was both the cruel trick of fate and the inevitable product of the old shackles.
When these characters and their conflicts were placed within a tangible, realistic stage environment that could even "breathe" as the plot advanced—
When thunder was no longer the false sound made by shaking iron sheets backstage, but a more textured roar;
When lightning was no longer white light painted on a curtain, but a blinding glare that instantly illuminated the fear on the actors' faces—
—then the emotional impact achievable would be something audiences of this era had never experienced.
Lionel knew this was difficult, especially since arc lamps were harsh and unstable, and controlling their on/off changes was a major challenge.
But just as Nikola Tesla had explained to him, the technical conditions were not entirely absent; it was just that no one had yet integrated them into drama.
The Opera House's clumsy attempt a few years prior ultimately failed because it lacked a matching script.
Once it was proven that this new lighting could serve the dramatic content, it would soon become popular and spur more plays dependent on this stage technology.
Building a realistic two-story indoor set was a huge test for the stage's load-bearing capacity.
It must be remembered that 19th-century theatre stages were not "solid" but "suspended" on wooden or steel frameworks, much like a ship's deck.
Beneath the stage was not storage, but various stage machinery and a crisscrossing network of gas pipes.
For a large theatre to achieve the crude lighting effects that would later seem so rudimentary using gaslights, hundreds of gas pipes and hundreds of various valves had to be installed.
This was naturally very unsafe—in fact, before electric lights completely replaced gaslights for audience and stage illumination, several European theatres burned down almost every year.
In 1873, the old Paris Opera House (the Salle Le Peletier) burned down due to a gas leak.
This was also one of the reasons Lionel rarely visited theatres compared to other Parisian writers; he didn't want to be blown sky-high while watching a show.
Electric lights—whether incandescent or arc—were far easier to control and much safer than gas.
Thunderstorm happened to be a play whose theme could evoke emotional resonance from the French public while also being technically achievable.
In this era, no one knew better than Lionel how electric light should be applied and presented on stage.
Only he had seen how a true "electrified stage" operated.
Other well-known plays, such as Teahouse, not only had much larger cultural background differences than Thunderstorm but also offered little in terms of technological innovation.
And a musical like The Phantom of the Opera, setting aside the script, required stage technology from the 1980s—all the engineers in the world in the 19th century couldn't manage it.
Of course, if audiences could accept waiting a week for the next act's set and lighting to be installed after every 30 minutes of viewing—that audience probably hadn't been born yet.
A counterintuitive fact is that literary works, as "spiritual products," are constrained or promoted by material conditions far more than most people imagine.
Before the popularization of photography, novelists had to describe environments extensively; once the camera appeared, everyone acquired a sense of "cinematic perspective" switching.
Drama, as a stage art, is even more dependent on technology than the novel; technology can even dictate the plot to some extent.
Lionel believed, almost arrogantly, that if the technical conditions met his requirements, the play Thunderstorm could dispense with actors entirely.
Simply setting up a real two-story set, lighting the electric lamps, and then having two hours of "lightning and thunder" would cause a sensation.
Every master playwright in Europe would come to Paris, drooling as they watched for 3 hours, and then return home to whip their theatre managers into performing stage renovations.
After all, the world's first "movie," Arrival of a Train, had no plot and was only 46 seconds long, yet audiences flocked to buy tickets.
Wait, cinema—Lionel suddenly remembered that the inventor of the camera was also French... He shook his head, putting that thought aside for now.
He needed to focus on Thunderstorm—the appearance of A Doll's House signaled that European dramatic art was on the verge of transformation.
Lionel intended to take the lead and blaze this new path for theatre!
Regardless of whether Émile Perrin finally agreed, he would write Thunderstorm.
If the Comédie-Française remained conservative, he would seek a more adventurous collaborator—perhaps the Paris Opera, which was currently riding the wave of success from A Doll's House.
Or perhaps smaller, more innovation-minded private theatres.
Upon returning to the residence at 117 Boulevard Saint-Germain, it was nearly dusk.
The newly hired cook was busy in the kitchen, and Patty was doing homework in the living room.
Seeing Lionel, Patty hurried over:
"Master, you're back! Miss Sophie came by earlier. Seeing you weren't here, she left something on your desk. Sister Alice hasn't returned from the cooperative yet."
Lionel nodded, took off his coat and hung it up, and headed straight for the study.
On the desk lay a stack of manuscript paper, with a note placed on top.
Sophie briefly informed him that the initial feedback on typewriter sales had been compiled and was ready for his reference.
At the end, she added a line:
"Take care of yourself and don't work too hard."
This simple concern warmed Lionel's heart.
He tucked the note away, rolled fresh paper onto the typewriter carriage, and solemnly typed the title: Thunderstorm.
(End of Chapter)