It naturally required some considerable time to recover from the tremendous effect produced upon my nervous system, by witnessing the unequalled acting of the "American Tragedian;" so that several weeks elapsed before I felt again disposed to visit a theatre.
At length, however, I began to feel a longing for the green curtain again; and feeling time hang heavy on my hands from the fact that I had an entire evening at my own disposal, I held a great consultation with my inseparable friends, on the most feasible and agreeable method of sacrificing the great horological enemy.
After mature deliberation, we resolved to visit the lately established, "truly gorgeous temple of the 'muses,'" and witness the redemption of one of the pledges of the Directors, who had promised us the restoration of the legitimate classic drama. We believed that there we should find "true artistic taste, displayed in the adornment and decoration of the building," and that we should see "sterling plays acted by performers of the highest merit; where every attention would be paid to propriety and elegance of costume, and splendor and magnificence of stage appointments."
We took a stage and navigated up Broadway until we came opposite Bond street, to the place where a big canvas sign marks the entrance to the "Grand Thespian Wigwam, and Head Quarters of Modern Orpheus."
Through a wedge-shaped green-baize door—down a crooked pair of stairs—under an overhanging arch—and we stood in the parquette.
Took a front seat, and immediately had occasion to commend the economy of the managers in not lighting the gas in the upper boxes—then proceeded to admire in detail the many beauties of this superb edifice, which, at first glance, reminded me of an overgrown steamboat cabin.
Looked for a long time at the indefinite Indian over the stage, trying to fix the gender to my satisfaction, and decide whether it is a squaw or an individual of masculinity—hard to tell, for it has the face, form, and anatomical developments of the former, and the position and hunting implements of the latter—I concluded that it must be an original Woman's Rights female, who, in the lack of breeches, had taken possession of the "traps" of her copper-colored lord and master, and, getting tired of the unusual playthings, had lain down to take a snooze.
Admired the easy and graceful drapery painted on the "drop," which looks as if it was whittled out of a pine shingle—took a perplexed view of the assorted landscape depicted thereon—endeavored to reconcile the Turkish ruins with the Swiss mountains, or the Gothic castle with the Arab slaves—wanted to harmonize the camels and other tropical quadrupeds on the right, with the frozen mill-pond on the left—couldn't understand why the man on the other side of the same, among the distant mountains, should be so much larger than the individual close to the shore, who is supposed to be nearer by several miles.
Tried to make out what the man in a turban is doing with his legs crossed under him, on a raft, but gave it up—admired exceedingly the two rows of private boxes, which looked like windows in a martin-house, but could not perceive the propriety of having them supported by plaster of paris ladies, without any arms, and their bodies covered up in patent metallic burial-cases. (I was informed that the artist calls them Caryàtides.)
Was impressed with the admirable proportions of the stage; a hundred and eleven feet wide, by four feet ten inches deep—reminded me forcibly of an empty seidlitz-powder box, turned up edgeways—censured the indelicacy of the managers in permitting the immodest little cupids, who tacitly perform on the impossible lutes and fiddles, to appear before so refined an audience, "all in their bare"—(my friend says the drapery was "omitted by particular request.")