THE DRAMA.
ASTLEY’S COMPANY AT THE OLYMPIC.
The distresses of actors distress nobody but themselves. A tale of woe told off the stage by a broad comedian, begets little sympathy; and if he is in the “heavy line,” people say he is used to it, and is only acting—playing off upon you a melancholy joke, that he may judge how it will tell at night. Thus, when misfortune takes a benefit, charity seldom takes tickets; for she is always sceptical about the so-called miseries of the most giddy, volatile, jolly, careless, uncomplaining (where managers and bad parts are not concerned) vainest, and apparently, happiest possible members of the community, who are so completely associated with fiction, that they are hardly believed when telling the truth. Par exemple—nothing can be more true than that Astley’s Theatre was burnt down the other day; that the whole of that large establishment were suddenly thrown out of employ; that their wardrobes were burnt to rags, their properties reduced to a cinder, and their means of subsistence roasted in a too rapid fire. True also is it, that to keep the wolf from their own doors, those of the Olympic have been opened, where the really dismounted cavalry of Astley’s are continuing their campaign, having appealed to the public to support them. Judging from the night we were present, that support has been extended with a degree of lukewarmness which is exactly proportionate to the effect produced by the appeals of actors when misfortune overtakes them.
But, besides public sympathy, they put forth other claims for support. The amusements they offer are of extraordinary merit. The acting of Mr. H. Widdicomb, of Miss Daly, and Mr. Sidney Forster, was, in the piece we saw—“The Old House at Home”—full of nature and quiet touches of feeling scarcely to be met with on any other stage. Still these are qualifications the “general” do not always appreciate; though they often draw tears, they seldom draw money. Very well, to meet that deficiency, other and more popular actors have come forward to offer their aid. Mr. T.P. Cooke has already done his part, as he always does it, nobly. The same may be said of Mr. Hammond. When we were present, Mrs. H.L. Grattan and Mr. Balls appeared in the “Lady of Munster.” Mr. Sloan, a popular Irish comedian from the provinces, has lent a helping hand, by coming out in a new drama. Mr. Keeley is also announced.
The pieces we saw were well got up and carefully acted; so that the patrons of the drama need not dread that, in this instance, the Astleyan-Olympic actors believe that “charity covers a multitude of sins.” They don’t care who sees their faults—the more the better.
“BEHIND THE SCENES.”
When a certain class of persons, whose antipathy to gratis sea-voyages is by no means remarkable, are overtaken by the police and misfortune; when the last legal quibble has been raised upon their case and failed; when, indeed, to use their own elegant phraseology, they are “regularly stumped and done up;” then—and, to do them justice, not till then—they resort to confession, and to turning king’s evidence against their accomplices.
This seems to be exactly the case with the drama, which is evidently in the last stage of decline; the consumption of new subjects having exhausted the supply. The French has been “taken from” till it has nothing more to give; the Newgate Calendar no longer affords materials; for an entire dramatic edition of it might be collected (a valuable hint this for the Syncretic Society, that desperate association for producing un-actable dramas)—the very air is exhausted in a theatrical sense; for “life in the clouds” has been long voted “law;” whilst the play-writing craft have already robbed the regions below of every spark of poetic fire; devils are decidedly out of date. In short, and not to mince the matter, as hyenas are said to stave off starvation by eating their own haunches, so the drama must be on its last legs, when actors turn king’s evidence, and exhibit to the public how they flirt and quarrel, and eat oysters and drink porter, and scandalise and make fun—how, in fact, they disport themselves “Behind the Scenes.”
A visit to the English Opera will gratify those of the uninitiated, who are anxious to get acquainted with the manners and customs of the ladies and gentlemen of the corps dramatique “at the wing.” Otherwise than as a sign of dramatic destitution, the piece called “Behind the Scenes” is highly amusing. Mr. Wild’s acting displays that happy medium between jocularity and earnest, which is the perfection of burlesque. Mrs. Selby plays the “leading lady” without the smallest effort, and invites the first tragedian to her treat of oysters and beer with considerable empressement, though supposed to be labouring at the time under the stroke of the headsman’s axe. Lastly, it would be an act of injustice to Mr. Selby to pass his Spooney Negus over in silence. PUNCH has too brotherly an affection for his fellow-actors, to hide their faults; in the hope that, by shewing them veluti in speculum, they may be amended. In all kindness, therefore, he entreats Mr. Selby, if he be not bent upon hastening his own ruin, if he have any regard for the feelings of unoffending audiences, who always witness the degradation of human nature with pain—he implores him to provide a substitute for Negus. Every actor knows the difference between portraying imbecility and being silly himself—between puerility, as characteristic of a part in posse, and as being a trait of the performer in esse. To this rule Mr. Selby, in this part, is a melancholy exception; for he seems utterly ignorant of such a distinction, broad as it is—he is silly himself, instead of causing silliness in Spooney. This is the more to be regretted, as whoever witnessed, with us, the first piece, saw in Mr. Selby a respectable representative of an old dandy in “Barnaby Rudge.” Moreover, the same gentleman is, we understand, the adapter of the drama from Boz’s tale. That too proves him to be a clever contriver of situations, and an ingenious adept with the pen and scissors.