THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.
| Of a certainty Mr. WATTS PHILLIPS made a mistake when he fancied himself a dramatist. Possibly he may have inherited some small share of the poetical talent of his well-known maternal grandfather,—the author of "Divine and Moral Songs for Children," but he has shown no sign of the eminent histrionic genus which has made his elder brother, Mr. WENDELL PHILLIPS, so popular a Reformer. Still, if he was bent upon writing plays he should have confined himself to dramatizing the more quiet and domestic of Dr. WATTS'S poems. "How doth the little busy bee"—for example—could have been turned into quite a nice little five-act drama, had Mr. PHILLIPS condescended to grapple with so simple a subject. But no, he must indulge in battles, and Sepoys, and Butchers of St. BARTHOLOMEW, and dancing girls and things. He will write sensational plays, let the consequences be what they may. Hence we are made to suffer from Not Guilty, The Huguenot, and similar harrowing spectacles. The Huguenot, which has just died a lingering death at BOOTH'S Theatre, is an aggravated case of dramatic misdemeanor on the part of the author, since it is wantonly stretched out into five acts, when it could properly be compressed into three. A strict compliance with the old maxim, "De mortuis nil desperandum nisi prius," (I haven't quite forgotten my Latin yet,) would oblige me to refrain from abusing it, now that it is happily dead; but, as another proverb puts it, "The law knows no necessity," and I therefore can do as I choose. Here, then, is its corpse, exhumed as a warning to those who may be about to witness any other of Mr. PHILLIPS'S dramas. I flatter myself that the disinterested public will agree with me, that if all the Huguenots were as tedious as Mr. WATTS PHILLIPS'S private Huguenot, the massacre of St. BARTHOLOMEW was a pleasing manifestation of a very natural and commendable indignation on the part of their much-suffering fellow-citizens not of Protestant descent. |
ACT I.—Scene, a tavern in the outskirts of Paris. RENE, the Huguenot, is pretending to sleep on an uncomfortable wooden bench. A drunken villain insults a lovely gipsy. RENE gets up and kills him, and escapes his pursuers by falling over a convenient precipice. Curtain.
Mr. WALLER. (Soliloquizing behind the scene.) "To-morrow I'll have a comfortable bench to sleep on, if I have to take MACGONIGLE'S sofa. I won't play RENE again if I have to lie for twenty minutes on that infamous board bench!"
COMIC MAN. (Who is believed to read HARPER'S "Drawer.'") "You know WATTS PHILLIPS is a grandson of old Dr. WATTS. Now here's a genealogical joke. If TOM'S father is DICK'S son, what relation is DICK to TOM?"
ACCOMPANYING FRIEND. "Nephew? niece? mother-in-law?—I give it up!"
COMIC MAN. "I thought you would. Well, he is—Upon my word I forget the answer, but it's a first rate one. I've got it down at the office, anyhow!"
ACT II.—Scene, the interior of a Duchess's drawing-room. Enter RENE through the window.
RENE. "I have killed a man and am pursued. Save me!"
DUCHESS. (Aside.) "Perhaps he is an influential politician, and may get my son an office in the Street Department." To RENE.—"Sir, I will save you. Get behind the curtain." (Enter mob of drunken soldiers.)
FIRST SOLDIER. "Your Grace's son has just been killed. I see the murderer's legs behind the curtain."
DUCHESS. "You can't have him, for I have promised to save him. Get out, the whole lot of you. Come here, you murderous wretch. I've saved you this time, but I won't do it again. Here comes the officer to seize you." (He is seized. Curtain.)
FIRST CRITICAL PERSON. "How do you like it?"
SECOND CRITICAL PERSON. "I hardly think the unities are fixed up just the way they should be, but the scenery is fair, and WALLER isn't so bad."
COMIC PERSON. "Now here's another joke which you can't guess. Said a little four-year-old boy, 'My father and mother have a daughter who is not my sister.' Now what relation was she to the boy?"
ACCOMPANYING FRIEND. (Looking in vain for a policeman, but finding None.) "I don't know, I'm sure."
COMIC PERSON. "Give it up, do you? Why, she was his sister; the boy lied, you see. Ha! ha! ha!"
ACT III.—Scene, the outside of a prison in which RENE is confined. A confederate breaks in and sets it on fire. RENE escapes. Curtain.
YOUNG LADY. "Pa, why did you come here, if you intended to sleep all the time, and never speak a word to me."
PA. "Because, my dear, I am troubled with inability to sleep. Morphine won't help me, but WATTS PHILLIPS will. My physician tells me that he always prescribes one of PHILLIPS'S plays in cases like mine."
COMIC PERSON. "Now here's another one. This will tickle you, for it's first rate. You ought to read the "Drawer," and remember the anecdotes, so that you can repeat them when you're in company. That's the way I get up all the good things I say. O! this is the question I was going to ask you. Said a man, 'Father and mother have I none, but this—'"
ACCOMPANYING FRIEND. (With great precipitation.) "Excuse me, but I see a friend in a box whom I must speak to." (Flies.)
COMIC PERSON. "Never mind, I'll tell it to the usher the first time he comes this way."
ACT IV.—RENE is discovered, disguised as a monk.
RENE. "The hounds of justice dog me. Therefore I will keep in their way until I have seen the lovely niece of the Duchess. She must love me when she learns that I have killed her cousin." Curtain.
ONE-HALF OF THE AUDIENCE. "Is that really the whole of the act?"
THE OTHER HALF. "Thank goodness! it really is."
ACT V.—Scene, the palace of the Duchess. Enter RENE and the LOVELY NIECE.
RENE. "The hounds of justice are laying for me just outside the door. Fly with me, my beloved!" (Enter the DUCHESS.)
DUCHESS. "She will not fly if I am at all acquainted with myself. Gyurll, this fellow murdered my son, and I will give him up to justice." (Enter COURT PHYSICIAN.)
COURT PHYSICIAN. "Your Grace is mistaken. True, your son lay dead for a month or two, but by a judicious application of four dozen bottles of my "Universal Hair Restorer and Consumption Cure," he has recovered. Here he comes."
DUCHESS. "'Tis he! 'Tis my son, though rather thin about the legs. RENE, I forgive you. Marry the gyurrll if you wish. Bless you, my children." Curtain.
FIRST USHER. "Go round, somebody, and wake the people up. If you don't, they'll sit here and snore all night"
SECOND USHER. "No they won't. They'll wake up, now the play is over."
And the event proves that he is right. Slowly and gapingly the audience arises, strolls sleepily out of the door, and entering wrong stages, is carried to all manner of wrong destinations. So strong is the soporific influence of the Phillipic drama, that not until hours after the play is over, does the average spectator become sufficiently wakeful to express an intelligible regret that Mr. WALLER and Mrs. MOLLENHAUER should not have made their reappearance on the stage in some drama in which they could have had an opportunity to act, and in which the public could have taken some little interest.
MATADOR.