THE THEATRES.

Tim Haymarket is become a sort of half-way house for actors on the move from one theatre to another—a Thespian hotel, at which Transat- lantic voyagers put up for a few nights previous to going on board or directly on stepping ashore—a stage for " Ihrewells" and " first ap- appearances :" its announcements resemble the list of arrivals and departures at a fashionable hotel ; and this week they run thus. Arrivals—Mr. POWER, from the provinces ; Mr. Mgenggnv and suite,

from Covent Garden, on his way to Drury ; Miss ELLEN from a tour in the United States. Not that all these eminent performers are visible at once : no, Mr. WEBSTER, W110 is a very HERM' EL for dis- cerning the approach of erratic stars, is economical of their lustre, and only brings one luminary of the galaxy into the field of his reflector at a time. This week POWER is in the ascendant, and his mirthful influ- ence has been sensibly felt in the region of the diaphragm : MACREADV Will culminate next week ; and the sensations of choking and sobbing consequent on his appearance will be counteracted in some degree by the more exhilirating POWER. ELLEN Tngu—crewhile the lost Plciad of the theatrical hemisphere--will not be visible till the Irish star is below the horizon.

The Lyceum is the " house of call" for comedians ; and if the table d'hiite of the Haymarket, like that of other hotels, be rarely such as to satisfy the critical palate of the epicure, the entertainment of the Ly-

ceum must needs be of a more miscellaneous character : Italian dishes rechaufKe by English cooks are the principal items—Sea/mauve/a t1 lta Ricci is to be the remove for Elisir d'Athore; but this week an Irish

stew has been served up, which, though coarse in flavour, has been relished as a contrast to the insipidity of the Italian imitations.

Snap-apple Night, or a Kick-up in Kerry, for all its jovial title, is a

dismal piece of business, made up of Whiteboyism, jealousy, man- slaying, and false accusation; and although the villain, who is " kilt entirely " by being thrown over a bridge in a struggle with the girl he is carrying off, comes to life and repentance at the right moment, and saves his rival from being hung for murder, the relief comes too late to throw any sunshine on the dark picture of Irish litb. The fun and frolic of " Snap-apple night" is attempted to be represented by a stage tableau—vivant we cannot call it—of 3PCitasE's well-known pic- ture ; but its effect is not so potent as the ghastly ceremony of swearing

in Captain Rock over the corpse of a Whiteboy, Mrs. TERNA N made her appearance here after a long secession from the London stage, in the character of the heroine ; which she played with cleverness and judg-

ment, but it affords little opportunity for fine acting. Lvox as the White- boy and jealous lover, threw pathos as well as energy into his performance. Among other faces new to this part of the town, the broad phiz of

Mr. MANDERS, a very low comedian, the vulpine physiognomy of a Mr. HORTON, and the self-approving smirk of a Mr. Nolimag, a tight-braced walking gentleman, were conspicuous. P. MATUEWS is, however, here : and indeed, the company, though ill-assorted, includes a variety of talent, some of it of a superior order, that only wants . better pieces to

employ it. Players seem to regard the expense of authorship as a

tax to be evaded by every possible means : they wear stock-plays thread- bare, and pick up any trash that falls in their way, and may be had

gratis ; not reflecting that it would be the best economy to pay a fair price for a really good drama that would last a season through. They rely too much on their personal popularity : the best acting on the stage requires novelty to aid its attraction.

A word on stage tableaux. We were never more forcibly struck with the unnaturalness and absurdity of the (so-called) tableaux vivans, in which players piofess to embody popular pictures, than in this in- stance : for APCLisn, in his " Snap-apple Night," has represented more movement and noise than is commonly seen. The attempt to depict

motion and sound in painting, is of course extremely difficult, and by many held to be impolitic, if not impossible ; but it is a legitimate ob- ject of the pictorial art, and when attained it is a triumph of skill. Now,

to see a set of actors endeavouring to divest themselves of the very at- tributes which constitute their power—voice mud movement—and emulating the condition of waxen dummies, in order to realize

the animation that a painter has been taxing his tanto,t ability to

represent, is a blunder of the most monstrous and ludicrous kind. They could not adopt a more efficient means of burlesquing, a pic-

ture, and making it look as unlike nature as possible : all the

attitudes seem forced and strained, because we see the movement suspended—as if the whole party in lively action were suddenly struck with catalepsy. The painter endeavours, by delineating what is imitable by his " silent art," to suggest to the imagina- tion of the beholder the bustle, stir, laughter, and load-voiced mer- riment of the scene ; and the proper way to realize his minute and fixed creation, is to supply the animation and noise as well as the sub- stantial forms: the groups ought to be in motion, and the full be audible.

In this instance, the man in the great-coat entering the cottage and about to " snap" at the apple, the couple dancing a jig, and the boys bobbing for apples, looked the most unnatural of any ; though these were pre- cisely the figures where the aid of living representatives was most es- sential. The painter conveys the idea of a succession of incidents,

shifting groups, transient and changing expressions, by delineating the scene at a single point of time, because he can do no more : the

scene on the stage ought to supply the past and the future also--to give the whole series of pictures melting one into the other, of which the painter selects one. This is so obvious, that it is like urging a truism to insist upon it ; but the necessity is not of our making. If the stage-director would avail himself of the aid of the painter to group his living lay-figures in front of the scenic background, in a manner suit- able to the scattered lights and the dramatic action, we should no longer

be made to smile at such "grouping" as a semicircle of persons all standing or all seated ; or a parcel of people scattered all over the stage

like pins on a pincushion, or wedged together in two crowds on each side connected by a row in the middle. The proper application of the painter's skill to stage uses is only seen in perfection in the Parisian theatres, where the stage presents a succession of beautiful animated pictures : this as much as any thing accounts for the popularity of dramas that meet with little or no success here. The English stage wants the aid of artists as well as authors.