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At nearly every theatre some novelty has been produced in the course of the week now closing. The post of honour, on the record, belongs in this instance to the Princess's, where the Gabrielle of M. Emile Augier,
has been produced in English shape, and so exceedingly well performed as to gain a considerable accession of renown to every person concerned
in its execution. Mr. G. Melville, as the long suffering barrister, who ngnanimously saves his wife from a disgraceful elopement, is fitted with a part that suits him in every particular, as he looks, thoroughly mild, thoroughly magnanimous, and thoroughly forensic. The painful feeling arising from consciousness of wrong is depicted with various degrees of force, but with equal propriety, by Mrs. C. Young and Mr. Shore, as the weak woman and her tempter, and the thoroughly comfortable aunt and uncle, whose healthy cheerfulness relieves the gloom produced by the sins and sorrows of the rest, are brightly coloured by Miss C. Leclercq and Mr. F. Matthews. The five acts of verse written by M. Augier have been reduced to three of prose by Mr. Reynoldson, and the story is very fairly accommodated to English manners. The only thing to censure is the very meaningless title, Home Truths. The Lyceum was opened according to promise on Monday, under the management of Madame Celeste, who has furnished the front of the house with new sources of comfort, and was warmly greeted when, in a prose address, she explained the principles by which she was guided. Her first piece, called Paris and Pleasure, is an adaptation of Les Er fees de Paris, which was played with success at one of the Boulevard theatres some time ago, though it had nothing whatever to recommend it in point of novelty. Two young Breton farmers are exhibited at various stages of the road to ruin, each of which is supposed to represent some phase of Parisian vice and misery, but they are saved from utter destruction and restored to the land of their birth through the good offices of a virtuous French actress, played by Madame Celeste, who, assuming various dia. guises, follows them through their entire career, like her predecessor in the old drama called Satan. The sensibility of Madame Celeste, the pic- turesque character of her dresses, and the very complete manner in which this piece is put upon the stage, constitute such attractive force as it possesses, the interest of the story bearing no proportion to the length of the work.
A new piece, called The Chatterbox, written by Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, and brought out at the St. James's, is not connected with Le Moulin a Paroles (The Head of the Family at the Olympic), though it turns on the mischief produced by a talkative woman. Miss Tingtong, the chatter- box, is indeed more closely allied to the scandal-monger in Les Femmes llorribles (The Gossip at the Princess's), for there is malice in her babble in addition to the love of hearing her own voice. This resemblance is, however, purely accidental, for Mr. Jerrold has invented his own alight plot, and clothed it with dialogue of no slight pungency. The acting of Mrs. Frank Matthews as the bland mischief-maker cannot be too highly commended.
At the Olympic there is a new farce called a Base Imposter, founded on a French piece entitled La Contre Basile. Its chief recommendation is Mr. Horace Wigan's perfect representation of a Gallic adventurer, forced to assume the character of a musician, which he sustains by drawing his bow lightly over the strings of a violoncello, while the sound correspond- ing to the motion is produced by a real professor stationed in an adjoin- ing room. No artist has advanced more steadily than Mr. Horace Wigan, who, though he generally acts small parts, never fails to render them significant. His range too is extensive. He is equally at home as a Frenchman, as an Irishman, and as a representative of marked cha- racter, without peculiarity of dialect. The time-honoured vice of coquetry is feebly lashed at the Strand Theatre, in a slight piece called Shameful Behaviour ; which has the good fortune to be well acted in a considerable number of parts. No great success has been achieved by the revival of the Bold Stroke for a Wife at the Haymarket. The characters assumed by Mr. Charles Mathews, who plays the Protean Colonel Feignwell, appeal but little to modern sympathies, and altogether the plot is too improbable, the interest too slight, and the dialogue too coarse to gratify an audience of the pre- sent day.
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