The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-13 00:00:00

THEATRE ROYAL PRINCESS'S.

New Dramatic Version of " Barnaby Rudge."
The popularity of Charles Dickens—immense
though it has been during a period now of thirty
years [the serial publication of " Pickwick" was
completed in 1836]—has never been more conspi- '
cuously manifest than it is at this present moment.
Are evidences of this wanting ? Circumspicc ! They
are apparent iu all directions. To begin with—it
was only the other day that one among his Five
charming Christmas Books, not by any means the
best amongst them, but still for all that, as might
readily enough be the case, a charming story in
itself, was nightly filling Sadler's Wells, under its
dramatic title as " Dot." In a totally opposite
direction, on the other side of the water, at the
other end of London, another theatre, Astley's to
wit, is at this present moment filling night after
night—the principal attraction there being a drama-
tised version of the last serial fiction of our great
novelist. The stage name assumed by " Our
Mutual Friend" being the local sobriquet of Mr.
Boffin—that is to say, " The Golden Dustman." At
the Olympic, 'The Frozen Deep," which is there
the nightly attraction, while it owes its existence
originally to Mr. Wilkie Collins' skill as a dramatic
writer, mainly owes the prolongation until now
of that existence to the histrionic genius manifested
by Mr. Dickens in the impersonation of the prin-
cipal character in that affecting melodrama. Alto-
gether, apart, of course, from any mere theatrical
evidences of the fact that Charles Dickens's popu-
larity is more conspicuously apparent, nowadays,
than it has ever been during all these thirty years
last past (that, instead of falling off in any way, it
is more than ever widening and deepening, as time
advances) there are noticeable in his regard such tes-
timonies of its being as we have said, as the following
sufficiently obvious ones, f or example—That his works
are now publishing in four distinct editions without
the success of any one of those four editions inter-
fering with the success of the three others--
each new edition appearing to create a new reading
public of its own—the Original Edition, the Library
Edition, the Cheap Edition, and the People's
Edition. That wheresoever or whensoever he is an-
nounced for one of his Readings—in Paris, in London,
in Glasgow, no matter where—the places selected for
his so-called Readings (for, it is almost needless to
say, that they are something very far beyond sim-
ply Readings in their general character) are crowded
by audiences of the most varied kind imaginable,
literate and illiterate, and all of them apparently
equally enthusiastic in :the evidence of their delight,
now by hearty applause, now by hushed silence,
now by bursts of laughter. To sum up all, how-
ever, by the mention of just one other very practical
token of the conspicuous magnitude (of the depth
and width).of this immense popularity—let us refer
simply, in passing, to the significant fact that, when-
ever the Christmas number of Mr. Dickens's weekly
periodical is issued from the press, it commands at
once a ready sale of 200,000 copies. Reverting,
however, to a consideration of the purely theatrical
evidences of his popularity, we have now to ap-
' pend to what has already been said about the re-
cent production of " Dot" at Sadler's Wells, and of
the " Golden Dustman" at Astley's, to say nothing
more about his histrionic association with Wilkie
Collins' "Frozen Deep" at the Olympic—that last
evening witnessed the production, for the first time,
upon the stage of the Princess's, of a new dramatic
version of one of the most enthralling and picturesque
of our great novelist's romances, the historical
romance of " Burnaby Rudge."
A quarter of a century has elapsed since the
serial publication of the tale in "Master Humphrey's
Clock" was completed. More than one drama
founded upon it has since then—within that interval
of five and twenty years—been produced. But the
version given last evening—the joint production, it
may here be added at once, of Mr. Watts Phillips
and Mr. George Vining—was an entirely new version
from beginning to end, the play being constructed
apparently mainly as a medium for the introduction
of a young American actress to the world of Lon-
don playgoers. An American Actress, and yet,
strange to say, an Englishwoman born and bred—
a daughter of Mr. Henry Vining, the actor, and
consequently a niece of Mr. George Vining, the
actor-manager. Whatever may be said or thought
about the success of the piece itself—this new dra-
matic version of Barnaby Rudge—about the success
of the young actress it was the means of in-
troducing to us, there can be no particle
of doubt whatever. It was complete and
unequivocal. And that we don't hesitate
in the least to assert, although at the end of the
third act there occurred the following incident—
one reminding us, by the way, of the first night of
Mr. Charles Reade's " Never Too Late to Mend."
At the end of the third act Mr. Vining, as manager,
stepped on to the stage, and, standing between the
curtain and the footlights, thus addressed his
audience :
" Ladies and gentlemen, on the present occasion I do
not appear before you as an actor. I have had an opportu-
nity of sitting in a private box, and from the commence-
ment of this evening I have seen one or two persons who
have come here determined from the first to hiss. (Cries
of Turn them out.') Unfortunately I cannot point them
out. If I could point them out I would turn them out
myself. (Cheers, laughter, and cries of Shame.') The
hissing has not been the fair expression of popular opinion.
(Cheers and slight dissent.) It began at an early pe-
riod of the piece, when there was not a pretext for it, to
the degradation of their manhood, against ono who is not
only a lady but a stranger. I do not object to a fair ex-
pression of opinion. I do not like people to come with a
determination to hiss ; but if wo deserve it, hiss us with
all your might."
Taking him at his word, the isolated dissentients
thus referred to by the manager greeted his depar-
ture from the stage with one or two very distinct
hisses, which were audible even through the hurri-
cane of applause that greeted him from the rest of
the house. While we would deprecate the wisdom
of any interference on the part of a manager with
the expression of the opinion of even one solitary
individual in an audience, we must at the same time
add that the entirely unprovoked sibilations which
greeted the new actress almost immediately upon
her first appearance and repeatedly afterwards,
were naturally enough to Mr. Vining an immense
and evidently an irresistible provocation. Besides,
the dissentients were unmistakeably not simply in a
minority, they were absolutely isolated. All the
rest of the house, the whole bulk of the audience
being manifestly delighted, as was evidenced again
and again by the enthusiasm of their acclamations.
Altogether the cast of the piece was respectably good,
but nothing more. It might certainly have been
better in several particulars. For example, the ma-
nager himself might have appeared in one or other
of the characters with obvious advantage in the
way of strengthening the cast as a whole. The
Miss Miggs of the new actress (Mrs. John Wood)
was, beyond a doubt, the impersonation of the
night—though her appearance is entirely against her
—for it is charming ! A pretty Miggs being quite
manifestly an anomaly ! Not less so than it
would have been had we had to witness (which for-
tunately we had not) a plain Dolly Varden " A
charming, surprised-looking, capital face" (so far,
just like Scrooge's niece) she has—this young soi-
disant American actress (English born and English
bred, as already hinted)—but (unlike, if we re-
member rightly, Scrooge's niece aforesaid) Mrs.
John Wood possesses the prettiest nez retroussee now
anywhere to be seen on the London boards,
a feature that lends a perfecting piquancy to the
' frolicsome fun of her espieglcrie, to the every toss
of her graceful head and the vis comica visible in
the mobile lines of her pretty face. Judging her
merely from this one impersonation of Miss Miggs
we cannot hesitate to pronounce her at once an un-
- questionable acquisition to the London stage. Miss
Augusta Thomson made imp and acted prettily enough
• as charming little Dolly Varden. Mr. Chas. Hors-
' man's Maypole Hugh was thoroughly good and
admirably picturesque also in the make up, be-
sides being cleverly acted throughout. Very fair,
too, both in dress and deportment, was the Sir
John Chester of Mr. J. G. Shore. Poor daft
Barnaby Rudge—the one only really loveable
idiot surely that any great author ever depicted!
, found a most graceful and seeming-real representa-
tive in Miss Katherine Rodgers. As for Mr. 11. Mel-
: lon's John Willett, it would have been a tolerably
passable impersonation of that immortal ass, if only

the old Maypole landlord's countenance had not been
so distressingly uncomely. Perhaps with a view to
keep him " in countenance" by a distortion of visage
preternaturally hideous and ridiculous in its effect—
one of old John's tap-room cronies (we are in doubt
whether Mr. Chapman's Parkes or Mr. Robins'
Cobb) had his face made up for all the world like a
pantomime mask, only more hideous than any
pantomime mask that was ever contrived—effecting
this transformation apparently by swelling his cheeks
out with a couple of plumpers and by flattening his
nose down with a horsehair ! By all means let us
entreat the manager to see that that horse hair and
those plumpers are henceforth dispensed with. Mr.
Calhaetn's Simon Tappertit would have left no-
thing wanting had only his spindle legs and shrill
voice and struttingly consequential gait been coupled'
all of them with a visage just a trifle, let us sat,
less old, snaggle-toothed, and wizzened. As for Mr.
E. Shepherd's Gabriel Varden, nothing could well
have been worse. The glorious, burly old locksmith,
one of the most delightful characters in the original
story has (thanks to Mr. Shepherd) disappeared from
the scene altogether. There is an insignificant
somebody calling himself Gabriel Varden—but there
is no Gabriel Varden in the form, in the flesh, in the

voice, in the whole demeanour ! Deficiences there
are, in fact, one way or another all through the
piece—deficiences many of which are only too strik-
ingly apparent. The Lord George Gordon Riots
are no doubt, for example, displayed to view very
vividly in several particulars, but Lord George
Gordon himself only once makes his appear'
ance for a moment, by stalking across the stage
but never once opening his lips. Then, again, one
of the most loquacious characters in the original
tale—dear, delightful, old, Grip, the raven—has, of
course, to be dispensed with—appearing only as a
stuffed crow (apparently) in the basket strapped on
to Barnaby's shoulders. The whole plot of the story
again hinges upon the "No Popery" disturbances,
but—throughout this dramatic version—not once
is the "No Popery " cry anywhere articulated !
As for the scenery it is admirable. Mr. Lloyds
and Mr. Hann having surpassed themselves
—in the Maypole, inside and outside,—in The
Warren in flames, a spectacle equalling if not
surpassing that of the burning house in the " Streets
of London"—and afterwards in The Warren
in ruins, as seen by moonlight. One other scene,
perhaps the loveliest of them all, that of the widow's
cottage at sunset, has yet to be particularised, and
it is one that cannot be viewed without admira-
tion. The whole play ends as some plays do (for our
own part we cannot but think most preposterously)
with a General Dance of the Characters--Miggs
and Dolly, Gabriel and Sim, Joe Willett and Alrs*
Varden, footing it together, in a sort of a last cen-
tury breakdown. Altogether, on the fall of the curtain
the few dissentient sounds which had been notice-
able at rare intervals as the evening went en,
were, on being renewed, drowned in the general
applause announcing the play to be success'
ful. Whatever success it has achieved must,
however, be attributed to the comic powers
evidenced by Mrs. John Wood, in her imPer"
sonation of Miggs, to the Ain of the two accom-
plished scene-painters, and last, not least, to the
vivifying influence of the rare genius, the equally
humorous and pathetic genius of our Great Novelist'