THEATRICAL INTERRUPTIONS.
THAT portion of theatrical audiences which is composed of the unso- phisticated few to whom "going to the play "is an event in their lives, or whose visits to the Theatre are "like angels', few and far between," will be mystified, if not amused, should they chance to drop in this holyday-time either at the Adelphi or the Olympic, by an" interrup- tion "of the performance of an extraordinary kind.
At the Olympic, the "scene of confusion " commences the evening's entertainments ; and those who have never seen LISTON—for who that has once seen him would not know him again, whether he be met, dressed a-la-mode walking with dignified gravity down Regent Street, or appear in any of the Protwan disguises that he wears on the stage ?—
will be amazed at seeing a very odd-looking elderly gentleman acting the part of an actor in a very awkward yet self-possessed manner,
addressing the performers by their private names ; the actors putting up with the blunders of the intruder with singular forbearance, to any nothing of the toleration of the manager and the audience.
At the Adelphi, a lady in a private box interrupts the stage business, by protesting against a passage in her life being represented in the play, accusing one of the band of having been the means of communicating it to the manager, and of having seduced her husband, Mr. Potter, to the Cider-cellar, Coal-hole, and other resorts of choice spirits. Up starts the accused, a spectacled horn.player, with a rich brogue, and coolly tells Mrs. Potter she "had better be after going home to mind her poor babbles : " but a gallant jumps up in the pit, and insists on the lady being heard. She accordingly proceeds to enlighten the audience on some other particulars of her life, and introduces her cousin Charles. lie, however, declines coming forward : and now Mr. Potter, the husband, appears in an opposite box, and a matrimonial squabble ensues, in which the horn-player takes a part. The non-chalance of the interrupting parties is very remarkable. The lady at last expresses her determination to go on the stage ; and Mr.
YATES, who has all this while been very lax in his endeavours to put an end to the interruption, introduces her to the audience as "a new
actress," her husband protesting against the engagement. The old playgoers have long before perceived that all the speakers are profes- sional; a fact which Mrs. KEELEY'S agitated look and embarrassed manner, when she comes forward, may make doubtful to the uninitiated. Actors are generally too calm arid collected in their personation of the speaking part of an audience. A person whose private feelings carried him away so far as to interrupt a performance, would be very much excited. MiTcumt's look and manner, in the interruption at the New Strand Theatre' was very nervous and natural. They are all versions of a French farce ; but the idea is not new, and the trick soon becomes stale.
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