The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-13 00:00:00

ST. JAMES'S THEATRE.

The performances at this house were resumed last
evening, and, despite the popular: festivities of the
day, were attended by a numerous and fashionable
audience. Two pieces were acted, both new, we be-
lieve, in this country, and both were most favourably
received, particularly the second, entitled Maclemoi.
selle de la Siegliere, something between a domestic
drama and a genteel comedy, which for some time
has bad a great run at the Tedatre Francais in Paris.
The incidents and the story generally being altoge-
ther French may, in some respects, -be deemed less
natural than we might wish it, hut the acting is so
good, the audience seemed so determined to enter
fully into the spirit of the scene., that the whole
went off with great éclat, and the actors, some of
whom are old favourites, the others new to the
British public, all shared and shared alike in the
general applause, and may pride themselves upon
having won the genuine sympathy of all present;
but a few words or details may be acceptable to our
readers, and currente calaino we will try to give a rude
sketch of our first impressions of Le Cacliemire Vert.
A gallant naval officer is on his return from the
West Indier, .and meets as a fellow-passenger,
a ledy, who at once wins his good opinion
and his heart. He, having improved his opportunity,
on landing, informs against this very lady, and she
loser, in consequence,
a valuable Cashmere shawl;
great is her anger, of course. They go to the same
hotel and meet; a good deal of sprightly wrangling
ensues—the gentleman admits his crime, and coolly
declares that by so acting he has succeeded in turning
away suspicions from himself, and saved a goodly
number of shawls, intended as presents to his
lady friends. Then follows a declaration of his
sentiments ; then the lady gets into trouble
because she lost her passport ; then the gentleman
discovers that his own contains the name of his future
wife (who has in the meantime become another's),
and the curtain falls upon .a happy couple, but not so
as to screen from applause Monsieur St. Maria,
Madame Roger Solid, and our old friend Tourillon,
who makes a capital thing of the gendarme. Of the
the second piece, Mademoiselle de la Siegliere,
the plot may be thus briefly stated :
DenigriiniegrethheasFreemnicghratßezt!lution the Marquis de la
His property has been
Seigliere
sold to one of his old farmers, who has by dint of in-
dustry and labour much improved it, and, in fact, be-
come a rich agriculturist. The Marquis has
a daughter, the farmer a son. Mdlle. de la Seigliere
returns to France at the restoration, with her family;
ta
ov e
be died
dead, i
isn induced Russia.
the farmer's son, who has
joined the army under Na-
poleon, ,
to
:1111
point iis
believingeu pes
hised
0
of death, to make a donation of his estate to the
farmer,eo
former owner, the Marquis, at the
who believes the money
is merely restored to him. The son re-
turns to claim his father's estate, under
Frenchclaw encounters IVidlle.de la Seigliere, and falls
the charm—he had come an opponent, an
enemy, he becomes a friend, a benefactor (unknown).
A conflict of generosity takes place between certain
of the parties, of craft and deep design between others ;
a certain lawyer does, partly out of ambition, partly
for the sake of revenge, a great deal of good ; and
once more, at the critical moment, we congratulate a
happy couple upon the termination of their troubles,
and ourselves upon a delightful evening. Monsieur
Regnier, who played the Marquis, is a first-rate
actor, and acted the light-hearted stubborn old noble
to the life. Bernard, the farmer's son, was ably de-
lineated by Lafont, and Monsieur Roger, imparted
great spirit to an ungrateful part—that of the lawyer.
The crafty Baroness was acted by Mdlle. Devin, who
looked and dressed the part admirably. But the
whole interest centred at last upon Mdlle. MarqUet,
who elicited much sympathy and applause in the
character of Mdlle. de la SslgnOre. At the fall of
the curtain the actors were all called for, when a little
incident occurred which added, if possible, to the in-
terest already excited by theb f
c er-ormance. Monsieur
Lafont came forward, thankedf the audience for their
,kind patronage, and in a ew words, feelingly spoken,
intimated the anxiety felt by himself and brother
performers that the audience should know that Mon.;
sieur Regnier, the talente
of the
of the Marquis
de la Sighere, was also one
• Of course cr. , .
piece. ;es many, loud, and imperative,
onsieur Regnier of "L'auteur" forced M to re-appear,
and he once more acknowledged the gratifying plau-
dits of the audience.

OLYMPIC
sls'
THEATRE.
at this place
0 f
amusement Last
werethe
presented,E a s t Laster
B,hnlo o iftdo.ifiraeyrthfok Mr. Charles Selby,e first time, with
aenntietxletraavTagbaenzcaafmrobmeritthvell
it ;
or, the Mystic
ithlkinan. The author takes his idea from the C'r..
sican Brothers; the successful dramatic
romance at
the Princess's Theatre ; but, availing himself of the
privileges of his fraternity, he works out that idea by
means of the most heterogeneous materials. He has
forgotten, however, that even in the most outrageous
burlesques some little connexion of incident is
desirable, and that an audience never so well
appreciates the ludicrous and comical as when
exhibited in the development of Some intelli-
gible plot. Mr. Compton, who is
w o the mainstay
of the piece, represents the twin brothers, Funky
Frenky and Fighting Franky, the sons of Mrs. Save-
loy Franky, the renowned proprietess of a milk esta-
blishment in Cow-lane, Camberwell.; A somewhat
wide stretch of the imagination Is required to recon-
cile the singular unity and yet separation, but the
inventive genius of Mr. Selby clears up the mystery
by a novel device. The two brothers were born like
that almost fabulous species of humanity which we
are told has two distinct bodies united in one -
; but
Guy's Hospital was had recourse to to cut them asun-
der, an operation which happily succeeded without
destroying the life of either.
.here the mystery
comme,nces, and continues without intermission ; for,
to confess the truth, the fliwle WO more explains mat-