THE THEATRES.
Two different kinds of entertainment are offered to the choice of holy- day playgoers this Christmas : besides the old "comic pantomime," with its grotesque exaggerations and practical jokes, there is the more modern "burlesque extravaganza," where drollery assumes an elegant shape, and the pleasantries are verbal and vocal. In both cases, the fairy tales and nursery legends are travestied ; the pretty romantic "in- troductions," that used to heighten by contrast the boisterous gambols and licence of the harlequinade, being now out of fashion.
Pantomimes predominate, of course. Their subjects are familiar to the stage, though not in the grotesque form. King Pepin and Valentine and Orson are caricatured at Drury Lane ; it is Blue Beard at the Adelphi ; Jack die Giant-Killer at the Olympic ; Hop o' my Thumb at Sadler's Wells; Tam o' Shanter has been laid hold of at Astley's, on the strength of his gray mare Meg ; at the Surrey, Lindley Murray and his Grammar have been pressed into the service of the motley crew. But small is the amount of fun created, in comparison with the means and appliances for making merriment; the stories are an badly told as to become tedious and unintelligible, for all the absurdities introduced ; the tricks and transformations, however ingenious, go off flatly, for want of purpose to render them effective. As for humour, this quality is unknown to the present race of pantomimists : Clown, Pantaloon, and Harlequin, are mere tumblers and gymnasts. In thus characterizing the pantomimes en masse, we speak from report in the greater number of cases ; but personal observation, so far as it extends, has convinced us that the judgments of those who have gone before us, in the daily journals, do not err in being too unfavourable.
The Drury Lane pantomime, all things considered, appears to be the best this season ; owing mainly to the great pains and splendour with which it has been got up. In drollery it is deplorably deficient : we heard only one hearty roar of laughter throughout the evening ; and that was caused by PAYNE'S burlesque of Carlotta Grisi in the dance where she flung herself from a height into the arms of her lover. The opening promised well : the wretched "abode of Idleness" changed into a smiling scene of work and plenty by Industry, and the compact of the two powers to rear up Valentine and Orson each after his own way, excited some interest in the fate of the two foundlings ; hut no- thing came of it. So it is with the practical jokes of Clown and the magic agency of Harlequin; they are introduced apropos to nothing, and produce no result. For example—the Clown calls for a glass of ale, and, when he goes to drink, a buxom bar-maid emerges from the goblet ; he then gets a bottle of "Cork stout," and pulls out a tall column of corks, which terminates in an explosion of gunpowder ; and there the joke ends. Now, if the Clown and Pantaloon had been re- presented as dying of thirst from their hot pursuit of Harlequin and Columbine, and, after trying to drink at fountains that dried up, pools that became beds of rushes, and been mocked with the failure of all sorts of liquids until they both gave up the ghost, to be revived by a ducking in a horse-pond, the two clever tricks we have cited would have had due effect, as the climax of a connected story. There are some ingenious devices,—such as the animating two plaster statues of the Queen and Louis Philippe, and a group of Twelfth-cake figures ; con- verting a "Zephyr hat" into a pretty little light-footed dancer ; a box of colours into the English flag ; and a Turnham Green omnibus into a green stall, all the passengers emerging with the hue of verdigris: but they had no application to the pantomimic chace—indeed, not even its semblance was kept up. This defect, as we have over and over again demonstrated, is the secret of the ill success of pantomime! it neutralizes the skill of the machinist and scene-painter, and deprives the 'motley troop of all opportunities for good pantomimic acting ; the only chance left to produce a shoat is that of turning the stage into a bear-garden.
There are but two burlesque extravaganzas,—The Fair One with the Golden Locks, at the Haymarket, written by Mr. PLANcsti, who first
introduced this new and agreeable species of amusement at the Olympic under Madame VEST1U5 ; and The Magic Mirror, by Mr. G. a'BECK-
Err, at the Princess's. The Haymarket tairy piece is extremely pleasant and diverting: the spectacle is at once superb and comical ; the story is capitally told; and the rhyming dialogue, interspersed with parodies of popular airs and concerted pieces, is a string of epigrams : every couplet has its point. We need not tell how the page Graceful wins the " Fair One with the Golden Locks" for Sing Lachrymose, through the agency of a carp, a crow, and an owl, whom he had befriended—how he re- covers the Fair One's ring, kills the giant Galifroo, and brings her a bottle of the elixir of perpetual youth and beauty—and how the old
King is poisoned by mistake, and Graceful bears off the belle: suffice it to say, that the nursery-tale is pretty closely adhered to,--though the bills tell us, " the little dog has been omitted, for fear his attraction should render the manager liable to the penalties of the late Act of Par- liament, which enacts that no one shall ' use any dog for the purpose of drawing or helping to draw,'" &c. Miss Jame BENNETT is the Fair One with Golden Locks, Miss P. HORTON the page Graceful, and JAMES' BLAND King Lachrymoso : it is almost superfluous to add that these characters are well supported. BLAND makes the weeping monarch a most uncommon crier ; and, not content with pocket-handkerchief pathos, he snatches sorrows from Othello, Macbeth, and King John in turn.. Miss HORTON delivers the dialogue with playfulness and sig- nificance, and sings her share of the music charmingly : the parody on. "Lucy Long" is the favourite ditty ; though that on "the Chough and Crow," in which the giant's decollated head takes the bass, is the most effective.
We have not looked in the Magic Mirror at the Princess's, to see the wonders therein reflected ; but the splendour of the spectacle and the smartness of the dialogue are reported to be inviting.
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