The Express.
London, England, 1866-05-07 00:00:00

ADELPHI.

Paris correspondents of the English newspapers
lave made the name of M. Victorien Sardon's comedy,
La Famine &wawa, sufficiently familiar on this side of
the Channel. We have all heard of the excitement which
it has caused in Paris—of what great personages resented
ifs severe attacks upon female folly, and of what other
kr important personages held the censorship to blame for
the triumph of a piece the satire of which is avowedly
levelled at the lucky traders and speculators of the Bourse
tinder the Imperial regime. Even " Bonoiton " head-
drab'ss have, we believe, found their way hither; and,
finally, Mr. Webster has introduced the Benoiten family
themselves to an English audience. That the result will
be beneficial, or at least not injurious to good morals—
that the sayings and doings of this Fast Fatally, as the
translator entitles the version of the Famille Beaoiton
produced at the Adelphi on Saturday evening, are not
too strong for the stomachs of English playgoers we are
bound to believe ; for has not the Lord Chamberlain—has
sot Mr. Botlham Donne, whose vigilant care for the purity
of the British drama has been recently so fully depicted
by himself before a committee of the House of Commons,
duly licensed it for performance in a West-end theatre ?
Er. Toole has never appeared in a more successful
piece of true comedy acting than in the scene in
which he minutely calculates with the father the
amount of his property, and offers himself on business
principles as a suitor to old lienoiton for the hand of his
daughter. The ludicrous earnestness of his complicated
arithmetical calculations, and the comic promptitude with
which be turns upon his father every time he attempts to
Mad a march upon him, kept the house in roars of laugh-
ter. Nor was Mr. Bedford's performance wanting in any
of that humour which has so long been familiar to Adelphi
audiences. Mr. Billington performed the thankless part
of Didier with good taste and some amount
of pathos. The part of Fanfan, the precocious
child who speculates in postage stamps and smokes
eigars and drinks occasionally, is cleverly performed
by Miss Smith ; but the part is repulsive. The inameuvres
of the child, who looks like an infant, mid is supposed
indeed to be between six and seven years old, in opening
the father's strong box,are a suggestion of a preternaturally
early tendency to burglary, which all persons of good taste
or feeling will he glad to find omitted. The play cannot
perhaps be rendered altogether unobjectionable to an Eng-
lish audience ; but sonic improvements in this direction
are possible. There are allusions in the dialogue which
would certainly be bettor omitted. The comedy has been
adapted by Mr. 11. Webster, jun., who has compressed the
original five acts into four. The result is unfortunate in
the matter of scenery. The garden and villa scene of the
first act of the original is suppressed. The first three acts
at the Adelphi consequently take place in the same draw-
ing-room interior ; and unluckily the scene of the fourth
act is only another drawing-room interior, which, though
very carefully and elaborately constructed, is so like that
of the previous act, that the audience feel as if they had
been looking for three hours and a half at the same scene.