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What did people do before movies? How did they get their Monte Cristo fix in watching the story unfold before their very eyes? They watched PLAYS! Time-tested and a respectable artform for thousands of years!

In my research, the most popular of these plays was, hands down, by James O'Neill. He performed this (and was typecast) for 40 years from the late 19th century into the early 20th century. And his version is still being performed in the 21st century!

But... is it Alexandre Dumas' tale? TBH... not quite. There are limitations of what can be done onstage, and things get very talky because they can't actually SHOW a lot of the action. It makes a LOT of changes to the story, and certain villains meet their demise in non-book ways. There are parts that nod at the book, but end up being unused. O'Neill's rewrite of Charles Fetcher's script ends very strangely, and we have no idea what happens to the Count!

https://abbreviatedmontecristo.blogspot.com/2022/12/monte-cristo-play-by-charles-fetcher.html