CHRISTMAS THEATRICALS.
THE Pantomimes, taken altogether, are inferior to last year's ; and even Covent Garden's, by far the best, is unequal to its predecessor : the fate of Fair Rosamond is by no means so movingly set forth as the patriotism of Lady Godiva and the curiosity of Peeping Tom. Not that the bur- lesque exaggerations are less droll or characteristic in their prepos- terousness, but the story is not effectively told ; and moreover, historic truth is departed from,—an offence that the juvenile playgoers are as keenly alive to as a violation of the integrity of a fairy tale. We men- tion this defect to account for the comparative failure of the introduction, notwithstanding the breadth and grotesqueness of the caricature, and the completeness of the appointments, which are all on the Brobdignag scale. Lord de Clifford, Fair Rosamond's father, is a venerable personage, who, though his eyes are literally fixed on things above, has a prodigious ap- petite for carnal comforts : his breakfast-table is set out with a tongue that must have been a mammoth's, and muffins of the dimensions of chair- cushions ; and, with a pardonable anachronism, he drinks tea out of a cup like a band-boson, and hides himself behind a double sheet of the Times. The arrival of the favotired suitor Fitzalau. with his " tail," and of Fair Rosamond escorted by a troop of nuns with faces whose fearful elongation testifies to the austerities of the conventual discipline, as the round and rubicund face of the Lady Abbess does to the hos- pitality of the refectory, is followed most inopportunely by a visit from the King—heralded by a party of huntsmen bringing in a boar as a propitiatory offering to the lady's papa. The broad "wide-awake" looks of the Scotehmeu—Fitzalan himself having a particularly shrewd and facetious phis—the low foreheads and shag-ears of the obsequious serving-men, and the hawbuek visages of the bacon-fed bunters, present a rich and characteristic variety of physiognomies. Miss Rosamond must he the model from which the round-faced dolls, studded with little blue eyes of bead-like brilliancy, pink and white Complexions, and a red streak for a mouth, were taken: while her lan- guishing, airs, and the interesting impartiality with which she lavishes her caresses on the two lovers, proclaim the paragon of boarding-school misses. The rivals come to blows : the Scot prompts his courage with spoonfuls of snuff, the Royal gallant pricks the sides of his intent with his own spurs—the one serenades his mistress with the bagpipe, the other pours forth his ardour through a trombone : the King, romantically, carves the name of Rosamond on a tree, but is rewarded by an acci- dental flower-pot on his head: so. to end the matter, lie carries off the lady by force, she having prudently packed up her trunks to be ready for either suitor. The injured Queen now appears. bearing a strong re- semblance to Mrs. SumoNs as Constance ; and the silken clue—an enor- mous ball of red cord—being pinned to something more than the skirt of the royal abducer, (judging from his sudden exclamation,) the Queen follows, bearing a bowl of the capacity of a wash-tub, and the Scot a dagger of corresponding proportions; when, just as the victim is about to swallow the poison, Dame Nature steps in, and transforms the parties into the motley troop. The rivalry of " Nature" and " Art," by the by, is most beautifully exemplified in the first two scenes : the opening one, a lake at sunset, with birds and insects hovering in the air and swans in graceful motion, (allowing for a little practice,) and the next, a dis- play of architecture, railroads, and trophies exhibiting the various triumphs of art, are splendid. The harlequinade has no lack of tricks and changes, some of them most complicated ; but they have neither point nor fun, besides being introduced without any order of sequence to give the semblance of a chace. The most elaborate and amusing is one where the door of a mansion advances into the street and comes up through the pavement in every direction—now here, now there, as Clown approaches to enter—and then, moving up the steps to the tune of " SA a gittin' up stairs," shifts successively to every window, the knocker in lively motion all the while, till at last the whole house is covered with doors and agitated knockers ; and the lamps stretch out their gaunt arms, and open their blazing eyes with spectral glare upon the intruder. This is one of the completest pieces of practical comicality we have ever seen. The lighting of a lucifer-match the size of a plank, by the friction of a fold of glass-paper that opens like a huge port-folio- the explosion of the lucifers converting the contents of a biscuit-shop into " devilled biscuits"—is also ingenious, though too recondite for the multitude. The Hyde Park Fair is a dull business, notwithstand- ing the introduction of a burlesque of the lions, in the shape of an enormous red lion, whose teeth Clown draws, and then putting his head into the toothless jaws, is swallowed whole ; and another of the Bayaderes—or " Bare-dears," as they are called—by Harlequin and Clown, who flourish bricklayers' trowels instead of daggers. The change frOm this scene to the Queen's pony phaeton, out of which pops the sooty interloper of the Palace, is a fair hit ; but generally the political and other allusions are very poor—mere practical puns. The attempt at a diorama of the Coronation at Milan, and the burning of the Royal Exchange, is a failure : it unwelcoznely reminds people that STANFIELD is away. The Great Western Steamer making her way amongst a shoal of small craft, and tacking about, is cleverly. managed. If the author and the pantomimic actors had done as much as the scenist and machinist, and above all the mask-maker, there would be no cause of complaint : but the Clown (T. MarrnEws) has no humour, and talks too much ; and the Harlequin does not take a single leap, or roll his head about as if it did not belong to him—or attitudinize, poising himself like a glistening snake on his coil. fasci- nating the motley victims of his wand. Clown steals, but it is without that unctuous sense of the value of the thing he covets that makes the larceny so exquisite : he relishes not with his wonted gusto the dainties he covets, nor crams his bottomless pockets with store for after enjoy- ment—it is mere mechanical filching that ought to he punished with the tread-mill. Pantaloon is altogether a surplusage : and Columbine is merely a dancing partner for Harlequin. Alas for Pantomime ! its glory is departed—even its slaps and thwacks, its rows and fights, are superannuated. Yet, if the connexion of a story were only supplied to the incidents, and the tricks made subservient to promoting the escape of the flying pair, or foiling the pursuers in any way, instead of having as now no object or connexion, Pantomime might become as popular as ever.
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