THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.
| Comedy personified, in Mr. CLARKE, has now reigned at BOOTH'S for nearly six weeks. During that time there has been a perceptible change in the metaphorical atmosphere of the house. The audience no longer wears the look of subdued melancholy which was once involuntarily assumed by each mourner for the memory of SHAKSPEARE, who passed the solemn threshold. The ushers no longer find it necessary to sustain their depressed spirits by the surreptitious chewing of the quid of consolation, and are now the most pleasant, as they were always the most courteous, of their kind. Persons have even been heard, within the past week, to allude to BOOTH'S as a "theatre," instead of a "temple of art;" and though the convulsions of nature which attend the shifting of the scenery, and cause castles to be violently thrown up by volcanic eruptions and forests to be suddenly swallowed by gaping earthquakes, impart a certain solemnity to the brightest of comedies, still there is a general impression among the audience that BOOTH'S has become a place of amusement. And in noting this change PUNCHINELLO does not mean to jeer at the former and normal character of BOOTH'S. BEETHOVEN'S Seventh Symphony, DANTE'S Inferno, JEFFERSON'S Rip Van Winkle, and EDWIN BOOTH'S Hamlet are not amusing, but it does not follow that they are therefore unworthy of the attention of the public, which is pleased with the rattle of De Boots, and tickled with the straw of Toodles. |
FOX vs. GOOSE is a three act comedy in which Mr. CLARKE last week made his audience laugh as freely as though the tomb-stones of all the Capulets were not gleaming white and awful in the lamplight of the property-room; or, at all events, would be gleaming if any body were to hunt them up with a practicable lantern. The opening scene is the tap-room of an inn, where Mr. FOX FOWLER, an adventurer, is taking his ease and his unpaid-for gin-and-milk.
Enter Landlord, presenting his bill. "Here, sir, you've been drinking my beer for several years, and now I want you to pay for it."
Fox. "My friend! why ask me to pay bills? Do you not perceive that I wear a velvet coat? And, besides, even if I wanted to pay I could not until my baggage, which I gave to an expressman ten years ago, shall reach me. It will probably arrive in a month or two more."
Landlord. "Here comes Sir GANDER GOSLING. I'll complain to him of your conduct."
(Enter Sir Gander.)
Fox. "My dear Sir GANDER. Allow me to embrace you."
Sir Gander. "I don't know you. I'm not my son JACK."
Fox. "But I am Jack's dearest friend. I have saved him from drowning, from matrimony, from reading the Nation, from mothers-in-law, and all other calamities mentioned in the litany."
Sir Gander. "Describe him to me, if you know him so well."
Fox. "He is tall, dark, slender, and quiet in manner."
Sir Gander. "My dear fellow he is short, fat, light, and noisy. I am convinced that you know him. Permit me to pay your bill, lend you money, and tell you all about our dear JACK'S intended marriage." (He pays, lends, and narrates accordingly. A terrific rattling of dishpans simulates the arrival of a train. Sir GANDER departs and JACK GOSLING enters.)
Fox. "My dear JACK, allow me to embrace you."
Jack. "I don't know you. I'm not my father."
Fox. "But I am your father's dearest friend. Sit down and have a bottle of wine, and tell me all about ROSE MANDRAKE, your intends bride. 'Rose! Rose! the coal black Rose!' as MILTON finely remarks." (They sit down and JACK immediately gets very drunk, thereby affording another proof of the horribly adulterated condition of the liquor used on the stage, which infallibly intoxicates an actor within two minutes after it is imbibed. [Let the Excise authorities see to this matter.] Finally JACK falls, and the curtain immediately follows his example.)
Critical Young Man, who reads all the theatrical "notices" in the Herald in the leisure moments when he is not selling yards of tape and ribbon. "I don't think much of CLARKE. He ain't half the man that NED FORREST is. There ain't a bit of spontanatious humor in him. Them San Francisco Minstrels can beat him out of sight."
Accompanying Young Female Person. "Yes, I think so, too. I hate to see a man act drunk. It's so low and vulgar. I like pretty plays, like they have at WALLACK'S."
Respectable Old Gentleman. "PLACIDE--BLAKE--BURTON--"
Every Body Else. "Well, this is real humor; I haven't laughed so much since I heard BEECHER preach a funeral sermon."
The second act takes place in the house of Major MANDRAKE. Fox has successfully assumed the character of JACK GOSLING, and is having a pleasant chat with the family, when the gardener enters to inform the Major that a flock of crows is in sight.
Major Mandrake. "I love the pleasures of the chase. Bring my gun, and I will shoot the crows." (He goes out, and shoots JACK, who is climbing over the gate. Re-enter Major and men carrying JACK.)
Major. "Alas! I have missed the crow over the cornfield, and lost the crow over my shooting which I would otherwise have had. Also I have shot a man out of season, and the sportsmen's club will prosecute me."
Jack. "I am not dead, though my appearance and conversation might induce you to think so. My name is JACK GOSLING. The chap in the velvet coat is an impostor."
Major, Fox, and other dramatis persons. "Away with the wretch! He himself is the impostor. Call a policeman who will club him if he makes no resistance."
JACK is dragged away, but perpetually returns and denounces his rival. He is bitten by suppositious dogs cunningly simulated by stage carpenters, who remark "bow wow" from behind the scenes. He is cut by ROSE MANDRAKE, and also by rows of broken bottles, which line the top of the wall on which he makes a perilous perch, not having a pole or rod with which to defend himself against the dogs. He is challenged by Fox and seconded by Miss BLANCHE BE BAR in naval uniform. Finally he takes refuge in the china closet, and hurls cheap plates and saucers at his foes. With the exhaustion of the supply of crockery, the act naturally comes to an end, and, as frequently occurs in similar cases, the curtain falls.
Comic Man. "Why does CLARKE, when he slings china at the company, remind you of the Paraguayan war? Of course you give it up. Because he carries on a war on the Plate. Do you see it? Crockery plates and the river Plate, you know. Ha! ha!"
And two ushers, reinforced by a special policeman, drag the miserable man away, and lead him to MAGONIGLE'S private room, there to be dealt with for the hideous crime of making infamous jokes in BOOTH'S theatre. He is never seen again, and so the Philadelphia Day loses its brightest ornament.
The third act consists of a duel between JACK and FOX, each of whom is too cowardly to fight. They therefore follow the safer example of rival editors, and swear and scold at each other. At last a small millennium of universal reconciliation takes place, and the usual old comedy "tag" ends the play.
(Parenthetically, why "tag?" Does it receive this name because its invariable stupidity suggests those other worthless commodities "rag" and "bob-tail," which, outside of theatres, are generally associated with the name.)
And every body goes away murmuring of the genial humor of CLARKE, the magical violin of MOLLENHAUER, the elegance, convenience and comfort of the theatre, the matchless memory of BOOTH'S Hamlet and Iago, and the golden certainty of the coming of Rip Van Winkle. And every body is supremely satisfied, and says to every body else, "This theatre needs only a company, to be the foremost theatre of either continent."
MATADOR.
Remarks by Our Stammering Contributor.
The up-town theatrical sensation is, we hear, produced "regardless of expense." We had reason to think that its managers would show more Frou-frou-frugality.
