That important personage, the prompter, has his little tub, as usual, in the middle of the stage, destroying all the illusion of the scene, and, from necessity, obliging the audience to hear him as well as the performers. Senor Zappucci, an Italian, intent, one evening, upon impressing the audience with the drollery of a comic song, fell through the prompter’s hole; and the spectators began to consider whether this was a part of his song. Fortunately he was not hurt. The superior arrangement, in this respect, of the English theatres, might afford a lesson to the most prejudiced foreigners.
The admittance is two reals to all parts of the house: but this does not include a seat. It is, therefore, necessary to take a whole box, or a single place in the pit (which costs three reals), in addition to the admission.
Soldiers, who constitute every where the police of the city, were formerly stationed both inside and outside of the theatre; but this is no longer the case; and the eye of the republican citizen is not offended by their presence at places of public amusement.
No refreshments are sold in the theatre; we never hear the “Choice fruit, ladies and gentlemen, and a bill of the play!” and the spectators in the pit are saved the nuisance of having the peelings of oranges and apples dropped upon them. But then they are not condemned to sit five or six hours, as in our theatres; three hours and a half is the utmost. The pit audience generally walk out between the acts, and reassume their seats without disturbance or difficulty.
Smoking in the theatre is not allowed; but such charms has the segar, that they watch the opportunity of the absence of the police to smoke in the lobbies.
The theatre continues open all the year round, with the exception of Lent; and then music is permitted.
The regular nights of performance are Sundays and Thursdays; though there are sometimes performances on Tuesdays, saints’ days, &c. Sunday nights are the most crowded, as in all Catholic countries. On rainy nights there is no performance.
The usual performances at the theatre consist of a play and farce; with singing, sometimes, between the acts.
“Othello” is at times performed—not that of our Shakspeare, but a translation from the French. Its absurdities and tameness no Englishman can endure with common patience; he looks in vain for those bursts that overpower the imagination, and electrify the spectators.
An ingenious English gentleman translated Cumberland’s “Wheel of Fortune,” and “The Jew;” but they are too sentimental to please this audience. “Love laughs at Locksmiths” and “Matrimony,” from the original French, are stock pieces; and “The Scottish Outlaw,” and “Charles Edward Stuart” are very successful.