The engagement of Miss Helen Faucit and Mr. Anderson at
the Hay- market is a consequence of Mr. Macready's appearance at the Princess's : but the combined attraction of these two asteroids did not counterbalance the preponderating force of the greater planet, for the Princess's was crowded on Monday, while the Haymarket was but half full. Neither Miss Faucit nor Mr. Anderson has appeared in London since the termi- nation of Macready's managerial career; and it is a remarkable instance of the impoverished state of the stage, that the " stars " of four leading theatres at the present time—the Haymarket, Princess's, Lyceum, and Sadler's Wells—are composed of the debris of one company under his management. The substitution of stock plays for novelties only serves to make this deteriorated condition more evident, by the inferiority of the casts; the subordinate pasta in both tragedy and comedy being filled by makeshifts; and the best to be expected from the generality of the per- formers is that they should be inoffensive aids.
Miss Helen Faucit's personation of the Lady of Lyons is too well known to need more than a general testimony to the excellence of her perform- ance on her reappearing in this character. It is, perhaps, the best thing she does; and she never did it better than on this occasion. Anderson has physical requisites that well become the part of Claude Neltiotte; and he played it with spirit and feeling; though the tact and discretion which characterized his performance in the earlier scenes forsook him at the last, and he elicited some disapprobation by one or two explosions of rant that destroyed the effect of his previous good acting. The Hunchback was played last night; with Miss H. Faucit as Julia and Anderson as Master Walter.
The Adelphi has outran the Princess's in the race for Parisian novelties, and brought out a burlesque version of Le Diabk ii Quatre, with dialogue in doggrel rhyme, under the title of Taming a Tartar. As a spectacle it is very splendid; and the grotesque dancing of Madame Celeste and Asa Woolgar, Wright and Munyard, gratified the audience so much that the slang passed current for humour, and the unintelligibility of the plot was accounted a part of the fun. When the ballet is brought out at the Prin- cess's, where it is announced for next Tuesday, the points of the Adelphi parody (if it has any) may be understood.
Another version of the French piece from which the amusing Lyceum farce of Next .Door is taken, has been produced at the Princess's, and called Jack o' Both Sides. The situations are so diverting that the worst dialogue cannot dull them; but the inferiority of this to Wigan's version is made more conspicuous by Oxberry's unfitness for the part of the double lover. Miss Emma Stanley, as the little milliner, acts very cleverly.
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