THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.
| CENTRAL PARK GARDEN is the subject of this article. It is all very well for the editor of PUNCHINELLO to require me to write about the Plays and Shows, but how would he like to do it himself, with the thermometer at 103 degrees, and the Fourth of July only just over? And then, inasmuch as I am not a white-hatted philosopher, writing of "What I know about Farming," how can I be expected to write of things which have no existence? For, with the exception of the CENTRAL PARK GARDEN, and one or two minor places of amusement, there are no plays and shows at present in this happy city. We certainly owe the managers a debt of gratitude for closing their hot and glaring theatres during this intolerable month. Of course nobody was obliged to attend them while they were open; but then, when people were told that the theatres were crowded to an uncomfortable extent, they felt an irrepressible desire to go and be uncomfortable. |
It is one of the peculiar characteristics of Man, as distinguished from the higher animals, that he will go through fire and water to get into a theatre which he is told is crammed to the point of suffocation, whereas he won't deign to enter one where he is sure to find a comfortable seat. Now the charm of the CENTRAL PARK GARDEN consists in this: that the visitor can take his vapor bath in the Seventh Avenue cars on his way to the Garden, and can enjoy the sweet consciousness of being jostled and sat upon in the search for amusement, while he is still certain of finding pure air and plenty of room at the GARDEN itself.
By the bye, it has just occurred to me that the Fourth of July is properly a show. It might be called a burlesque, but for the fact that it is unaccompanied by the luxury of legs. Indeed, after the celebration is over, there are always fewer legs in the nation than there were at its commencement. There is no canon of criticism which would expurgate legs from the theatrical burlesque, but there are cannons of Fourth of July which do their best to abolish the incautious legs of patriotic youth. I reconsider my purpose of writing of the CENTRAL PARK GARDEN, and will devote this column to the national show.
I have somewhere read--not in BANCROFT'S History, of course; no man ever did that and lived--that the Fourth of July was established in order to commemorate our deliverance from a government which taxed us with stamp-duties. How happy ought we to be when we reflect that, thanks to our noble fathers who fought and bled at Long Branch. I should say Nahant,--well, at some watering-place, I really forget precisely where,--we have no taxes, and know not what a revenue stamp is like! Thank fortune, we have no share in the national debt of Great Britain, and have no national debt of our own that is worth mention. Besides, we are going to found the little debt that we do owe, so that nobody will ever be bothered about it again.
I like this plan of funding debts; but, curiously enough, sordid capitalists and miserly landlords don't. I offered the other day to fund all my personal debts, in the shape of a long loan at three per cent, but my creditors did not take kindly to the idea. Such is the sordid meanness which is too sadly characteristic of the merely commercial mind. But to return to our subject, which is, I believe, the CENTRAL PARK GARDEN.
It is curious how critics will differ. Here is a case in point. The other night, at the CENTRAL PARK GARDEN, I sat near a table surrounded by five well-known musical critics. THEODORE THOMAS had just led his orchestra through the devious ways of the Tannhauser overture, and I naturally listened to hear the opinions which the critical five might express. This is what they really did say.
FIRST CRITIC. "Thank heavens, the music is over for a few minutes. Now, boys, we'll have some more beer."
SECOND CRITIC. "Not any for me, thank you. I'll have a Jamaica sour."
THIRD CRITIC. "Bring me a claret punch."
FOURTH CRITIC. "Whiskey cocktail"
FIFTH CRITIC. "Well! I'll stick to beer. It's the best thing in this weather."
What ought a man to think of the Tannhauser, after hearing these five contradictory opinions? For my own part I rather thought the cigars were a trifle too strong.
And there is just the same difference of opinion about THEODORE THOMAS'S merits as a conductor. On this occasion there were two aged and indigent musicians in the audience, who knew more about orchestral music than even the present President of the Philharmonic Society, and to each of them did I propound the question, "Is THOMAS a good conductor?"
FIRST AGED PERSON. "My dear sir, he doesn't conduct at all. His orchestra pays no attention to him, and plays in spite of the absurd and meaningless passes which he makes with his baton."
SECOND A. P. "My dear sir, he is the best conductor of the day. He has made his orchestra the best in the country,--in fact, the only one. No man has done more for our musical public than has THEODORE THOMAS."
And as I ordered eleemosynary beer for these Aged Persons, and pondered their slightly contradictory utterances in my mind, I heard a fair young creature in a scarlet plimpton and a fleezy robe of Axminster remark, "O! that dear delightful Mr. THOMAS. He is so Perfectly lovely! and his coat fits him so divinely! He is ever so much handsomer than CARL BERGMANN."
While I agree most heartily with everything that I heard at the GARDEN on the occasion which I have mentioned, I am not quite sure that the establishment is either a play or a show. On the whole, I don't think I had better say anything about it. If anybody has a different opinion, let him express himself. If he don't like to take the trouble, let him apply to ADAMS Express Company, which will express him to the end of the world, if he should so desire.
MATADOR.