The Empire of Varieties

The Theatre is dark, the audience long gone; now across the empty stage the phantoms pass. The unseen interlocutor bangs his gavel as each crosses the apron:
A fantastic carnivorous bird-winged beast, half woman, half lion, a gentleman lothario with seven tentacles, a cadaverous doctor carrying a pick and shovel, and then a slow procession of nuns at their rosaries, dead sailors, duellists and star-crossed lovers, and bringing up the rear a haunted antiquarian and his scuttling shadow...
May I Present...For This Night Only....The Empire Of Varieties!