Star.
London, England, 1829-07-31 00:00:00

THR DRAMA.

IIAYWASILST TMEATllll.:We;;;;;;;terday fain to seek re-
fuge from the spleen-engendering rainy weather within the doors
of this little theatre. Limon "es is his customs if an afternoon,"
kept a so-so audience crowing at his fun, by the same comic
secrets be has exerted to the same effect a hundred and a hundred
times. The subject of attraction was that mutilated French
piece And Pry, preceded by the improbable thing called
Quite Correct, in which 14.t0n personated the unnec y and
episodic part of Grojen--how ?—irresistibly to be sure—but
then just the same u he does every other character. Now, al-
though we eosins that his humour has power to shake our sides,
as readily as any prone to laughter, and that we gratefully feel
much tender affection for him in return, still we must regret the
little variety he exhibits in hit acting. Indeed, we cannot help
thinking that the fortunate droll carnival-looking face be has in-
herited from nature, and a manner unalterably belonging to him-
self in private life as well as on the stage, have done more for this
pleasant performer the any superior knowledge of his art. Read
any character is his line, from Shakspear down to Poole. bearing
him in mind,—and you cannot fail, if familiar with his one
'manner, to have him es perfectly before you as if enacting the
same in body and substance. You will know exactly where
to place his shrug and aide groan, his front face hits
direct at the audience, and his frequent upturned appeal
to the gods. You will out with his handkerchief at the
exact time, aid walk him about at the precise moment
in the ridiculous alanterkin-gait he habitually assumes.—
Now we bold the essence of good acting to be a facility of em-
bracing and truly rendering the conceptions of the Stagrorights in
all their 'anon, delineations of human nature, with the peculiar
and distinct characteristic belonging to each subject—we expect to
And nothing of Gruntio in Scrub, nothing of Jerry Sneak in
Jeremy Didier—a comic humour, if of only uoe cast. is not sue.
dent, however rich and original it may be, to secure for any his.
trion the reputation of a great actor. Farren, unfortunately for
the interest we would take in the Haymarket. though differing so
much from Liston in his excellent acting, still resembles him in an
unveiled and unchanging style, from which he can nu more detach
himself than from the husky croaking of kis extraordinary voice.
The other people who compose this Summer " troupe," du nu not
proud+, much towards enriching the treasury this season. Now
with regard to the House itself, it is to be lamented that its
dimensions, together with the awkward distribution of its various
pans, is so little adapted as a substitute for Covent Garden and
Drury-lane, one feels at every moment that it is but a temporary
thing ; the boxes, dark and dirty, are so nearly exposed to the street
entry, that persons sitting in them ere constantly endangered, by
partial currents of air rushing in upon them. The corridors too
small. occasion a continual confusion and bustle, most favourable to
genius of the light finger. Yet. notwithstanding all this, the Ma-
nager of the Haymarket must also have his little maim, still more
offensive from being almost unavoidable ; the narrow staircases and
single entry necessitate our mingling wives and daughters with the
Cyprian mob who frrqueut this house, whose screams and sallies,
confined to a small space, necessarily ring as distinctly on the ear
as the orchestra itself. We were highly edified to behold several
tawdry nymphs aiming at webs in the narrow passages we bad for
tit lint and lest time the temerity to visit. We woodsy if Mr.
Morris employs constables oa theses. The Monthly Magatiese
(New Sales). published this day e ensuing month, in a clever
article on theatrical matters, has the following striking observations:
" We fear the Haymarket, once the favourite of pleasantry sand
the people, has at present as little of the presence of the one as of
the other. The fee of the old company have disappeared, and, so
far as we can tell, Liston and Farren alone sustain the former
honours of the drama. Farren is always clever ; but all the world
is not made up of old men. and !Aston, after a third of the season
having been struggled over without him, is engaged only for a
' certain number of nights,' a declaration ominous to the lovers of
farce in its best style. The heroine is Miss F. Kelly, a clever per-
son, but certainly not at for the whole round of the captivating.
Miss Kelly's voice is as formidable a drawback on her tenderness,
as Macready's, and we have seen enough of that actor to be not
too much delighted with any thing that resembles his eternal man-
anion. The usual rapidity of production has not le.s failed the
Haymarket this season, and we have beard of no performance but
• Maneuvring,' an ingenious translation from the French, which
is played as the relief from such novelties as ' Spud the Plough,'
• Know your own Mind,' Std.: none of them we believe much
more than from fifty to a hundred years of age. To make the
matter more disastrously complete, new plans have been adopted
with respect to the admission to the theatre, which, without bring-
ing as additional shilling to its funds, will have the effect of
alienating a considerable number of its most effective friends. But
this kind of prudence is not always the way to profit, as the pro-
prietors of the Haymarket have probably discovered to a pretty
large extent, even at this period of the season. Nothing can be
more childish than to suppose that free-lists and the usual privileges.
which have long become customary civiliti-s to men of literary
distinction, are any actual deduction from the mellow ts of thee-
tres—quite the contrary. Those individuals, perhaps, do not ester
a theatre half a dozen nights in a season, but their opinion has •
weight in their various circles well worth ten tim.s such privilege ;
and though it would be perfectly idle and offensive to presume that
they can care about such attentions' yet their interest in the pros-
perity of an establishment is not likely to be made much more
ardent by finding a System of pettiness and alienation the order of
the day.