THE WONDER
| The Times.] | [October 9, 1817. |
Covent-Garden Theatre.
The Wonder, or A Woman keeps a Secret, was performed here last night with admirable effect. Miss Brunton was the heroine of the piece, the charming Violante. We cannot speak in rapturous terms of her performance of the part. There is in the character itself an extreme spirit, and at the same time an extreme delicacy, which it is not easy to unite. Miss Brunton went through the different scenes, however, with a considerable degree of grace, vivacity, and general propriety, never falling below, and seldom rising above mediocrity. She does not
‘Snatch a grace beyond the reach of art;’
nor, according to another line of the same poet, which seems to convey a perfect idea of female comic acting,
‘Catch ere she falls the Cynthia of the minute.’
We have already objected to this young lady’s recitation, a certain didactic, monotonous twang, and we cannot upon the present occasion recant our criticism. Miss Foote was Violante’s friend, Donna Isabella, and looked and lisped the part very mincingly. Charles Kemble’s Don Felix is one of his best parts. He raves, sighs, starts, frets, grows jealous, and relents, with all the characteristic spirit of an amorous hero; and in the drunken scene with old Don Lopez, where he produces his pistol as the marriage-contract, is particularly excellent and edifying. Fawcett played Lissardo as he plays almost every thing: he chattered like a magpie, and strutted like a crow in a gutter. But Emery’s Gibby was the thing: the genius of Scotland shone through his Highland plaid and broad bluff face: he seemed evidently afraid neither of having his voice heard, nor his face seen. In person he resembled the figure of the Highlander which we see stuck up as a sign at tobacconists’ windows. We never see nor wish to see better acting than this. Emery’s acting is indeed the most perfect imitation of common nature on the stage. Abbott was respectable as Colonel Briton. Mrs. Gibbs’s Flora was what every waiting-woman ought to be.