THE THEATRES.
Le Docteur Noir, one of the thoroughgoing French &antes of the Porte St. Martin school, has been produced at the St. James's Theatre, as an ea- dent vehicle for the powers of Lemaltre and Mademoiselle Clarisse. The story is a very simple one; turning on the love of a Black freedman it Bourbon for the daughter of his former master; and the difficulties ariss from the contest between love and colonial prejudice. However, with a& this simplicity of story, the authors have managed to introduce a great va- riety of incident and of scenic effect. Making their lovers swear eternal constancy in the midst of a rising sea, they bring in some very striking stage-billows; and, imprisoning their dusky hero in the Beadle, with a nobleman in the apartment above him, they attain that acme of melodra- matic delight, the exhibition of two rooms at once,—nay, three at once, for there is a kind of ante-room for the gaoler.
But our readers must not imagine, because the piece is written so ob- viously for these visible effects, that it is altogether worthless as a drama. The character of Fabien, the "Black Doctor, suffering both from his pas sion and the oppression inherited by his race, is not only strikingly but delicately delineated; and Pauline, the high-spirited lady, who after she has privately married the Mulatto conceals the fact of their union, until the insults he receives at an aristocratic party force her to "speak out," is a highly dramatic character, and has certainly made the fortune of Mademoiselle Clarisse for the present season at least. A climax of passion which she introduces into the fifth act, takes the audience completely by storm. Those who wish to see Frederic Lemaitre should not see him in this piece only, as they will miss one of his great qualities—his invention of detail. But as a pathetic piece of acting, profoundly conceived and ex- quisitely finished, his Fabien is perfect. The scenic effects--attractione unusual at this theatre—are done in a manner highly creditable to Mn
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