The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-12 00:00:00

CHARLES MATHEWS AT PARIS.

(According to the Times and Galignani.)

Charles Mathews, the well-known comedian, has
performed a feat which is probably without a prece-
dent. In Paris, at a French theatre, he has acted
the principal part in a French vaudeville, written
by himself—a complication of audacities which For-
tune, who loves the bold, might be expected eminently
to favour. Mr. Mathews came out on Monday at the
Varietes in the one-act vaudeville, Un Anglais
amide. There had been no preliminary flourish of
trumpets, and Paris learnt the hazardous venture
from that morning's playbills. Brown, the timid
Briton, had been sent abroad by his father to acquire
assurance. At least this is the account he gives of him-
self to a certain Monsieur Gogo, into whose house he
introduces himself with a remarkable absence of
ceremony, as a particular friend of his son, with
whom he has been travelling on the Rhine. Gogopere
is soon of opinion that the object of Brown senior
in sending his son abroad has been attained with a
superfluous degree of completeness. Brown junior
makes himself perfectly at home in the casa Gogo,
invites himself to breakfast, makes love to the
niece, romps with the maid, doubles up his host by
facetious punches in the ribs, sings a patter song in
English and a soi-disant Neapolitan ditty with
guitar accompaniment, and is active, voluble, and
impudent as only Charles Mathews can be—and se
nobody could have expected that he would be
when acting in a foreign tongue. During the first
two-thirds of the piece it bade fair to be a com-
plete success ; the audience was evidently greatly
amused, and laughed heartily at the impudence
and eccentricities of the English traveller in a
very short coat and very big buttons. But the
piece dragged a little to wards the end, a part
of the audience got impatient, and the curtain
at last fell upon what a French journal to-day says
was only a demi-succes. The audience was cer-
tainly not disposed to indulgence towards a
foreigner attempting for the first time so difficult an
achievement. I heard a Frenchman who sat behind
me remark dryly to his friend, On regoit mieux
les acteur Frangais a Londres," and I think the
Frenchman spoke the truth. The actors of the
Varietes seemed to do their best to bupport their
new comrade—especially the ladies,who were mani-
festly unable to help laughing themselves at his
eccentricities. The piece remains on the bills. Mr.
Mathews will probably have seen the necessity of
cutting down its latter portion, and will have van-
quished, at subsequent performances of it, a slight
nervousness, natural enough under so novel and
arduous a task, which evidently affected his acting
on the first night. I have just found, in the Galig-
nani of this date, the following appreciation of the
piece and actor :--
"Mr. Mathews is an Englishman, but is so perfect a
proficient in the French language that, but for the unmis•
takeable something which no foreigner can completely dis-
guise, ho might be taken for a native of France. His manner
and delivery are easy and unembarrassed, and save some
little awkwardness arising from the double novelty of his
position as a Mutant, and speaking in a foreign tongue
before a public to whom he was an utter stranger, it would
be difficult to set the free and easy gentleman before us
down as anything but an old familiar acquaintance. Of
his talents as an author " Un Anglais Timide" does not
convey so favourable an opinion; the piece appears a
mere refacciamerito of incidents collected without attention
to probability or consistence for the purpose of displaying
the talents of the principal personage, who indulges in a
series of absurdities and oddities which amusingly furnish
the materials of the little piece of which his acting is the
life and soul. He was warmly applauded at the fall of the
curtain, and the piece was a settled success, but a few ion•
gueurs on the first night, more apparent, perhaps, behind
the scenes than to the audience, having disappeared on the
second representation, it went off throughout with a spirit
and vivacity quite triumphant, and the plaudits of the pub-
lic at the close left Mr. C. Mathews in possession of all the
honours of denizeuship on the Parisian boards."