The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-02 00:00:00

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ADELPHI.
The new piece, " Maglpire; the. Prestigiater,.
produced at this theatrq last night, is taken
avowedly from the FrencK. ht is a version of a
piece called " L'Escanaotetir," by M. Dennery, pro-
duced in Paris last year. What :is called t4e
" Prologue" opens in 1814, in ~farmhouse ori.the:
way to Paris, where Count d'Arcy.(Mr. Billington),
an officer in the French army, receives the
gence that his young wife hie lost• het reason,
owing to the death of her ehild and false new of Ms
having been killed in one of the .battles *hi&
the French opposed the march' of the allied:arniies
on the capital. The Countess; ;in her frenzy, had
escaped, and was not to be found, .To the same
house there has arrived a wayfaring woman, Marie
Duval (Miss Kate Kelly), with herinfant. ' To her
is given the cradle and some of the clothes of -the
deceased child of the Count, and it is duly installed
therein; The mother is dying of consumption, and
writes a letter which is to be s livered. to her daugh-
ter when she conies of age. " :Alamo Avitit-

her child therailiffEgs-d'Arcy enters the house, and
seizes the'infant, mistaking it for her own. A scene
ensues which is not merely within 'a step but within
an inch of passing from the sublime to the ridicu-
lous. A maniac and a dying woman gtruggling for
the possession of a stage baby was a perilous situa-
tion, when that which was meant to be represented
was something most intense. The danger, how-
ever, was escaped, and the matter ended by the
real mother suffering her child to be adopted by
the Count; an arrangement which is satisfactory,
as the mother dies just as the Countess recovers
her reason, in consequence of the restoration of her
husband and the suppositious recovery of her
child. Before the next act an interval of seven-
teen years has occurred. The fictitious daughter of
the house of D'Arcy is sought in marriage by her
cousin, Jules Lanieres (Mr. 1). Fisher), whom she
does not affect, and by Albert de Viellecourt (Mr.
Eburne), whom she loves. Here Magloire (Mr.
Webster) comes on the scene, and exhibits himself
in one of those bits of character in which he excels.
Nothing can be more perfect than his assumption
of the mountebank and juggler—a personage with
which the French are more familiar than we are.
The Count D'Arcy having thought it right to re-
veal the- secret of Cecile's (Miss Henrietta Simms)
birth to her affianced lover, is overheard by Jules
Lanieres, who, for a large bribe, prevails on Mag-
loire to pretend to be the father of the girl, and by
means of forged papers to claim and finally to bear
her away from her supposed parents. Subsequently
the letter left by her mother is sent to her, and by
that Magloire discovers that she is in reality his
daughter, by a wife who had left him for his bru-
tality, and passed under a feigned name on that
journey to the house of her friends in the course of
which she died. The juggler is struck with re-
morse, and becomes deeply, selfishly devoted to his
daughter, whom, in consequence of an attempt at
her abduction by Lanieres, he secretes in-a lonely
cottage. He tries in vain to win her affections, and
finding that her strong regret and sorrow at part-
ing from those whom she had always known as her
parents—to say nothing of her lover—is well nigh
destroying her, he sends for those personages, and
having exposed the villany of Lanieres, in an agony
of self-devotion declares that the story which he
had originally trumped up was the real one, that he
is not in fact the father of Cecile ; a subterfuge
which makes everyone but himself extremely happy
and contented, while he in sadness ant sorrow de-
parts to renew his old trade of a mountebank.
The chief, if not the whole, of the action and the
interest of the piece rested on Mr. Webster, whose
skilful delineation of the varied phases of the charac-
ter of Magloire, ranging from the careless, jolly, pro-
fessional cheat—not in the criminal, but the fortune-
telling sense of the word—who, however, shrinks
continually and painfully from the acts of actual
imposture which he has been tempted to commit, up.
to the passionately devoted father, who foregoes
every feeling and every hope to secure that happi-
ness for his child which he finds at length that it is
not in his own power to confer upon her. As we
have hinted, there were moments when the chances
of success were rather doubtful, but on the whole
the piece went well, and at its.close the verdict was
most decidedly in its favour, and with reason. After-
wards Miss Julia Daly made her reappearance at
this theatre, in the piece of " Our Female American
Cousin."

STRAND.

This theatre was densely crowded last night.
The performances commenced with the comedietta
of " Change for a Sovereign," written by Mr.
Horace Wigan, which had been played on severed*
previous occasions, but which was, nevertheless,
listened to throughout with a much greater degree
of attention than a holiday audience usually be-
stows on anything which has not the stamp of
complete novelty to recommend it. After this
piece came the new burlesque extravaganza en-
titled, " Aladdin ; or, the Wonderful Scamp," by
Mr. H. J. Byron, the author of " The Maid and the
Magpie," " The Very Latest Edition of the Lady
of Lyons," and " Cinderella," which had a consi-
derable run, but which bid fair to be rivalled in
popularity by their immediate successor. Aladdin
is in the old style of Mr. Byron, replete
with puns of the most excruciating character, and
has the merit of having its various parts admirably
adapted to the several actors by whom they are
represented. Unlike other theatres, " the Strand"
affords to burlesque a permanent home. In bur-
lesque it has acquired the high reputation as a place
of public amusement, which since it fell into the
hands of Miss Swanborough it has undoubtedly
enjoyed, and the consequence of this adherence to
a particular style of performance is, that the com-
pany have attained in it a degree of proficiency
which is seldom elsewhere observable. Last night
the old staff, with the exception of Miss Oliver, again
appeared before the public with their wonted
success, the only addition to their number being
Miss Josephs, who recently formed one olf
thepri Fannyncipal attractions at Sadlers' Wells. The new
play, therefore, it will readily be imagined, had all
the advantages of clever and well-concerted acting
to recommend it. It is founded on the old story in
the " Arabian Nights." Aladdin, "a lively youth,'
who from dire distress climbs at once, having
obtained possession of the wonderful lamp, to riches
and station, is represented by Miss M. Wilton, with
that piquancy which has won for her so much
favour. Mr. Clarke plays Abanazar, a magician,
and has again occasion to furnish that type of the
itinerant Jew dealer, with which those who have
seen him in The Maid and the Magpie" must be
familiar. As the widow Twankay—Aladdin's
mother—who " is rather old, and who even in her
youth did not possess -Any beauty," Mr. J. Rogers
finds ample scope for those delineations of female
eccentricity in dress and attitude and general appear-
ance which rank among his best efforts. The events
of thepiece supposed to take place in Pekin the
prevailing costume
tume is Chinese. The scenery is very
tasteful, and in one or two instances even brilliant.
Songs and dances are, after the fashion of burlesques,
introduced at different intervals during the perform-
ance, and rarely without being encored. A grand
bridal ballet, in which Miss Rosina Wright is the
prineipal figure, also takes place during its progress.
Being thus put on the stage, being well acted,
and being in itself full of " quips and cranks,"
and bristling with puns, the piece wont off very
successfully, and Mr. Byron received the honour of
a call before the curtain at its close. The farce of