- The few novelties by which the present Easter is
distinguished, will .not--we opine—permanently increase the repertory of the burlesque drama. Mr. Frank Talfourd's extravaganza, Electra, produced at the Haymarket, sparkles with all the wonted wit of its author, but the story of the sinful Clytemnestra and avenging Orestes does not lend 'Itself readi- ly to comic treatment, and Mr. Talfourd, perceiving this ,Scylla, has leaped into the Charybdis of altering the fable to such an oxtent, that ever and anon we are tempted to forget the connection of thesctene before us with the traditions of heroic Greece. Matricide is shockin, but still an Orestes who does not kill his mother is little more than alp ordinary young gentleman, who regains his family estate by surmoundng a few legal difficulties. Nor is there any great histrionic display in ithe course of the piece, as in those burlesques of which Mr. Robson is the hero.jt is to the extraneous ornaments of Electra that we must look fiir itsz tractive force, and certainly in the representation of an antique fragm
in a characteristic ballet, and in a concluding allegorical tableau, of sort that finds so much favour at the present day, the rulers of AluS corative department of the Haymarket Theatre have done themsel*
finite credit. J At the Adelphi,: the oft-told tale of Le Diable Boiteux, is tail ance more, in the heroic couplets, that are supposed to give a cortiin.tortelo every subject on which they are employed, and those who aro anuttno exacting in their demands for mirth may agreeably follow Mr.gfic41 who plays Asmodeus, and Mrs. Mellon, who represents the stuldenA, through a series of pleasant scenes that work out a moral in form otj time
friendship and constant love. soon
To the Princess's and to the Olympic, Easter brings no change, nerA any change required at either of these establishments. At the Stra#d, Mr. Byron's excellent burlesque, the Maid and the Magpie, decked oat with a few new verses, has been revived in lieu of the less effective Kenilworth, and is found as pleasant as ever. With mention of the facts, that Captain Reid's novel, Oceola, has furnished the Surrey with a melodrama, in which Mr. Creswick plays the Indian chief, and that at Astley's there is a new hippodrama on the well-worn subject, Ivanhoe,
we close our very insignificant record of the holiday theatricals.
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