THE THEATRES.
THE Covent Garden management seems determined that playgoers shall DO longer complain of lack of novelty : on Saturday the first new Comedy of the season was produced, and on Monday it was followed up by a new Ballet : both were successful enough to justify their nightly repetition for a time, though neither is likely to prove permanently at- tractive.
What Will the World Say—its first title " Vanity " is discarded—is a pleasant entertainment, of that light and agreeable kind which, not being broad enough for farce nor interesting enough for melodrama, is -called by courtesy " comedy "; though it has no better pretensions to that high rank of the drama than the circumstance of its being in five acts. The aim of the author, Mr. MARK LEMON, is to ridicule the vanity of aspiring to the distinction of title, and to satirize the heart- lessness and prodigality of the aristocracy : but he has failed, apparently from want of a thorough acquaintance with the class of society whose vices and follies he endeavours to expose. His materials are drawn, not from life, but from novels or plays ; his characters are such as are only met with on the stage or in print : the semblance of reality arising from modern scenes and costumes and contemporary allusions, does but make the want of vitality in the artificial creations more evident. The plot and incidents are equally unlike what occur in the present day ; and the dialogue has a studied smartness, neither amounting to wit nor easy enough to be natural ; some small sentiments of a weak kind being interspersed. The salvation of the pieee rested on one character, and that the least important to the business of the plot ; but it stands out like a study of individual nature, sketched with a master band, and heightened by de- licate touches of humour, among a group of conventional figures. This is Captain Scrope Taradiddle, a modern Beau Tibbs, to whom FARREN'S lively and finished personation gives ail aspect of originality : the mix- ture of folly and shrew dnesss, of selfishness and generosity, in this in- nocent impostor, is developed in the spirit of GOLDSMITH'S creation both by author and actor. Captain Taradiddle "of the Army "—his regi- ment having been annihilated at Waterloo has no place in the Army- List—is elderly, but erect, his head garnished with a scant sprinkling of white hair, but his cheeks flanked with two formidable half-moons of grizzled whisker ; his well-brushed bat, pinched tightly up at the sides and bent fiercely down before and behind, is perched jauntily on the top of his head ; his frock-coat is buttoned closely over his chest with military compactness, and his shrunken white trowsers are fastened under his boot by long white straps : his politeness is of that prominent and active kind that no coldness can daunt or rudeness repel ; he bows himself into the good graces of those whose acquaintance he desires to cultivate, with a promptitude and alacrity that there is no resisting; and the gusto with which he partakes whatever advantages his extempore friends enjoy, is only equalled by his aptitude to act in their behalf. Captain Taradiddle has conferred his friendship on Mr. Pye Hilary, a sucking barrister, in love with a beauty and a fortune : the lady has set her heart on marrying a title, and the Captain at once bestows one on his protege : the newly-created lord in vain rejects the honours of the peerage; the more he denies the claim the more tenaciously it is recognized, and the aspiring beauty's heart is irrecoverably lost before she can be made to understand that her adorer has no better chance of making her "my lady" than of becoming Lord Chancellor. Yet in all this Taradiddle does not commit his friend, and stipMates for no other reward than the honour of his company and the run of his lodg- ings and acquaintance. But Mr. Hilary is afforded another proof cf the independence and disinterestedness of his friend : going in search of the lost daughter of his fair one's guardian, he finds her lodging in the house of the Captain, and indebted to him a week's rent and a day's dinner. Taradiddle had been content to pass for a bachelor, whose home is his club ; yet here he finds him domesticated in a single room of a humble tenement, with a wife, the pattern of frugality, industry, and neatness—one who combines in her own person the offices of spouse, housekeeper, cook, housemaid, and laundress. Mixing in the first society, exchanging civilities with many who would excuse him for not recognizing them, Taradiddle can yet appreciate the merits of a useful wife, the climax of whose good qualities is that "she is an ex- cellent getter-up of linen," and enjoy the homely luxury of a baked shoulder of mutton and potatoes ; then, casting off his tattered morning- gown, he shines forth in the pride of a blood-coloured coat and spangled vest at an evening-party, where he arrives on foot, changing his shoes for pumps in the hall while his name is echoed from month to month up the staircase. But his humility is coupled with an honour- able pride : having nothing of any value to assist a friend in difficulties withal, he has lent him his name, and the bill being dishonoured, the autograph of Taradiddle is coupled with the epithet " swindler "; this he resents, successfully, not with sword or pistol, but with an explana- tion ; and receives the worthless strip of paper in satisfaction for the injurious mistake.
FARRIER'S personation of the practical philosopher, Taradiddle, is a perfect piece of art, where the skill of the actor is only shown in the animated result: the shuffling uneasiness, betrayed by a pa- roxysm of politeness and a flutter of bows when the City merchant, startled by the name, eyes him suspiciously—and the suppressed dis- comfiture, gradually rallying to a smile of confidence, when he is discovered in his rural retreat by his friend Hilary—are two of the most striking points of a performance full of niceties of look and action. The scene in the Captain's domicile owes much to Mrs. IltIMBIt'S personation of the Wife : her style of ironing is inimitable ; the expression which she throws into the dialogue by touches of the flat-iron is more eloquent than the flutter of a fan. The sprightly tone of her remonstrances with her husband for not taking her out, and the cheerful resignation with which she acquiesces in his expatiation on the advantages of being her own servant, are most edifying : it was a treat to see the contented air with which she leaves her ironing when her husband has coaxed her to go out and get the potatoes ; and not less admirable is the way in which FARBER evaded the natural but inconvenient request that he had neither the stomach to refuse nor the face to comply with. The idea of Captain Taradiddle of the Army cheapening potatoes at a green-stall I he might as soon have taken the meat to the oven, or the note which he writes to ask his lodgers to dinner. The scenes in which Lord and Lady Norwold appear are absurdly unreal : the coarse and overcharged picture of the miseries of a governess's life defeats the author's object of exciting sympathy ; on the first night it provoked some hissing, and was nearly fatal to the play. The hauteur of Lady Norwold towards Miss De Vere is exaggerated ; but the insolence of the footman is outrageous : such a puppy would be turned out of any nobleman's hall at a moment's notice, instead of being the cause of the dismissal of the governess. Nor would the proudest peer discard his son for marrying a governess, though such an occurrence is not common : and the idea of the heir of a noble family being disinherited because his younger brother accuses him of stealing a bracelet, is too preposterous even for a play.
Mrs. GLOVER makes the best of an ungrateful part ; but not all her force and cleverness can give plausibility to such silly assumptions as Lady Norwold's wonder at a rich merchant having an elegant drawing- room, and her horror at the idea of admitting him to one of her parties. Neither are City merchants in the habit of lending money on jewels. BARTLEY, as Warner, looks the wealthy and respectable citizen to the life, and gives impressiveness to every scene in which he appears. Mrs. WALTER LACY, as Miss Mayley, his ward, vents her aspirations towards the title of "your Ladyship," and her penchant for Mr. Hilary, with the naiveté of a school-girl : the scene with her maid Tattle, Mrs. ORGER, in which she affects indifference while trying to draw out some information respecting her admirer which she suspects Tattle to possess, but which that wily go-between is too shrewd to give up with- out its full value, is cleverly acted on both sides. CHARLES MATHEWS, as Mr. Pye Hilary—who is not the chatterer his Christian name would lead one to infer—makes advances to the guardian with a much better grace and far more earnestness than he pays court to the lady ; whose fancy for a suitor an cool yet impatient, so shy and so impertinent, is quite unaccountable. BRINDAL, as the exquisite of the servants-hall, affected the airs of a stage-footman with amusing complacency : it was not owing to any fault of his acting that the part was offensive. Miss COOPER as the Governess almost raised an interest for the character, notwithstanding its improbabilities and the knowledge that she was the daughter of a wealthy merchant all the while, to say nothing of her being an heiress in her own right. The piece is put on the stage in splendid style, as usual ; and the opening-scene in the enclosure of St. James's Park is a very lively reality.
A "ballet of action" is an acceptable novelty on the English stage : as a vehicle for dancing and spectacle, pantomime is far preferable to the ear-splitting rant and stale jocosity that usually fill up the business of the scene. Hans of Iceland is a stirring drama, and the story is told in a distinct and lively manner by the mate action ; but the interest is of too ferocious and gloomy a cast. It is taken from Vicroa Huao's romance, and turns upon the revenge of the brigand Hans for the death of his son Gill, who having stabbed his rival, a young Norwegian officer, is shot by the soldiers. Hans carries off the girl, Guth, a fisher- man's daughter; but her lover recovering from his wound, rescues her, and captures Hans and his gang of robbers. The ballet opens with an assassination ; shots are fired in almost every scene; though the law- less lover is soon put hors de combat, his bloody corpse figures conspi- cuously; and, as if Hans was not grisly enough, a hideous dwarf and a white bear made up a group of monsters, half-savage half-ludicrous. W. H. PAYNE, as Hans, darts to and fro with gleaming eyes like a comet, ominously shaking his fiery hair and beard. T. RIDGWAY as Oglypig- lap, a dumpy Icelander, in league with the robbers, is very facetious in his antics : rolled up in his fur, a human hedgehog, he is kicked and cuffed about by the pursuers of Hans, but cannot be made to unfold : and I. H. RIDGWAY, a younger man, who made his debilt on this occa- sion, exhibits such striking talent in pantomime, as Gill the son of Hans, that one regrets his career is so short. The bear, too, is as sagacious a brute as the dwarf, and as comical. The pantomime of Mr. GILBERT, the military lover, is effective ; but Miss auxin, as the damsel Guth, is by no means so expressive as a herione should be in such perilous and afflicting situations. There is but little dancing, though that is good of its kind, especially the pas de deux by young MARSHALL and his sister, and a dance of peasants. The music is noisy and vulgar, without being effective. The spectacle is extremely picturesque; the dresses are varied and
characteristic, and there is an attention to grouping in the stage tableaux,
which bespeaks the surveillance of an artist's eye. The scenery of Messrs. GRIEVE is rich and highly wrought : the simpler scenes, how- ever, such as the rude log-hut by the waterfall, showing the wine-house and chapel, are livelier than the more elaborate and crowded composi- tions. The dioramie effects in the opening view of Trondheim are cleverly managed ; the ruddy glow of sunset and the paler brightness of moonlight are vividly reflected on the brick-built houses and turrets of the city : but the preparation for the advent of the moon makes an unsightly blot in the sky, and Luna rises with such rapidity that one would think she had reached her station in the heavens by railway. The volcano in the last scene exhibits a dazzling eruption ; only the means by which it is produced are too obvious.
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