THE THEATRES.
WREN anticipating last week the possibility of better success attending Mr. Borracicsum a new piece at the Haymarket, from its being in three acts, than his previous one in five acts met with at Covent Garden, we did not take into account the probability of the ingredients used in its concoction being proportionably scanty and stale—as is the case. Alma Mater, or a Cure for Coquettes, is a broad farcical burletta, made up of characters and incidents with which we are familiar on the stage, and nowhere else. Some of the men wear college caps and gowns, utter slang phrases, and indulge in booting and yelling ; and this passes for a picture of Alma Mater. It bears much the same resemblance to Uni- versity doings that "Tom and Jerry" does to real London life ; and is just the sort of stuff that would attract at a Minor theatre, under the title of "Life in Oxford," with the addition of a few pantomimic scenes of street-rows. The dialogue has flippant smartness, and pert vivacity ; which being seasoned with some clever sayings and knowing allusions adroitly thrown in, pass for sparkling wit, good sense, and acquaintance with the world, with those who know no better. Having no plot, the piece is destitute of interest or action of a dramatic kind ; the situations are not only absurd but wholly ineffective : but the flashy dialogue and the bust- hug, noisy scenes, so took the fancy of the public, that on its first represen- tation it was received with vociferous applause by the majority of a not very numerous or select audience. They even shouted for the author at the end—and Mr. BOURCICAULT bowed to his admirers from a private box : however, nothing was thrown at his head. To give an idea of the comedy, it is sufficient to say that Mr. FARMER is Sir Samuel Sarcasm, a crabbed woman-hater, fond of contradiction, who marries the ma- nceuvering Widow Venture, on her telling him he looks young ; Mrs. ,GLOVER being the widow, and Miss CHARLES her coquettish daughter: that Mr. BRINDAL is a fashionable scamp, Count Pave, who, being a man accustomed to the ways of society, puts up with all kinds of insults, acts the" touter " to tailors and bootmakers, and snakes an offer to both mother and daughter at the same moment: and that there is a scholarly suitor in spectacles, who stammers, and as he abhors wine, gets drunk by tossing off a dozen bumpers in succession ; a college tutor in canoni- cals, who talks of addressing his pupil in the "imperative mood," of circumstances being " accusative ' against him, and " genitive " of
mischief; an Irish dragoon, in a field-officer's hat and feathers, who prevents a duel ; a negotiator of the assenting class, who constantly re- peats the catch phrase, "I quite agree with you " ; and such like. The two grand " situations " are the entrance of a young lady among a party of men in the midst of a midnight debauch, and the discovery of the Widow Venture and Sir Samuel Sarcasm winding off a skein of cotton. The frivolity and absurdity of all this, and the absence of sterling qua- lities of observation and thought, might be tolerated, were there not unsoundness at the core : the piece, without being offensively coarse or directly licentious, is tainted with that lax kind of morality which denotes a disregard of principle, both with reference to the means and the end of dramatic writing.
A new farce called Curiosities of Literature, is announced for tonight; and a comic drama, in two acts, entitled Grandfather Whitehead, for *eZt week,
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