THE THEATRES.
THE season of the Winter Houses has fairly set in : Covent Garden, foremost in the field, disclosed its array last Monday ; Drury Lane opens next Monday, and the Adelphi also, and the Olympic to-night : the St. James's is to let.
At Covent Garden, the same system is to be pursued as that which
gained MACREADY'S first season of management such credit, and made the theatre so agreeable to persons of taste and decorum. The com- pany is stronger than before by the addition of VANDENHOFF ; but in comedy Mrs. GLOVER'S absence leaves a large gap of gayety Un- filled; and in opera FRAZER is a poor substitute for WILSON, though Miss RAINFORTH will be welcomed in lieu of Miss SHTRItEFT. More "restorations" of the text of SHAKSPEARE are promised ; and a greater stress is laid upon the production of novelty—in the present state of the drama the greatest and almost the only source of attraction. MAC- READY has reserved himself till Monday, when he appears in Hamlet. On the opening night, however, he was called for, and in his manage- rial character replied to the hearty greetings of the audience, by a brief reiteration of the pledges he put forth in his printed address. The classic spirit-stirring speetficle of Coriolanus has lost no tittle of its grandeur and animation. VANDENHOFF'S Caius Marches is one of his best great characters ; and his rough, manly vigour, with a due in- fusion of feeling and tenderness, well becomes the Roman soldier, though it does not reach the ideal standard of patrician dignity : his rugged and somewhat uncouth manner is redeemed from clownishness by the earnestness and intelligence he manifests ; and the hoarse and hollow tones of his voice are not unsusceptible of emotion : in a word, his acting bears the stamp of genuineness ; and that one rare quality would compensate for many defects. PHELPS played Aufidius, instead of ANDERSON; the only advantage of this change being the contrast of person between the Volscian and the Roman. Miss VANDENHOFF looked a pretty, timid, girlish Virgilia—ber attitude, as she sat droop. log her head over her needlework, was a study for the artist. Mrs. WARNER, US Ve/umnia, was all the Roman matron in spirit, and her energy had improved in variety of expression; her impassioned pleading in the last scene seemed fairly to overcome the resolution of her son—she made one feel that Coriolanus must have yielded. Menenius, the most kindly and cordial of gibers—bold and plain-spoken, hut with bon- hommie in his bitterest reproaches, and who loves and defends his friend's honour as heartily as his country's glory—could scarcely have a better representative than BARTLEY; who revels in the geniality of the character as if it were his own. The mob—the many-headed monster of as many minds—now furiously vociferous with revenge, and anon sneaking away with tail between its legs and hang-dog look— was as good as on the first night. Al canows's mockery of the airs of Coriolanus was a glorious piece of practical satire ; and PAYNE, an- other of the mob-leaders, looked a very sans culotte—one of those fantocciiii actors in revolutionary scenes whose whole existence is gal- vanic. The scene of the Roman Senate is certainly the noblest realization of the spirit of classic grandeur on the stage : when the senators all rise up to receive Coriolanus, it is as though an assembly of antique statues were endued with life.
Cynibeline was revived on Wednesday ; and with a cast so efficient in some of its numerous characters that the imperfections of two or three principal ones were the more apparent. The interest in this play is so equally divided, that completeness in every part is essential to unite the scattered beauties in one perfect whole. Imogen is the soli- tary flower that blooms amid a briery waste of human folly and vice, cruelty and injustice ; and whose gentle purity defies the contagion of the ghastly and revolting incidents that assail it. Miss HELEN EAUCIT agreeably surprised us by the graceful simplicity and sweetness of her style and manner, and the unforced and genuine expression of the various emotions of the character. This ineffable creation of womanly innocence and truth, strong in the courage and boldness with which devoted fondness arms feminine delicacy, can scarcely be embodied on the stage it is too spiritual for outward show. The actress who personates the character has to communicate feelings that are equally beyond the power of looks and words to utter; they must be imagined ; and all that she can do is to prove that she understands the character, by avoiding any thing inc with its consummate purity, and giving natural expressio"-n to ?,t, leading features. This Miss EAUCIT accomplished, gracefullynd wa unostentatiously ; and if she missed the noisy applause that r ad; her more violent bursts of tragic declamation, the silent testimeoyri rapt attention was not wanting. Mr. PHELPS is utterly Incapablne ° a character in which sensibility and suffering are predominant al Posthumus in his hand became a mere braggart and ranter . VANDENHOEF'S lachimo was so innocent of craft and duplicit'',wtht ie
he kept us in a state of continual wonderment at the want of siffitulielaty and purpose in his villany—the contradiction of his frank and g
less seeming to his monstrous wickedness was extraordinary. If guile. two performers had changed parts, it would have been better; b" WARDE would have been the fittest Iachimo ; and MACREADY 'Sione could adequately depict the agony and tenderness of Posthutnus, and fat nish an excuse for his rashness in the overweening pride and confidenc0. of the (loafing husband. It is well-becoming in MACREADY to give his brother actors a chance in a principal character ; but the audience are also to be considered. WARDE, Evrox, and ANDERSON ,5 Bellarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus, made the true dignity of noble natures shine through the rude state of sylvan life ; and G. BENNETT as Pisani°, looked the weather-beaten and sturdy servant well, anci showed a real concern and pity for his mistress contending with at. tachment to his absent master. VINING'S Cloten was very formal and effete : merely conventional actors have not a notion of characters tbst present no salient points of peculiarity in dress, phrase, or feature, to lay hold of; it requires a real humorist to impersonate abstract qua. lities. The costumes are extremely picturesque and characteristic. The unsatiating opera of Fra Diavolo followed Cymbeline ; aud eas very creditably performed. The music of the part originally played by BRAHAM is beyond FRAZER'S executive powers. BURNETT, who made his first appearance as Lorenzo, acquitted himself well ; and notwithstanding a little nervousness, seemed to give promise of a voice that will fill a large theatre when he has acquired confidence and skill to use it to advantage : he sings chastely and with feeling ; and his deportment, though as yet be is restless and constrained, is nut un- graceful. It is superfluous to praise Miss RAINFORTH'S Zerlina and Miss P. HORTON'S Lady Alleash, or to enlarge upon BEDFORD'S comicality as the sentimental brigand Beppo. The new farce, christened after the truant trio of Spelling-book ce- lebrity, Brown, Jones, and Robinson, takes the names of the schoolboy heroes in vain, for the incidents have no relation whatever to those that form the ground of the moral lesson of which they are the well. whipped exemplars. Brown and Jones are the patronymics of two families, next-door neighbours in the Hackney Road, between whom rage most furiously both open aversion and secret love ; and Robinson is the name of a third next-door neighbour, a superannuated and insol- vent spinster, desperately in want of a rich husband. She fixes her affections on Jones's purse ; and his avowed passion for a Selina, his next-door neighbour, misleads her into the notion that herself— a Selina, though the wrong one—is the object. The contretemps that follows is ludicrous in the extreme; Jones, invited by Selina Robinson, scales the garden-wall on the other side to meet Selina Brown ; and encounters Brown junior, who is coming over the same way to meet Jones's daughter; while Selina Robinson, going to her assignation with Jones, receives the endearments and ardent protestations intended for Miss Jones ; and a scene of confusion and recrimination ensues in the back-gardens in the Hackney Road, only to be paralleled by the caterwauling of a parcel of toms and tabbies on the tiles. To complete the chapter of cross- purposes, the cause of all this misunderstanding, Mr. Lucid Smith, a busy pettifogger, thirsting for gain and grog, and who says spite- ful things with the agreeable air of complimenting, finds himself caught in the trap he laid for Jones ; and the marriage-broker is fain to take up with his faded and bankrupt client. HARLEY plays this character most amusingly ; and Mrs. W. CLIFFORD enters con amore into the humour of a very disagreeable part, the old maid,— a merit that is rare on the stage, and not appreciated as it deserves to be. BARTLEY, as Junes, bounces about and explodes like a cracker, alternately abusing himself for his amorous "weakness," and "sighing like a furnace" for his darling Selina—you expect every moment he will turn to and cudgel himself. Brown, Jones, and Robinson encountered some opposition ; not un- deservedly, for too much reliance had been placed on extravagant situa- tions—mere absurdity is not droll : but the mirth created by their smart sayings and ridiculous doings is sufficient.
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