THE THEATRES.
As DETAZET appeared at the St. James's last night, and FLESSY was to have performed at the Theatre Francais in Paris on the same evening, we may announce the departure of the one and the arrival of the other of these fascinating actresses without chance of a red-letter falsification of play-bill promises. So far from regretting the extension of Made- moiselle PLESSY'S engagement, the subscribers to the French Plays have reason to be pleased, since but for it their favourite would have gone without appearing in Valerie, the character in which she has suc- ceeded Mademoiselle MARS. To those who remember that inimitable actress in the part of La Jeune Aveugle, the personation of PLESSY, clever and finished as it is, and adorned by the graces of her beautiful person, is deficient in the charms of sentiment and pathos. We do not sympathize with PLESSY'S privation of sight : indeed, we cannot believe her blind; she is so constantly in the habit of using her eyes, in reconnoitering the audience as well as in addressing the persons on the stage, that it seems like a violation of a condition of her being to assume the blank, nn- speculating gaze of the sightless. Nor is the burst of grateful transport with which she greets the beautiful objects and attached friends around her sufficiently impassioned : it is rather the delighted surprise of a lively girl suddenly brought into an enchanting scene, than the rap- turous joy of a woman entering upon a new existence. But if PLESSY -was unsatisfactory as Valerie, she was perfection as the Princess who flirts with a rustic admirer in Le Portrait Vivant. Her habitual air of dignified ease and self-possession, and the intelligence of her glances, gave exquisite significance to the finesse and by-play of the royal coquette. She played with her inamorata as an expert angler with the fish on the hook ; a smile of complacent triumph being the only indica- cation of her interest in the sport. The pointed neatness and delicacy of her enunciation were more conspicuous from the ludicrous contrast of CARTICNY'S utterance as Sir Dryck Tanley, the" Barronet Anglais " : he rolled the English-French phrases about in his capacious jaws like morsels of hot plum-pudding, keeping his mouth open as if to cool them. CARTIGNY'S speech, indeed, was not only a clever and amusing carica- ture of our bad French, but a practical satire on the loose, mumbling articulation of many of our countrymen—alternate stammer and splutter ; harsh and loud, without distinctness to atone for the absence of inflection. RHOZEVIL, the most lively and adroit of the young men, appeared for the first time this season, in a ponderous piece of pleasantry apropos of the Polka ; a version of which he and FORGEOT danced as it is taught by M. Cour..ox for the ball-room. It is not so amusing a piece as the Polkamania at the Lyceum, which is an adaptation of La Polka en Province.
Tragedy is triumphant at Sadler's Wells : last week Macbeth was performed nightly, and this week Othello has been equally attractive. Nor is comedy neglected ; the School for Scandal and the Jealous TVife being underlined. A new class of visitors are attracted, and the au- diences are as much improved as the performances. In short, this, the first attempt in pursuance of the new Licensing Act to elevate the cha- racter of a suburban theatre, appears to be eminently successful: and no wonder, for entertainments not unworthy of a patent theatre are brought home to the doors of the dwellers in the populous districts of Islington, Pentonville, and Clerkenwell, at Surrey prices. Mr. PHELPS and Mrs. WARNER have led the way to a reform of the theatrical sys- tem, that their prosperity will spread widely : to them belongs the credit of having demonstrated the obvious though questioned truth, that in- tellectual amusements, furnished by the stage at moderate prices to resi- dents in the outskirts of the huge metropolis, will not lack encourage- ment.
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