COMkDIE FRANCAISE—MADEMOISELLE MARS.
IT is reported that Kean has been playing at Paris to empty benches, whilst overflowing houses welcomed Macready. Genius is un-
noticed ; and what, to be perfect, wants nothing but genius, is admired. But this was to be expected : to foreigners, even the broad line that separates mediocrity from excellence will generally be invisible. The imitator and the original will pass undistinguished ; and the uniformly correct be preferred to the irregular and great. They cannot know sterling from counterfeit who see them both for the first time ; much less can they discriminate the various degrees of purity in what is alike genuine,—a truth that will be retorted on and the uniformly correct be preferred to the irregular and great. They cannot know sterling from counterfeit who see them both for the first time ; much less can they discriminate the various degrees of purity in what is alike genuine,—a truth that will be retorted on us, when it shall be told in Gant, that the greatest of living actresses crossed the seas, to complete Napoleon's unfinished scheme of conquest, and achieved less over a London audience than the little Vertpr6. However, we have a better case than the French ;—la petite Ninon is an apology for such a mistake far better than Macready. So much versatility in a creature so diminutive,—age and infancy so curiously blended, that men laid wagers, and erred twenty years,—this was something too novel not to strike, and consti- tuted a charm, independently of great professional merit. Though a good deal of a Ninon too, Mademoiselle Mars has not slipped through Time's fingers so easily as Jenny Vertpae whose tiny form has fairly eluded the innovator. But, then, Mademoiselle Mars has held him at bay a much longer period. Doubtless, had we seen Valerie, we should not have been in a mood to insinuate a compa- rison; but we have not seen Valerie, and, therefore, are yet ca- pable of offering resistance. Our acquaintance is only with Silvia
and Susanne. Of these two performances, the first, perhaps, was more perfect than the latter ; which, however, if defective in aught, wanted not what the actress failed in, but what was no longer her's to give. Coquetry so chaste, occasionally so delicious, was never before seen on this side the Channel, and, to be consummate, wanted only to be younger. For a little more buoyancy and ex- uberance, we could have been well content had it been less perfect. It has been objected to an actress of our stage, that her ladies are too nearly related to their maids : in the present instance, the maid was too near akin to the lady. Susanne, as well as the pretended Lisette, retained too much griice en femme de chambre. "Ii ne me faut presque qu'un tablier —is that all the difference ?
A quiet deportment, ordinary tones, and moderate play of features are characteristic of the French Comedy, and become its vein of delicate wit, just as a little exaggeration and a slight touch of extravagance suit the broad humour of our own. But as the latter, in bad hands, is apt to grow burlesque, so the other style of acting is equally liable to become insipid. In Mademoiselle Mars there is more than the usual quietness and composure ; but it is a composure the antipodes of tameness. To the features (of which the eyes are constantly on duty) and to the voice everything is committed ; and, without being hard-worked, they do everything with complete effect. Whether it be Susanne or not, it is certainly a personage delightful to hear and see, perfectly at home. The stage is a drawing-room, of which one side is occupied with a picture of a vast theatre tolerably well filled. Mademoiselle Mars would have won no grace in the eyes of Partridge—the pink lady, with the long train, would have been pronounced the better actress, on the ground that she obviously was acting. "As for that Mademoiselle Mars, any body can laugh, and talk, and be angry, as well as she. Why did not she Madam that other lady. just as I have heard Mrs. —," &c. We were glad to see some of the Haymarket people at the Opera that night. They had an opportunity of disco- vering that there is not necessarily one rule for talking and moving on the stage, and another for the drawing-room, that no more is required of the legs and arms in the one than in the other, and that the best way to give effect to a happy or characteristic speech, is to speak it naturally, and leave it to find its own way, unenforced by emphasis and grimace. They cannot be divinities like Mars, it is true ; but they may be men and women—not caricatures of men and women. It was our misfortune, as we said, not to bestir ourselves early enough for Valerie ; and if Valerie leaves this land without blessing it with a second appearance, we shall think it was our crime. In our old age, it shall be one of the three things We will confess to have erred in. A little piece of acting, however, occurred in Susanne—just enough to intimate the actress's power in the representation of stronger emotions than belongs to the part she played. It was the sudden palpitation of alarm which the image of broken bones conjures up, on the Page's leaping from the window, instantly reassured by ocular convic- tion of his safety, and terminating in the faintness apt to over- come a person subjected in quick succession to extremes of fear and joy. With the exception of Valerie, the parts she has selected have not been well chosen for an audience that yawns - itself to death unless powerfully moved ; but it is the greater proof of merit, with means so slender, and materials so hard to be wrought on, to have left looks and tones that will not soon fade from the memory.
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