A new comic piece, of the slightest kind, eutitled Taking
Possession, has been produced at the Lyceum. Keeley plays a Cockney traveller, who wins a ruined castle in a German lottery, and in "taking possession" is ducked and pelted by his "tenantry," half-starved with cold and hunger, and finally frightened out of his wits and his prize. The plot is too obvious and the jest too stale to make the fun effective, even were the idea better worked out than it is in the drama. The acting is good; but not even Keeley, aided by Wigan and Meadows, could mellow the crude conception. Mrs. Keeley played Susan Sly, in the droll farce of the Mar- riage Certificate, with a spirit of merriment that was infectious; not only making fun, but helping the audience to enjoy it.
The burlesque of Antigone at the New Strand is a laughable extrava- 'gauze. The broad fun owes much of its effect to the grave drollery of H. Hall as Creon, and G. Wild as Antigone: Hall's imitations of the trage- dians of the day are capital.
At the Adelphi, in The Soldier of Fortune, a light French piece of in- trigue, Hudson plays an Irish officer in the service of Spain, with ease and pleasantry that are very effective; and lie sings "The Bould Souldier Boy" -very agreeably. Mr. Hudson mutates Power, not unsuccessfully: he would be more like him could he catch more of the spirit of his prototype, and get rid of some mannerisms—in particular, a trick of nasal speaking with teeth closed.
Previous page
