THEATRES AND MUSIC.
For the last two or three weeks the managers of the different theatres seem to have been actuated by the common desire of proving that the period preceding Christmas is not necessarily dull, but may be en- livened by a proper amount of enterprise. The Lyceum, after a long tor- por, has been bringing forth novelties in tolerably rapid succession; though none of them has proved so efficient as the revived Beauty and the Beast. At the Haymarket, rapidity of production has been unprecedented, and is the more remarkable as Mr. Macready has been a permanent attraction three times a week. The Adelphi bills too, are constantly varying; though the sort of piece which may be called the Adelphi drama par ex- cellence is yet to be brought forward.
Of the last Haymarket novelty, which is taken from a French piece, Le Tigre de Bengale, we shall give the clearest notion by desiring our readers to remember the comedy of The Suspicious Husband; and to imagine that Mr. Strickland not only finds Ranger's hat, but also, in succession, two sticks and a shoe. If they further convert Ranger from a Temple beau of the last century into a Cockney "fast man" of the present day, the no- tion will be complete. This piece admirably acted by Miss Reynolds (the wife), Mr. Webster (the husband), Mr. Buckstone (the intruder), and Mrs. Fitzwilliam (a rustic servant), was as nearly damned as possible on the first night of production. The jealousy consequent on finding a hat is too much like that consequent on finding a stick to admit of much variety in incidents composed solely of such findings; and there was moreover a con- siderable expanse of pointless and useless dialogue to heighten the weariness, which was at last so unequivocally expressed. Subsequent curtailment may have done much to improve The Laughing Hyena, as it is called in English; for its sin is, after all, ratherof quantity than of quality. An adaptation of another French piece, L'Enfant de Quelgu'tm, which has been produced at the Lyceum under the title of Methinks I see my Fat/ten has likewise the disadvantage of being too long, with the favourable dis- tinction thatene ineffective part is at the beginning and that the concluding Portion is lively and bustling enough: The entle—.v* to find a fictitious father and reethertm a young gentleman who is in wativoc -..ell ante- cedents, reminds one of Nicholas Flam;- but the incidents, allettlxTune this point, are more numerous. The chief character is the intriguing per- sonage, played with his usual liveliness by Mr. C. Mathews.
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