PUNCH’S THEATRE.
DIE HEXEN AM RHEIN; OR, RUDOLPH OF HAPSBURGH.
Mysterious are thy ways, O Yates! Thou art the only true melodramatist of the stage and off the stage! When a new demonology is compiled thou shalt have an honourable place in it. Thou shall be worshipped as the demon of novelty, even by the “gods” themselves. Thy deeds shall be recorded in history. It shall not be forgotten that thou wert the importer of Mademoiselle Djeck, the tame elephant; of Monsieur Bohain, the gigantic Irishman; and of Signor Hervi o’Nano, the Cockneyan-Italian dwarf. Never should we have seen the Bayaderes but for you; nor T.P. Cooke in “The Pilot,” nor the Bedouin Arabs, nor “The Wreck Ashore,” nor “bathing and sporting” nymphs, nor other dramatic delicacies. Truly, thou art the luckiest of managers; for all thy efforts succeed, whether they deserve it or not. Sometimes thou drawest up an army of scene-painters, mechanists, dancers, monsters, dwarfs, devils, fire-works, and water-spouts, in terrible array against common sense. Yet lo! thou dost conquer! Thy pieces never miss fire; they go on well with the public, and favourable are the press reports. Wert thou a Catholic thou wouldest be canonised; for evil spirits are thy passion; the Vatican itself cannot produce a more indefatigable “devils’ advocate!”
The repast now provided by Mr. Yates for those who are fond of “supping full of horrors” is a devilled drama, interspersed with hydraulics— consisting, in fact, of spirits and water, sweetened with songs and spiced with witches. It is, we are informed by the official announcements, “a romantic burletta of witchcraft, in two acts, and a prologue, with entirely new scenery, dresses, and peculiar appointments, imagined by, and introduced under the direction of, Mr. Yates.” Now, any person, entirely unprejudiced with a taste for devilry and free from hydrophobia, who sees this production, must have an unbounded opinion of the manager’s imagination,—what a head he must have for aquatic effects! In vain we look around for its parallel—nothing but the New River head suggests itself.
But our preface is detaining us from the “prologue;” the first words in which stamp the entire production with originality. Assassins, who let themselves out by the job, have long been pleasantly employed in melodramas, being mostly enacted by performers in the heavy line; but the author of “Die Hexen am Rhein” introduces a character hitherto unknown to the stage; namely, the comic cut-throat. Messieurs Gabor and Wolfstein, (played by Mr. Wright, and the immortal Geoffery Muffincap, Mr. Wilkinson), treat us with a dialogue concerning the blowing out of brains, and the incision of weasands, which is conceived and delivered with the broadest humour, enlivened by the choicest of jokes. They have, we learn, been lately commissioned by Ottocar to murder Rudolph, the exiled Duke of Hapsburgh, who is to pass that way; but he does not come, because his kind kinsman, Ottocar, must have time to consult the god-fathers and god-mothers of the piece, or “Witches of the Rhine;” which he does in the “storm-reft hut of Zabaren.” This Zabaren is a hospitable gentleman, who sings a good song, sees much company, and is played by that convivial genius Paul Bedford. Ottocar is introduced amongst other friends to a “speaking spirit,” who, being personated by Miss Terrey, utters a terrible prediction. We could not quite make out the purport of this augury; nor were we much grieved at the loss; feeling assured that the next two acts would be occupied in fulfilling it. The funny bravoes present themselves in the next scene, and exit to stab one of two brothers, who goes off evidently for that purpose, judiciously coming back to die in the arms of Count Rudolph, for whom he has been mistaken. Under such circumstances it is but fair that the prince should repay the obligation he owes his friend for being killed in his stead, by promising protection to the widow and child. The oath he takes would be doubly binding (for he promises to become a brother to the wife, and not content with thus making himself the child’s uncle, swears to be his father too), if the husband did not die before he has had time to utter his wife’s name. All these affairs having been settled, the prologue—which used to be called the first act—ends.
Fifteen years are supposed to elapse before the curtain is again rolled up; and that this allusion may be rendered the more perfect, the audience is kept waiting about three times fifteen minutes, to amuse one another during the entr’acte. We next learn that Rudolph is seated upon his ducal throne, fortunate in the possession of a paragon-wife, and a steward of the household not to be equalled—no other than Ottocar—that particular friend, who, in the prologue, tried to get a finis put to his mortal career. The jocose ruffians here enliven the scene—one by being cast into a dungeon for asking Ottocar (evidently the Colburn of his day), an exorbitant price for the copyright of a certain manuscript; the other, by calling the courtier a man of genius, and being taken into his service, as no doubt, “first robber.” To support this character, a change of apparel is necessary: and no wonder, for Wolfstein has on precisely the same clothes he wore fifteen years before.
His first job is to steal a casket; but is declined, probably, because Wolfstein, being a professor of the capital crime, considers mere larceny infra dig. A “second robber” must therefore be hired, and Ottocar has one already preserved in the castle dungeons, in the person of a dumb prisoner. Dummy comes on, and the auditors at once recognise the “brother” who was not murdered in the prologue. He steals the casket, and Ottocar steals off.
The duke and duchess next enter into a dialogue, the subject of which is one Wilhelm, a young standard-bearer, who appears; and having said a few words exits, that Ida, the duchess, might inform us, in a soliloquy, what we have already shrewdly suspected, namely—that the ensign is her son; another presentiment comes into one’s mind, which one don’t think it fair to the author and his story to entertain till the proper time. A sort of secret interview between the mother and son now takes place, which ends by the imprisonment of the latter; why is not explained at the moment; nor, indeed, till the next scene, when it is quite apparent; for if one sees an impregnable castle, rigidly guarded by supernumeraries, with an impassable river, bristling with chevaux-de-frise it is impossible to get over, and a moat that it would be death to cross, a prison-escape may be surely calculated upon. In the present instance, this formulary is not omitted, for Wilhelm jumps into the river from a bridge which he has contrived to reach. Though several shots are fired into the tank of water that represents the Rhine, there is no hissing; on the contrary, the second act ends amidst general applause; which indeed it deserves, for the scenery is magnificent.
“The Ancient Arch in the Black Forest,” is a sort of house of call for witches, and it being seen during their merry-making, or holiday, is rendered more picturesque by the Devil’s “Ha, ha!” The hospitable Zabaren entertains hundreds of witches, of all sorts and sizes, who dance all manner of country-dances, and sing a series of songs and choruses, in which the “Ha! ha!” is again conspicuously introduced. It seems that German witches not only ride upon brooms, but sweep with them; and a company of supernatural Jack Rags perform sundry gyrations peculiarly interesting to housemaids. After about an hour’s dancing, the witches being naturally “blown,” are just in cue for leaving off with an airy dance called the “witches’ whirlwind.”