tE41 ttljtatrt5.
The popular melodrama, entitled Flowers of the Forest, has been re- vived this week at the Adelphi Theatre, after an interval of seven years. Veteran playgoers when they look upon the stage will be apt to think more of their absent friends, than of the phenomena immediately before them. Madame Celeste is no longer the devoted gipsy Cynthia, Mr. Wright no longer scatters about his reckless jokes as Cheap John ; there is no Mr. 0. Smith to look terribly picturesque as Ishmael the Wolf; nor a Mrs. Fitzwilliam to represent the warm-hearted Starlight Bess. Miss Woolgar, who plays the boy Lemuel, and Mr. Paul Bedford, who is the fat gipsy thief, are the only visible survivors of the old stock Adelphi company, by whom the piece was originally performed. How- ever, the young hands seem zealous in their calling, and we cannot re- frain from the belief that a few new dramas of the same stamp as Flowers of the Forest, would do more good for the Adelphi Theatre than those pieces of the "petite comedie " kind that have lately figured in the bill. The old Adelphi was, for many years, the most steadily pros- perous theatre in London, and surely something of its character might be carried into the new theatre with advantage.
Mr. Webster, as lessee of the house, took his benefit on Saturday, and in a drama called One Tones of Nature played a part of marked pecu- liarity, with such admirable force and truthfulness, that one could not help regretting the rarity of his appearance on his own boards. Ho re- presented a man in the most abject state of poverty, but at the same time the father of a rising actress, who, having been parted from him at an early age, does not in the least remember him, though he constantly watches her progress. The actress, who in a new piece has to assume the character of a female in a position similar to her own, offends the au- thor, during rehearsal, by the coldness of her manner, when the recogni- tion of the lost parent eventually takes place. However, the old man, who gets a scanty living as a copier of plays, requests the author to allow him to take the father's part at a private rehearsal, and in this position displays so much feeling and works so successfully on his daughter's heart, that she not only delights the dramatist, but really re- cognizes her parent. The drama itself is a mere sketch drawn for the sake of this one situation, and indeed if it were rendered more sketchy still by the omission of extraneous matter, the change would be an im- provement. But Mr. Webster's combination of the real and the assumed father in one person at the same moment of time is so novel, and at the same time so striking, that the piece, if repeated, is likely to take a pro- minent position as a "drama of character.'
The success of the Corsican Brothers at the Princess's Theatre has been so great, that the revival of the Wife's Secret is postponed to Monday next.