Those who wish to see a perfect blaze of histrionic
talent, should make baste to visit the St. James's Theatre, before Madame Emile de Girar- din's last new piece La Joie fait Peur is taken out of the bills. From our description of the plot under the head of "Parisian Theatricals," when the piece was produced at the Theatre Francais last February, our read- ers may recollect that the whole mainly turns on the delicate manage- ment which is required to tell to a mother the news that a beloved son, whom she supposes dead, has returned home unscathed. The piece is only in one act ; but that very circumstance brings the actors close to- gether. Madame Allan, of the Francais, who made her debut this week as the mother—M. Regnier, as an old servant, in whom oddity and pathos are constantly interchanging like the hues on a pigeon's neck— Mademoiselle Luther, as the daughter of the family, a playful spoiled child—make up a combination that strikes the audience like a battery. The piece cannot be better done at Paris. Indeed, Madame Allan, If. Regnier, and Mademoiselle Fix, all belong to the original cast, and in Mademoiselle Luther we have a most efficient substitute for Mademoiselle Dubois.
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