GAIETY "SANS-GÊNE."
Madame Sans-Gêne, represented by Madame Réjane, at the Gaiety Theatre, has made a decided hit. The plot of the piece by Messieurs Sardou and Moreau is poor, but it shows what an experienced dramatist can do with meagre materials and one strikingly good notion. It seems as if the plan of the play was started from the idea of an interview between the great Napoleon, when Emperor, with a washerwoman whose bill for washing and mending he, when only a poor lieutenant, had been unable to discharge. This scene is the scene par excellence of the piece. It is here that both Madame Réjane and M. Duquesne are at their very best. Besides this, and the scene between Napoléon, La Reine Caroline, and Madame de Bulow, when there is a regular family row admirably acted by M. Duquesne, with the tongs, and Mlles. Verneuil and Suger with their glib tongues, there is very little in the piece.
Madame Sans-Gêne "going Nap."
M. Candé, as the sergeant who rises to Maréchal, is very good, as is also M. Lerand, as Fouché. Madame Réjane is a thorough comédienne, but it is most unlikely (good as are historically the stories told about this same washerwoman elevated to the rank of Duchess) that she, in an interval of nineteen years—i.e., between 1792 and 1811—should not have been able to wear her costume with, at all events, some grace and dignity, and it is most improbable that the clever blanchisseuse of 1792 should, in 1811, have found any difficulty in managing her Court costume without rendering herself outrageously ridiculous. All this hitching up of the dress and kicking out of the leg "goes" immensely with the audience; and this must be the comédienne's excuse for overdoing the farcical business of her chief scenes, save the best of all, which, as I have already surmised, was the motive of the piece, namely, the scene with the Emperor in the Third Act. Here she is perfect, only just assuming so much of her old manner as would naturally come to her when chatting with "the little Corporal" over old times.
As to M. Duquesne as Napoléon premier,—well, middle-aged play-goers will call to mind Mr. Benjamin Webster as a far more perfect portrait of the great Emperor than is M. Duquesne, but the latter has the advantage in manner, and realises the Emperor's traditional eccentric habits in a way which at once appeals to all conversant with the story of the eccentricities of the Great Emperor when he chanced to be in a very good humour. Perhaps nowadays there are very few who read Lever's works, but a dip into Charles O'Malley, with Phiz's spirited imagestrations, will give exactly the phase of Napoleon's character that Messrs. Sardou and Moreau have depicted in this piece.
The play is well mounted, and the acting of all, from the leading parts to the very least, is about as good as it can be. The incidents of the drama are not particularly novel, but they are safe, and to every Act there is a good dramatic finish. Madame Réjane may congratulate herself and "Co." on a decided success in London.
Mrs. R. was driving lately in a friend's barouche, which seemed to swing about a great deal, and made her feel rather uncomfortable. She was not surprised at this, however, when she heard the carriage was on "Sea" springs!