The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-16 00:00:00

DRAMATIC INTELLIGENCE.

We are to have our Christmas pieces this year, in
a manner, before Christmas, and the changes are to
be rung on Dickens's " Chimes" at our theatres
before they are even published. This rather unusual
course is about to be pursued at the Adelphi and at
the Lyceum in the first instance, where productions
founded upon the new Christmas tale of the writer
of " Pickwick," " Oliver Twist," " Martin Chuzzle-
wit," &c., are to be brought out, " by permission of
the author," in the middle of next week. In the one
case the work has been dramatised by Mr. L. Rede
and Mr. G. A'Beckett, and in the other by Mr.
Stirling. We happen to know the principal ingre-
dients of which the two works will be composed,
and it is easy to predict that they will be popular.
The theatres we have named will have the start of
their rivals, but sure we are, that when the tale itself
appears, there is hardly a minor theatre in or near
metropolis that will not bring out some version of it.
Such was the case with Mr. Dickens's last " season-
able" performance ; but the difference now is,, that
people are in such a hurry to have and to see it upon
the stage, that they cannot wait even until Christmas
is past. The story itself will be found of a very
novel and attractive character, quite unlike the last
in most essential respects, but with a little ingenuity
not ill-adapted to theatrical purposes; indeed, it seems
to us, that while the author was composing it, he had
an eye to its representation on the beards, bearing in
mind the manner in which his former " Carrol" was
run after to all parts of the metropolis.
Scribe's new vaudeville of Rebecca has already
reached this country, bath in its original and in its
translated form. IVe shall no doubt soon have it pro-
duced in this country, perhaps, first, at the Princess's
Theatre, to which we are told a version has already
been forwarded. The heroine, as our readers may be
aware from the French papers, is a young Jewess,
who has two lovers, one of whom is confined in prison,
and near the period of his execution ; he is married
to Rebecca, expecting within an hour to leave her a
widow ; but he is reprieved, and hence arises the di-
lemma, for her other lover hoped to have married her
with her full consent, after the death of her first hus-
band. However, the author, with great inge-
nuity, contrives to overcome the difficulty,
and the piece terminates, not like his former
drama, of which a Jewess is the heroine, with
the firm adherence of the lady to the ancient faith, but
with her somewhat sudden conversion to Christianity.
We doubt how far this instantaneous conviction
might be relished by an English audience, and yet we
cannot see how a happy catastrophe can otherwise be
brought about. Our adapters are unquestionably
very ingenious, and they may accomplish the end in
a way that we do not anticipate ; or, possibly, they
may adhere to the original story.
The vivacious and enterprising lessees of the
Lyceum have been put in possession of an admirable
and most laughable burlesque on the story of Valen-
tine and Orson, which is in preparation, and is to be
produced immediately after Christmas-day. Prepara-
tions of the same kind are proceeding at Drury-lane,
the Haymarket, and indeed at nearly every theatre,
great and small, in London and its neighbourhood.
A new impulse seems to have been given to theatrical
affairs, and it has been operating most beneficially
during the whole autumn ; people are now beginning
to talk of " going to the play" in something like the
old style, when families were in the regular habit
of visiting a theatre so many times in the season, or
they did not think they had had their due share of
amusement. Thirty or forty years ago most respect-
able tradesmen seldom omitted to take their wives
and families once a fortnight at the least to a dramatic
entertainment of some kind or other.—Observer._