The Sun.
London, England, 1836-12-27 00:00:00

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THEATRES.

DRURY-LANE.

The entertainments at this theatre last night consisted of
The Hunchback, and (of course) the new pantomime. The
Yuuchback was very well acted. Miss Huddart's Julia,
1111 'particular, was little (if at all) inferior to any actress who
iiras preceded her in that beautiful part. The performance
-was full of feeling; and, in some of the finest scenes, re-
ceived the warmest applause. The other parts were per-
formed as we have been accustomed to see them. Master
Walter by Sheridan Knowles, Clifford by Cooper, Modus
by Brindal, and Helen by Miss Taylor.
This comedy was performed with no diminution of the
care usually bestowed on so admirable a production ; but we
'dare say the author and the performers were very well aware
that his poetry and their delivery of it were a good deal
thrown away on the first night of the Christmas holidays.
It was the pantomime, not the play, that was " the thing."
As the house got filled, while the comedy was drawing to
a close, it seemed plain that a large part of the audience
(all the juvenile part of it at least) were thinking less of
what was passing on the stage than of the gorgeous sights,
wonderful tricks and transformations, and scenes of frolic
and fun, which they were already enjoying in anticipa-
tion. During the festive season, the dramatist must give
way to the play-wriglat, the scene-painter, and the machi-
nist ; and all the heroes and heroines of Shakspeare him-
self must make room for the unvarying dramatis persona
of an entertainment whose venerable antiquity and gene-
ral prevalence attest its intrinsic merits. We have little
respect for the wisdom that despises pantomime. To make
a good one Is very far from an easy matter, and requires
no small share of the same faculties that are exerted in the
production of more ambitious works. Its design must be
new, arid its incidents unexpected, with a certain consis-
tency :and method even in its most extravagant fancies. It
must, too, have happy allusions to passing events, and
smart strokes of satire, raising a light-hearted laugh at the
fash;ons and follies of the day. A pantomime should be
like " Gulliver's Travels," capable of delighting the young
avid entertaining the old. Such pantomimes, we are in-
clined to think, were more frequent in past times than in
the present, though, perhaps, the change may be in our-
selves more than in the degree of their merit. We hope
they will go on and prosper, appearing each Christmas,
along with its sports, its merriments, its turkeys, and mince-
pies, to make our great-grand-children laugh,as we do now,
and as many generations have done before us. The decay
of the pantomime would, indeed, " eclipse the gaiety of na-
tions," and the world can ill spare any part of its stock of
bar mless amusement.

The pantomime of last night is called Harlequin and Old
Gamnzer Gurton, or The Lost Needle. Its subject, taken
-from the prologue to the old comedy of Gammer Gurton's
Needle, is by no means a happy one ; so inane, indeed, that
it vanishes into nothing, as we attempt to describe it. It is
about a feud between two ohl women, one of whom, having
lost her needle while mending her son Hodge's small-
clothes, charges her neighbour with the theft. The popu-
lation take different sides in the quarrel, which is ended by
the discovery of the needle where it was lost, viz., in the
young gentleman's nether garment. The plot is compli-
cated by a love affair between the scions of the hostile
houses, which is terminated d l'anziable by the general re-
conciliation. To give the proper degree of dignity to the
feud, it is fomented by the agency of evil spirits, and recon-
ciled by a benevolent fairy. The lovers are then trans-
formed by the fairy into Harlequin and Columbine, Hodge
into the Clown, and the unsuccessful rival, or village apo-
thecary, into Pantaloon, and this quartetto are sent upon
their usual adventures.

The opening of the piece is a capital burlesque of the
incantation scene in the Freischutz, with its dance of devils,
its master fiend appearing in red fire, and its diabolical
music, quite d la Weber, very cleverly composed, and effec-
tively performed. We then have the village in which the
two Gammers reside, and which is the scene of the main
action of the piece. The most amusing part of this scene
is the trial of the needle cause before a country justice of
peace, which contains one or two good hits. When Har-
lequin and Columbine aro launched upon their travels, with
the Clown and Pantoloon in pursuit of them, there are a
prodigious number of tricks, transformations, and practical
jokes following each other in rapid succession—some
of them very clever and amusing, and others exceed-
ingly dull and stupid. There were, indeed, by far too
many ; they dragged out the pantomime to an immode-
rate length, and evidently wearied the audience, for the
concluding part went off rather heavily. We would re-
commend a very considerable curtailment. What struck
us as being among the cleverest things was the transfor-
mation of a table, at which the Clown was sitting down
comfortably to breakfast, first into a cask, and then into a
sentry-box, out of which a miniature sentinel issues and
drives the Clown off the stage. In another scene the
Cie wn is buying a pair of walking-boots at a shoe-
maker's ; when going to put them on, they become
" walking-boots" by walking away of their own accord ;
and immediately afterwards a pair of dancing pumps
give a touch of their quality by executing a pas seal
with great neatness and spirit. These feats produced
great amusement. The best and most laughable exhibition
was the Clown's (Mr. T. Mathews) imitation of Mddle.
Duvernay's castagnet dance. It was a close copy of
the original in every feature, turning all its grace and
beauty into something grotesque and absurd. If the fair
danse-use saw it, she must have laughed heartily at her-
self-. Mr. Howell, as Harlequin, performed some sur-
prising feats of agility and strength ; and Miss Fairbrother
tripped about prettily, and danced gracefully, as Columbine.
The scenery was splendid and beautiful. The most re-
markable part of it was a representation of the ascent of
Green's " monster balloon" from Vauxhall, and its flight to
Weilburg. The gardens were first represented, crowded with
gay company; the balloon in the middle, having the car upon
the ground. The aeronauts enters the car, and the bal-
loon ascends. It remains stationary at a considerable
beight from the stage ; but, by a constant and gradual
change of scenery, the balloon appears to travel over a great
extent of land and sea. For a minute or two the effect
was unsatisfactory ; the eye was not deceived ; and the bal-
loon appeared (as it was) stationary with moving scenery
behind it ; but presently the optical illusion began, and
came very strong and beautiful. That this was the cause
with the audience as well as ourselves was evident from the
applause, which was faint at first, going on crescendo dur-
ing the whole course of this scene. On the whole this
pantomime is of a very mixed character, and may be much
improved in effect by being cleared of a deal of rubbish.