It is a good thing when Mr. Buckstone steps in
to the assistance of the Adelphi. The days when that house enjoyed its greatest dramatic import- ance were those in which he used to furnish his one piece per annum. Then an Adelphi piece was not only a thing to be seen by a very peculiar set, but one to be talked about and remembered all over London. It is questionable whether in the whole range of dramatic history there ever was a personage more widely renowned, as far as England is concerned, than John Reeve's character of Marmaduke Magog in Buckstone's Wreck Ashore.
The Green Bushes was the last real Adelphi "hit." It came after a long interval, and it was almost feared that it would be followed by another in- terval of equal length. Highly welcome, therefore, was a piece by Mr. Buckstone, which was brought out on Thursday, under the title of The Flowers of the Forest. This combines the essentials of the proper Adelphi melodrama—a well-sustained interest, strong novel situations, room for scenic effect, and that mixture of extravagant drollery without which the most powerful interest is not palatable to an Adelphi audience. This last ele- ment of success we should wish to see more sparingly used, as we deem the introduction in every alternate scene of a couple of facetious gentlemen, al- most totally unconnected with the plot, to be a serious interruption to pro- gress. But we merely state a feeling of our own. Far be it from us to re- commend any dramatic author to earn a crown of martyrdom by abridging the portion of fun which the Adelphians are accustomed to regard as their due.
The interest of The Flowers of the Forest lies wholly within the limits of a wandering tribe, formed in Cumberland by the fusion of some Eng- lish and Italian gipsies. There are white men in the piece, to be sure; but these are only useful so far as they produce collisions among their brown fellow creatures. An Italian gipsy girl falls in love with an Eng- lish gentleman; and so far compromises him as to involve him in a duel with his bride's brother. This brother is shot from an ambush, by a gipsy lad, at the moment when the hostile meeting takes place; and suspicion naturally falls upon the antagonist, who is arrested. The Italian girl saves the gentleman, by revealing the real assassin: but, while she thus does an act perfectly conformable to the principles of general morality, she has committed the greatest crime according to the gipsy code: for, as her father cleverly explains, the death of one of the children of an oppressed race is a serious evil, while, whether one of the white-faced people be put to death or not, is a matter perfectly trivial. The only method of recon- ciliation proposed to her, is the murder of the pale-faced wight who has caused the mischief; but she prefers suicide, and stabs herself in the pre- sence of her tribe.
There is a novelty in this collision between the general moral code and the rules of a particular race; and, while the latter cannot be admired from a high point of view, the strong feeling of fidelity among a persecuted people cannot fail to be interesting. The three chief characters are the romantic Italian, played by Madame Celeste; a good-humoured English gipsy girl, abounding in smiles and tears, acted by Mrs. Fitzwilliam; and the boy, who is the sweetheart of the latter and the victim of the former,— and who, it should be observed, commits the murder, under the strong provocation of a horsewhipping. It is not too much to say, that the cha- racter of the English gipsy, who has been deprived of all she loves by her Italian comrade, and yet regards her with compassion while all the tribe is against her, is a more beautiful conception than is generally to be found in melodrama. The part is played with the best feeling by Mrs. Fitzwilliam: her natural pathos forms a good relief to the more strongly marked passions represented by Madame Celeste, who shows her picturesque talent to the utmost. Miss Woolgar's performance of the gipsy lad does her great credit indeed: we had no notion that she had talent of the order required for such a representation of the effects of guilt and terror upon a fragile frame. The " roar " of the piece is intrusted to those comic geniuses Messrs Wright and Bedford. As for the raise en scene, it is just what it ought to be with a strong Adelphi piece.
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