5 AUGUST 1854, Page 11

PARISIAN THEATRICALS.

One would think that the notion of dividing the stage into two Coil- 'Hutment/3, so that two separate actions take place at once, was worn threadbare. French ingenuity, however, has employed the old expedient to a new purpose, so that a Chinese scene is represented on one side and a Parisian scene on the other. In spite of the diversity of costume, the intrigue is nearly the same, whether the audience look to the right or to the left ; and the moral of the work would seem to be the sameness of hu- manity, in spite of all diversities of climate and custom. The theatre where this eccentricity is performed is the Varietes ; the authors are MM. J. Barbier and M. Carr 6 ; and the title is Les Antipodes.

The great " drame" theatres are showing some activity, in spite of the hot weather. At the Gaite, there is a new melodrama, entitled Le Sang- her des Ardennes; in which many of the personages of Quentin Durward make their appearance, but which, however, is less like Sir Walter Scott's novel than might be supposed. The "Wild Boar" has a wife, whom he has tried to murder in a fit of jealousy, but who goes on living, supposed to be her own ghost. When it is discovered that she is still alive, she runs the risk of being made a ghost in reality ; but the "Wild Boar" is cut short in the midst of his atrocities,—Louis the Eleventh being placed on the side of virtue.

The inconveniences resulting to a family of daughters from the fault of

a mother is set forth in another long drama, (six acts !) brought out at the Ambigu-Comique, with the title Suzanne. If we substitute two grown- up girls for the children in Kotzebue's Stranger, add the extra-villany that the man who has seduced the mother attempts to seduce the younger daughter also, and make a deliberate attempt at suicide one of Mrs. Hai- ler's acts of penitence, we shall have approximated the old piece to the new one.

The Shakspere of the Gaite is M. Vanderburch, author of Le Gamin de Paris. The Beaumont and Fletcher of the Ambigu are MM. Brisbarre and E. Nus.

The juvenile actress Mademoiselle Montaland, who is at the Palais Royal, has two new parts : one is a school-girl incarcerated for ill- behaviour ; the other is Louis Quinze in his most youthful days.