THE THEATRES.
THE closing of Covent Garden, on Thursday, has left the Haymarket in sole possession of the field for the "legitimate drama"; but what Mr. WEBSTER'S plans for the summer campaign may be, we can only infer from the bills : they are lavish of large letters, but scanty of in- formation. Poor POWER'S name is properly omitted : the hopes of the most sanguine for his return must now give place to the worst fears, if regret for his loss may be as yet premature. The twelve nights en- gagement of CHARLES KEAN and ELLEN TREE is nearly played out : but when the "Twelfth Night" farce is over we shall doubtless find t manager felicitating himself and congratulating the public on hav- i B "succeeded in effecting a renewal of the engagement for twelve nigets more " ; then, after the usual succession of "last nights," there wil b "more last nights," and an "extra night " or two ; to be fol- low by a "farewell engagement" previous to Mr. KEAN'S leaving London for Richmond, or Windsor ; which will perhaps be postponed for the purpose of giving a few additional performances, and a " positive last night" on the eve of his "final departure for a considerable time." Meanwhile, Mr. MAYWOOD, being little known, is engaged for " twelve nights," and stars it as Sir Pertinar Macsycophant on the strength of his Scotch accent. Mr. WALLACE, too, continues to be one of the Hay- market constellation ; but he is too familiar to the town to warrant a trial of the " twelve night " system. What a pity 'WRENCH and STRICKLAND cannot be bottled off and served out by the dozen as choice spirits! but, as strangeness is essential to spurious rarity, one or two tolerable players from the provinces might be puffed into notoriety for a time ; it would take the playgoers a few nights to find out the mistake. Master BETTY the Second is not yet ripe, perhaps : but green gooseberry makes the best mock champagne ; or in default of that, brisk small beer might be made to effervesce by the bottling pro- cess. All this by the by.
Having had so much fault-finding duty to perform of late, we the more gladly enter upon the agreeable task of bestowing praise on the Mrs. Haller of Miss ELLEN TREE: it is a simple, beautiful, and most affecting performance, and leaves nothing to be desired. Miss TREE, when she first appears, eery properly gives no intimation of the passion that is to overwhelm her : she did not appear a tragic heroine affecting gayety, as is the case with most Mrs. Hollers ; and though the casual outbreaks of distress when her conscience is awakened by the ques- tionings of Baron Steinfort betrayed a secret sorrow, it was not till she revealed the depth of her shame and remorse that the nature and extent of her wretchedness were apparent. Nothing could exceed the utter self-abasement with which she confessed her crime to the Countess : she sank down as if shrinking into herself, unable to sustain the weight of conscious guilt. Her posture alone bespoke a complete prostration of soul, without the broken accents that made known the cause : this was the agony of contrition ; these tears were the flood of repentance washing away the foul stain. In the final interview with her husband her anguish was more poignant, and she became an object of sympathy : his forbearance was torture to her ; and at the thought of parting for ever from her children, the mother's heart seemed to burst. Instead of rushing into her husband's arms, Miss TREE falls to the ground overpowered with her emotions. This is a fitter termination to the play ; one hardly expects or wishes her to live after this.
The gratification afforded us by Miss TREE'S personation of Mrs. Haller was increased by observing the entire absence of those mannerisms that we had occasion to instance as marring her recent performances at Covent Garden : domestic characters, being better suited to her powers than the heroic and ideal, she might not have found it necessary to re- sort to those artifices in this instance, especially in a small theatre. Let us hope, however, that ELLEN TREE has returned to the path of nature, in which she walks so gracefully. Mrs. STIRLING'S unaffected and lady- like performance of the Countess Wintersen contributed not a little to the effect of the scenes wherein she appeared with Miss TREE.
We cannot speak favourably of Mr. CHARLES KEAN as The Stranger. He looked like a beardless German student without his pipe, aping the misanthrope, but as one who had conned the part by rote and was not playing it con (more. He told the story of his wrongs to his friend Steinfort as though eager to have the opportunity of venting his fury in a passionate speech, not like a heart-broken man from whom the secret of his sufferings was reluctantly wrung ; and he begged forgive- ness of his servant for an unjust suspicion with the air of a master graciously bestowing pardon on an offender. In the last scene with MISS TREE, he did appear moved ; indeed it was almost impossible for any one on the stage not to be touched by her pathos : bat, gene- rally speaking, he failed to affect the audience, because it was too evident that he himself did not feel the emotions of the character. This is the great defect of Mr. C. KEAN'S acting : instead of striving to place himself in the condition of mind of the person he assumes to be, he is content to make an exhibition of melodramatic art in a character-dress; and his performance, therefore, consists of a succession of stage-tricks dexterously done. Even in the mechanism of stage- playing he is faulty : his declamation is monotonous, and does not con- vey the import of the words he utters ; for though he accentuates strongly a marked word here and there, with a view to express the point of the speech, he hurries through other parts, and does not suc- ceed in impressing his audience with the full scope of its meaning and purpose. In short, both in the conception and execution his repre- sentation of character is very imperfect ; a few detached points being given in place of the whole. We make these objections in a friendly spirit towards an actor who has shown such a degree of deference to opinion as to give ground for hope that he may amend faults when fairly shown ; and whose youth, energy, and intelligence, are in favour of improvement. An actor who lacks imaginative sensibility—that is, the power of identifying himself with an ideal person—cannot, of course, acquire it by volition ; but we are unwilling to suppose Mr. C. KEAN thus mentally disqualified for the profession he has chosen.
Mr. BERNARD'S new piece, Marie Ducange, was produced on Satur- day : it is an effective melodrama, slightly constructed and hastily written, apparently for the express purpose of making a part for Madame CELESTE. She plays the heroine, Marie Ducange, a French girl speaking broken English, who marries a gentleman in difficulties, and by whom she is deserted before the honeymoon has waned : she goes distracted, and on her husband's return does not recognize him ; but is restored to reason by his reappearance under precisely the cir- cumstances that attended his departure. Madame CELESTE'S panto- mimic action is so very significant and startling that speech is super- fluous: her despair at her husband's abrupt desertion, her bewilder- ment, and the transport of joy which recalls her senses, are expressed with a vividness that would have been even more applauded in a ballet of action. PHELPS as the runtiway husband, WEBSTER as his rascally friend, Young WEBSTER as his rival, STRICKLAND as his benevolent uncle, and G. BENNETT as the blind father of Marie, play their parts well. WRENCH, too, as an erratic M. C. in search of an orbit of fashion, dunned by his landlord, and dunning everybody to take shares in his projected assembly-room, is very diverting ; and Miss P. Howrort as his wife makes an unimportant part agreeable—her distress at Marie's forlorn situation seemed heartfelt.
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