The Sun.
London, England, 1854-02-07 00:00:00

THE HAYMARKET THEATRE.

[Not having had an opportunity of being present last
evening at this theatre ourselves, we extraet the follow-
ing from a contemporary, both in justice to the celebrated
actress, and the enterprising manager.—ED. Sun.]
The Meg Merrilies of Miss Charlotte Cushman is a
great work of histrionic genius, and moreover a work on
which the mark of greatness is so palpably impressed
that it is no sooner seen than it is recognised by an
audience. The character is not introdnced till the piece
of Guy Mannering is about half over, and it is remarkable
to observe how the spectators, who have been quietly;
sitting out a tissue of amusing, but not very exciting,
melodrame, are suddenly electrified, when Meg Mer-
rilies darts upon the stage. The apparition of that hag-
gard,
superhuman figure, fixed in an attitude that might
be studied by a painter, gives a new tone to the entire
piece. A presence of a higher order is manifest, but for a
few minutes it seems doubtful whether the strange being
is animate or inanimate—an actual woman or some fan-
tastic image produced in the wild lanscape by a freak of na-
ture, such as the imagination may trace in the rocks or 4
trees that are met in a midnight walk through some de-
solate region. When the figure becomes obviously ani-
mate, lives, moves, and is even impassioned in its ges-
tures, its grandeur is not lost, but we are surprised to
find that an apparition which seemed so merely terrible
can become an object of sympathy. The fondness with
which Meg Merrilies acknowledges Harry Bertram, the
ravenous affection with which she presses his hand and
devours him with her wild eyes is exquisitely pathetic
—the more so because something of the ferocious is
blended with that maternal emotion which the sight of a
favourite child is supposed to awaken in the bosom of
an old doating nurse. The utterance of the prophecy
brings with it another change. As Meg pronounces the
distich,

" Bertram's right and Bertram's might
Shall meet on Ellangowan's height,"

she rises into an ancient sybil, and seems ready to soar
from the ground through the elevated character of her
mission. She is now no longer the grotesque hag or
the doating grandam, but a Pythian priestess, sublime
in her inspiration. And all this is done, not by the part
itself, but by the actress. Meg Merrilies can be played,
and has been played over and over again, as a part of
melodramatic " business," moving in the most ordinary
routine, and only striking from the oddity of the cos-
tume. Miss Cushman lifts it up from common melo-
drame into the highest rank of tragedy, and is rewarded
not only with the common round of applause, but with
the expressive murmur of admiration. There was some-
thing in the manner in which she was " called" last
night very different from those "calls" which seem to
be the result rather of a good-humoured custom than of
intelligent approval.
Several of the minor parts of the piece are exceed.
ingly well filled. Dominie Sampson, whom the author
of the acting play, Mr. Terry, modified from Sir W.
Scott's orignal by a most unmerciful process of carica-
ture, but at the same time with a good practical eye to
stage effect, is quaintly represented by Mr. Compton,
and the oddities, though one would think they were
all known by heart, were invariably followed by a
hearty laugh. Mr. Rogers, always a careful, con-
scientious actor, though sometimes unfavourably
placed, is an excellent Dandie Dinmont, and his
dance, in the course of which he flings coats and
waistcoat on the ground and perspires with hilarity
and exertion, is spirited and characteristic to the
highest degree. Mr. Howe, on the other hand, is not
well suited to the part of Dirk Hatterick. He is an ex-
cellent representative of bluff, honest gentlemen, who
chuck servant-girls under the chin and make love in
boisterous fashion ; but the Dutch smuggler is too de-
cided a brute for his handling. The musical portion of
the piece, comprising some of Sir H. R. Bishop's earliest
and best compositions, is very well done, reflecting great
credit on Mr. E. Fitzwilliam, under whose superintend-
ence the necessary drilling has taken place, and one is
astonished, for instance, to find how satisfactorily Mrs.
L. S. Buckingham, who is not a vocalist by profession,
sings the part of Julia Mannering. Mr. Galer, who
personates Harry Bertram, is by no means an ineffective
singer of ballads, but he is as yet in the very infancy of
histrionic art. Poor Meg Merrilies to take so much
trouble about an heir of Ellangowan who will not even
turn his head to look at her while she is dying about 6
feet distance !

Guy M anner:ng has so often been produced as a mere
makeshift piece, put up when nothing else was to be got,
that Mr. Buckstone is entitled to great praise for the
style in which he has brought it on the stage. Instead
of making the excellence of the actress an excuse for
the shabbiness of the decoration, he has paid Miss
Cushman the proper compliment of showing that a
piece to which she gives effect is worthy of being done
well. The scenery is picturesque throughout, and the
gipsy encampment, though similar subjects are common
enough on the stage, is treated with a completeness of
detail that distinguishes it from ordinary representations
of the kind.