I am just writing about our negative perceptions of theatricality and where they came from (I blame Nietzsche) and I love this quote.

The modern impresario must not know anything at all about the theatre, about music, poetry, or painting. He may give in to the clamouring of his friends and hire some stage hands, conductors, dancers, tailors, and extras, but in this he should use the utmost economy so that he can spend all the more on singers, especially prima donnas, as well as on the bear, a tiger, flashes of lightning, thunderbolts, and earthquakes.

From Benedetto Marcello, Il Teatro alla Moda, 1721

This could be tweaked to be about Hollywood and no one would even notice.