The Press.
London, England, 1856-12-27 00:00:00

THE THEATRES.

LAST night all the theatres reopened with their
Christmas novelties, and to-day the morning papers
are full of puffs of every kind, in laudation of the
various performances. Upon no occasion are the
" holiday" notices of theatrical productions to be relied
upon, as it is, in the first place, the rule to praise every
thing, hard and fast ; and, it, the second, the praise
is in most. places laid on awkwardly, as the regular
critic can see but one or two pieces, and everybody
connected with the establishment is sent to "do"
some theatre or other. Curious things are " done,"
as well as the theatres, sometimes, as when a raw
Irish or Scotch reporter is intrusted with the critical
duty, and in his honest zeal he reviews The Stranger,
or Jane Shore, as a new piece. Other " green
hands" begin their notices of a pantomime with a
reference to Thesms, and a slight history of the
drama. But all is forgiven and forgotten in the
mass of " holiday notices ;'' and we merely refer to
them to show that we have no means before us, at
present, of knowing which of the Christmas novel-
ties is worth seeing.

Puffing, as we have intimated, is the order of the
night in reference to all theatrical matters. An
original piece is the only exception. This does
sometimes receive what would be fair criticism, if
similar measure were given elsewhere, but which be.
comes coldness and unfairness in the presence of
the adulation lavished upon anything else. But a
spectacle, or a ballet, or a translation of any kind,
is sure to receive from the papers a shower of
laudatory adjectives, which, next day, the manager,
probably winking, transfers to the playbill as
" Opinions of the Press." If there were a theme in
England, or audiences who were capable of compre-
hending it, this sort of thing might do mischief. But
at present it does no great harm, beyond propagating
a general tone of insincerity. The reason of its
harmlessness is that there is no longer an intellectual
class of playgoer. The changes in London, the
aggregation of suburbs, and our social habits, have
excluded the real play goer from the theatre, and the
audiences are now composed of two classes only,
neither of which knows or cares much about
the goodness or badness of what it sees and
hears. These are, first, the men about town, who
lounge in, after a late dinner, to look at some pretty—
or oftener ugly—lady in whom they are interested,
and who obtained her engagement on the under-
standing that she had friends who took boxes or
stalls; and, secondly, the lower orders, who simply
go to be amused, and who are much better pleased
by Mr. Wright's sitting down in some tar and talking
some slang than they could be by the best acting or
the neatest dialogue. To these two classes the
theatre is chiefly given up, while the people who
used to form the theatrical audience—that is, the
upper portion of the middle classes—reside in the
suburbs, and are too wearied with their offices, their
:canting houses, and their shops at nightfall to care
to come again into town. Now and then they visit
in force with all their families to see a pantomime or
a spectacle ; but the educated, judicious audience
which they would form is no longer to be found. The
only theatre to which this class goes is Sadler's
Wells, a house which is situated among a most
respectable and intelligent population; and the pre-