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Edison's Comedy and Tragedy was designed as a showcase for French pantomime artist Mademoiselle Pillar Morin. The story, borrowed from an old vaudeville sketch, concerns a prince who suspects that his sweetheart, a stage actress, is having an affair with the prince's bodyguard. The regent coldly informs the actress that, should the bodyguard evince any sort of affection towards her, he will be executed on the spot. To save her lover, the actress pretends to spurn him, though it is clear to the audience that she doesn't mean what she says. In a climax that Marcel Marceau might envy, the actress is forced to perform a comedy scene while her lover is being stabbed to death.