Monday, Dec. 4. SPEED THE PLOUGH—ELLA ROSENBERG.
The comedy of Speed the Plough is deservedly reckoned among the best of the modern stock, and considered as reflecting great credit upon the muse of Mr. Morton. The plot is very skilfully mixed up, notwithstanding the difficulty that always must attend carrying on, in connection with each other, two interests of a totally distinct and opposite nature, connecting two contradictory agencies without either encroaching on the other, and conducting an alternation of serious and comic scenes to one end, without making them clash. This Mr. Morton has, to a considerable degree, successfully accomplished; making that which occasions the difficulty subservient to one of the most desirable but arduous ends in dramatic writing, that of concealing the final unravelling or denouement, as it is called, of the plot.
A striking beauty in this play, and the more striking because seldom met with, is the fidelity with which some of the characters are drawn from life; not as it is found in a solitary individual, but as it appears in a whole numerous class. Such is farmer Ashfield—such is dame Ashfield. Yet the characters in general are not very impressive, and there are some inconsistencies in them as well as in the arrangement of the incidents. A young lady’s suddenly, and at first sight, falling in love with a peasant boy, though it may have happened, is an occurrence too singular to be perfectly natural; and as a dramatic incident, it is a coarseness which cannot well be reconciled to the characteristic delicacy of such a young lady, even by the ex post facto discovery that the object of her love was in reality a person of condition. We do not think that love at first sight, which is in reality nothing more than Forwardness indulging itself in the airs of Romance, and Prurience calling in Fate to sanction its indelicacy, ought to be clothed in such a respectable and captivating dress as our author has bestowed upon it in this play.
Yet with these defects to counterbalance them, Speed the Plough is replete with beauties—the dialogue is neat, spirited, and forcible; and there are many delicate touches of the pathetic, and much excellent moral sentiment to recommend it.
The best character, beyond all comparison, is that of Farmer Ashfield. It is a picture of real life, originals of which are found in multitudes in England—plain, honest, benevolent, and under a rustic garb, possessing a heart alive to the noblest feelings. No man that we know in this country possesses such happy requisites for exhibiting the farmer in the true colours of nature as Mr. Jefferson. In the rustic deportment and dialect—in the artless effusions of benignity and undisguised truth—and in those masterly strokes of pathos and simplicity with which the author has finished this inimitable picture Mr. Jefferson showed uniform excellence: and as in the humorous parts his comic powers produced their customary effect on our risibility, so in the serious overflowings of the farmer’s honest nature the mellow, deep, impressive tone of the actor’s voice vibrated to the heart, and excited the most exquisite sensations.
Mr. Wood performed Bob Handy. He was given out in the bills for sir Philip Blandford; but was, by a casualty, obliged to take the part of Bob: a change which, on more accounts than one, the audience had no cause to regret. Nor in our opinion, had either Bob or sir Philip any cause to lament it. Mr. Wood is at home in light comedy, while Mr. M‘Kenzie, whose merits seem not to be sufficiently appreciated, is well calculated for such characters as Philip Blandford.
The judgment of Mr. Warren enables him to perform any character he undertakes with propriety—but there are some parts in comedy for which he seems admirably qualified by nature and knowledge of stage business. We could enumerate several; but this is not the place for doing so—his representation of sir Abel Handy was uncommonly humorous and appropriate.
Mr. Cone’s Henry was pleasing. This young actor promises well. Though, to adopt the cant of the turf, he will never be first, there is no fear of his being distanced, unless he carries too great weight.
Dame Ashfield in the performance of Mrs. Francis would be admired by Mrs. Grundy herself; and to express our opinion of Mrs. Wood’s Susan would be only to repeat what we have already said of her on more occasions than one.