14 MARCH 1857, Page 13

t4t tOratrrs.

The playgoing world of the West-end is at this moment occupied in rubbing its eyes, that it may recover completely from the dazzle of Thursday last, when, amid the acclamations of Queen Victoria's subjects, King Richard the Second was enthroned at the Princess's Theatre. Leaving open the question how far historical pageants contribute to the elevation of the drama, we are bound to say that in this revival Mr. Kean has surpassed himself—himself being his most formidable competitor. Like some inveterate whist-player, who pursues his private pastime in solitude, and, dealing to imaginary adversaries, continually trumps a card that is really his own, Mr. C. Kean, in the art of stage-decoration, pursues a series of victories over himself, so that the victor of last year is the vanquished of the year following. On the present occasion the triumph is more complicated than usual : not only does Richard II as a whole beat Henry Villas a whole, but the first act of .Richard II is beaten by the second, which in its turn is defeated by the third, and all three are utterly routed by an episode that occurs between the third and fourth. Country readers, who may be puzzled to know what portion of a play can occur between two consecutive acts, are informed that Shakspere requires a little coaxing, trimming, and embellishing before he can be made to answer the ends of perfect pageantry, and that wherever a chink in the action presents itself, it is all fair for a manager to wedge in as much splendour as he can. By this process the article is made better than good, just as Pelops with his ivory shoulder was more valuable quoad material than if he had remained in his original condition of mere flesh and bone. The rising of Phtebus in his car, which occurred in the Winter's Tale, was a grand case in point. There is not a hint of such a phenomenon in the text, but that circumstance did not dim the brightness of the tableau, which was talked about all over London, and even imitated at some of the larger provincial theatres. Now Phcebus himself will be eclipsed by the interpolation that brings a grand historical picture between the third and fourth acts of Richard II, illustrating the well-known descriptive speech of the Duke of York to his Duchess ; so that whereas the poet gives us a verbal description only of the reception of Richard and Bolingbroke by the citizens of London, the manager gives us a fine procession, and a fine mob to look at it, organized in a manner altogether unprecedented, and then gives us the speech too, which it must be confessed is rather weak in its effect after the glories addressed to the eye. If Apollo himself set his lyre with Koh-i-noor diamonds, the auditors would possibly think more of the glittering framework than of the tuneful chords. Our simile may be pursued to its extreme: the so-called "episode" is really a " Koh-i-noor" of scenic art.

The piece is altogether produced on a principle of ultra-reality. Not even the painter's art is greatly trusted, but wherever an opportunity occurs a scene is literally built upon the stage, so that during the whole representation a body of carpenters must be constantly employed in demolishing and constructing the scaffoldings of pomp. The entr'actes are thus necessarily long, but that the play may not be altogether interminable, judicious curtailments are made in the dialogue. Country readers, who pore over long soliloquies and deem every word as sacred as the utterance of a Delphic oracle, are probably not aware that, according to our modern system of revival, we of the metropolis regard things of this sort much as a backwoodsman regards a forest of trees. Poetical growth, when too exuberant, requires a " " that there may be room for edifices of practical utility.

However, even from a critical point of view a distinction is to be drawn between excessive illustration of a " history " and unlimited embellishment of a simple fiction of purely dramatic interest. While in such a play as the Winter's Tale the decorator stands as the antagonist of the poet, in the "histories," he, after a fashion, helps to carry out Shalesperian ideas, though anxious that his protégé should not tell too much for himself. The series of dramatic works that follow each other in uninterrupted succession from the tragedy of the second to that of the third Richard, are dialogued chronicles rather than plays ; and of all works, chronicles most admit of illustrative pictures. The Winter's 71216 would not bear the weight of its own decorations ; but typical figures like Richard and Bolingbroke are not easily crushed, and never probably did Mr. Charles Kean produce a stronger effect upon his audience than in the scenes that exhibit the downfall of the least glorious Plantagenet. Mrs. Kean also makes much more than could ho expected of Richard's Queen ; and the plaudits she receives after the parting with her husband spring from a genuine sympathy with a distress so forcibly portrayed. As Bolingbroke, Mr. Ryder looks largo and confident,—the sort of man destined to be a victor.

While at the most aristocratic of English theatres the metropolitan public beholds the return of the fourteenth century with all its splendour and its turmoil, and gratefully cheers Mr. Charles Kean as the acknowledged chief of dramatic arclueology, there is an audience on the other side of the water absorbed in the contemplation of a drama that is de signed to set before them the interests of their own time. This drama, which is played at the Surrey, is indeed an adaptation from Lea l'auvres de Paris, noticed by us on the occasion of its production at the Ambigu-Comique in September last; but London has been converted into I l'aris with more than usual felicity by Mr. Stirling Coyne, and the audience of Fraud and its Victims, (the English name of the work,) while they see monetary wickedness thrive for a time, to be at last overthrown by suffering virtue, may, if they please, connect the story with the appalling frauds and forgeries of the present day. This is the course recommended by the manager himself, who in an announcement gravely declares that "every one should see the wonderful drama of Fraud and its Victims, that they may be prepared to resist all dishonest attempts that may be practised on them." These who are less practical in their amusements may nevertheless watch with interest the development of a very clever story, the exciting properties of which will be amply proved by the statement that one case of death by apoplexy, two of attempted suicide, three of almost mortal starvation, and one of hocussing, occur within its limits, but never to the detriment of dramatic justice.

A trifling farce with the interjectional title Thieves? Thieves ! has been produced at the Olympic. An honest gentleman is mistaken for a burglar, and a burglar is mistaken for an honest gentleman ; and on this basis of misunderstanding a structure of practical jokes is raised, which allows a hearty laugh or two to enliven the first half-hour of the evening's entertainment.

PARISIAN THEATRICALS,

In Holland there is or was a law by which the seducer of an orphan girl, brought up by public charity, is compelled to marry his victim, or to forfeit his head. Fancy an artful eharity-girl decoying a young gentleman, who loves somebody else, into this disagreeable dilemma, and you have the foundation of a new drama by M. Deanery, entitled Les Orphelines de In Charite, and produced at the Ambigu-Comique. English adapters, if they are wise, will not select this story for the purpose of trying that question of international copyright that now disturbs the

"adapting" mind. "Flat experimentum in eorpore is a maxim that hue its bounds : the "corpus" may be too abominable even for the practised dissector.

An odd event has recently amused the theatrical world of Paris. Mademoiselle A. Brohan, under the signature of "Suzanne," writes in the Figaro an attack on M. 'Victor Hugo. M. A. Dumas, as the friend of M. Hugo, writes to M. Empis, director of the Theatre Francais, declaring that he must, withdraw his pieces from the repertory of the establishment if Mademoiselle Brohan is allowed to play in them. As might be expected, some applaud this reprisal—others laugh.