THE THEATRES.
In commenting on the various failures which have but too frequently occurred in the theatrical world, we have more than once taken occasion to expatiate on the necessity of telling a story well, to amuse an audience. No amount of wit or of poetry, of profundity or of passion, will compensate for a deficiency in this requisite: but, on the other hand, let the tale be well conducted, and it is surprising how moderate an audience will be in eventing other means of gratification.
In this circumstance, as we have also said, lies the ground of schism between the envious literati connected with the stage. The men who can write for the theatre are despised by those who cannot write, but have a vague notion as to the purpose to which a high drama might be applied. To the latter class, the fact that a play succeeds just because it keeps up the attention for a given time, and affords opportunities for a favourite actor or two to make a display, is detestable; and yet this fact obstinately refuses to be talked down. The Lady of Lyons, with its doubtful moral, without any "writing" at all, but with four acts capitally managed, sticks to the bills with grim reality, and, however hacknied, draws good audiences at all sorts of places, and defies the utterances of the most exalted theorists.
To people who will look at the affair from a common-sense point of view this state of things is perfectly intelligible. Of the vast class o' people who devour novels, the majority demands to be satisfied by the story: deep reflection and delineation of character, however they may contribute to the immortality of a writer, and however they may cause a man's works to be referred to when contemporary productions are forgotten, still only affect a minority of the readers of his own day, when he is read for amusement and not because he has an established name. How many of those who love the last new novel look with impatience at the second volume, and peep prematurely at the conclusion of the third, that they may know as soon as possible whether Lord de Lacy marries Miss Montague! Now these readers of novels are an educated class, and highly refined and reflective, compared to the mass assembled within the walls of a theatre. The novel-writer has nothing to do with such an assemblage as that which throngs the gallery on a holyday occasion. And difference of rank and education is not the only distinction between the playgoing mass and the novel-readers. There is a whole body of idlers of all stations, who would not turn over nine hundred pages on any account, but delight in witnes- sing the performances of a theatre. All these have to be considered. Those loose young men who consider a visit to the play merely as a portion of an evening's "lark," are the very persons who are likely to " damn " your drama if they are not amused. Perhaps the highly intellectual visiters can least of all be set down among "lee classes dangereuses" of a theatri- cal community.
The consequence of these preliminaries is clear. If even to a more se'ect class a tale is more attractive, as a tale, than on account of its literary qua- lities, a fortiori with a less select class the obvious way of pleasing must be the most successful one. What we say applies especially to new plays: an established work may draw an audience precisely because it is famous. Tons Jones has fifty times as many readers as The Adventures of a Guinea. it is unquestionably an infinitely better book; yet it is not because they have made this reflection that the great number of readers make a point of perusing it, but because they have been told that Fielding is a great man, and that Tom Jones is his chef d'eeuvre, and have not heard the same about the author of Chrysal.
We are perfectly certain that the brilliant success of Mr. Lovell's play will excite among many persons the depreciating inquiry, "What is there in it?" And we are also perfectly certain that, regarding it apart from its theatrical capabilities, we should answer, "Nothing at all." But yet the play has a brilliant success, and has converted the Haymarket, this week, from a comparatively neglected establishment into a crowded theatre.
Soule stories have in themselves such a strong intrinsic interest, that they will carry an audience along however treated. An exciting murder in the Newgate Calendar is an instance of this sort. But that is not the case with The Wife's Secret. A husband detects his wife in an interview with a brother proscribed by the Government, and suspects him to be a paramour—voila tout! In this anecdote, baldly told, there is nothing new or exciting. But in bringing it to bear on the stage, and suiting it to the two performers who were to sustain it, the author has shown himself a veritable artist. The extremes of happiness and misery to which he can drive the husband, and the position in which the wife stands between her husband and her brother, give a good capital of light and shade to start with. Now a difficulty arises, now it is smoothed down; now the husband is in despair, now the brother is in danger; and all these varieties have an influence on the wife, so that the essential element of female interest is kept up from beginning to end. Mrs. Charles Kean is the best represent- ative of the lady—a compound of dignity and tenderness—that could be found on the stage. Mr. Kean, though not, in our opinion, an artist of the highest rank, can give force and effect to the marked situations which are found in this play, and which constitute a great element of its attraction. Mrs. Keeley has a semi-puritanical part, by which she can produce the hearty amusement that is sure to be the concomitant of comic lines in a serious piece, when such lines are pointedly delivered. Mr. Webster "makes up" the part of a Puritan steward very artistically. When, at the conclusion, he announced the piece for repetition, the applause was most hearty and unfeigned; and Mr. Lovell has done himself very great credit as a practical dramatist by The Wife's Secret.
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