The Express.
London, England, 1851-04-22 00:00:00

DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

As the novelty for Rutter Monday, Mr. Anderson
produced " The robbers" of Schiller; himself, of course,
representing the hero of the piece. Last year, he brought
out another of Schiller's plays, " Cabal and Love," with but
inoifferent success; and we do not anticipate much more
(sum the present attempt. The two plays thus revived arc
at all the dramatic works of the celebrated German poet the
I beat worthy of Isis name. They were juvenile
pieces; the offspring of a heated imagination and
•• unripened judgment; with bright flashes of genius,
Vat wild, extravagant, exaggerated in passion and senti-
ment, overstrained in language, and without the depth of
thought and knowledge ofhumau nature which character-
ise the great works on which his permanent fame must rest.
" The Robbers," in truth, is a melodrama in five acts. '
Everything about it is unnatural and unreal. Charks de
Moor himself is essentially a theatrical personage; one of
those beinp, sufficiently common on the stage, who preserve
their interest with the audience by the constant expression
I of fine and lofty feeling, while thcyarc committing a thou-
sand enormities, Francis is a stage villain of a very ordi-
suy stamp ; and Amelia the heroine, is remarkable only
for her strange infidelity to her old lover by falling despe-
rately in love with him at first sight, believing him to be a
stranger. The best parts of the play are the scenes of
robber life in the forests of Bohemia. They are animated
awl stirring: and Vow's principal followers, Siriker.
Railer, and Spiegelbery, are spirited sketches, with eonsi
derable individuality. But their characteristic features
were lost on the stage by the incapacity of the actors. A
prod deal has fern said about the immoral tendency of this
play, but for our part we believe it to be perfectly innocent.
The story goes, indeed, that a set of hot-headed German
students were tempted by the example of Charles de Moor
to form themselves into a band of robbers ; but there is
little fear of any such vagaries in an English brain. To
produce a moral effect, whether good or bad, a play must
have more reality an.: truth than arc to be found in " The
Robbers."
The acting was mediocre. Mr. Anderson made strong
points now and then, but the general style of his
performance was somewhat slow and heasy The
riis full of very long speeches, which he
veted with too much mouthing and emphasis.
He was most happy in the last scene, which he went
through with a mournful calmness and solemnity that was
very impressive. He moor a moat preposterous change in
the conclusion of the piece. In the original, Moor resolves
to give himself up to justice. He remembers a poor man
with many children, whom the rewaid offered for his
head would relieve from their distresses. "He and his
children shall have it," says Moor; and the curtain falls.
But this affecting cline was too simple for Mr. Anderson;
so, while Moor was slowly leaving the stage to the sound of
melancholy music, a party of soldiers rush in and shoot
him, the curtain not falling till be has gone through the
movements of a protracted death agony. Certainly, as the
emendator of Schiller, Mr. Anderson has rivalled Libber as
the emendator of Shakspeare.
The part of Amelia was performed by Miss H. Gilbert, •
iiirbatuote. She looked the character well, and acted It
respectably. There was some pretty scenery, and the spew
tar le was well got up. But in mercy to the ears of the
audience, Mr. Anderson would do well in future perform-
ances to eut eat the robbers' ehoruses.
" Ariel the Prodigal" concluded OM entertainments of
the evening.