Star.
London, England, 1829-12-01 00:00:00

THE THEATRES.

DIR. KEAN AND THE MieNAGERII or COVENT GARDEN.
The practice of appealing to the public— through the
Press—in every case of disagreement between Manager
and Actor, is of modern origin ; and we hold it so much
" more honoured in the breach than the observance,"
that we trust it may 110071 grow into desuetude. Wally ac-
tualeause of complaint maim— if engagements be broken
—stipulations wantonly violated —or penalties incurred,on
• either side, the porcine, as In all other eases of civil agree-
ment, have a mode of redress open to them, by far more
appropriate in its mean, and more eertein in its attain-
ment, than the publication of letters avowedly written for
that purpose, and Is the hope of exciting prejudices by
ex parte statements, is which only that portion of
the affair most favourableto the views and interests of the
writer and publisher, are exposed to the world. But to
seek the protection of the law, and at the seem time to
publish such a one-sided cerreependence, wus consider a
very unwise and a Ivry impolitic endeavour to wield a
two edged sword, which not mafeequestly wenn& the
unskilful wielder mach more severely than the object of
his wrath.—When Jon w sou condescended to propitiate
the favour of the public, by paying tribute to their supre-
macy, and acknowledging that
" The Drama's laws, the Drones patrons give,
And we who live to please, must please to live"—
he referred solely to their legitimate influence within the
walls of a Theatre, and not to any unconditional or sup-
posed supremacy out of it. The duty which the ma-
nager owes to the public, is to engage the services of
performers of acknowledged talents in the various depart-
ments of the Drama; and the duty of the performer is to
exert those talents to the utmost of his skill and judg-
ment:—beyond these points no responsibility exists as
respects manager or performer : no legitimate in-
fluence can be exercised by the public, who have
no more right to interfere in the details of theatrical
arrangements, than in the official routine of the Ad-
ministration of the State :—nay, not so much right,
because in the one case, they contribute voluntarily,
and out of the superfluity of their means, to the support
of the stage;—in the other they are compelled to contri-
bute, without any regard to superfluous or even necessary
resources, to the maintenance of the whole establishment.
But such appeals as have, of late years, been so frequently
obtruded on the town, are excessively injudicious and
unjustifiable, if they be not also indecorous. The certain
and positive injury which they inflict, can never be com-
pensated by all the probable, but precarious, good that
may arise from them :—they should be the last resort
even of the deeply injured ; but when they emanate from
a party possessing other means of redress, or when the
grievance of which they complain is not substantiated,
the re-action to which they infallibly give rise
may be • dangerous in the extreme. In this
spirit, we sincerely regret that the Managers of
Covent Garden should have adopted the double
course of proceeding with respect to Mr. KEAN.
We regret that Mr. Baler'. er should have considered
his official correspondence calculated to interest the pub-
lic ; or to excite, what we shall endeavour to prove, a
very unjust prejudice against Mr. KEAN : and we regret
that Mr. CHARLES KEMBLE should " have concurred"
with Mr. BARTLE!, " in the necessity of publishing his
communications at the earliest possible period"—or in-
deed at any period. Before we proceed farther, we de-
sire it may be distinctly understood, that in protesting
against the twofold expedient which, in this instance, has
been resorted to, we are uninfluenced by any consider-
ation but an honest, and we trust an honorable, desire to
oppose every thing that looks like oppression, and to
do justice impartially to all. Highly as we esti-
mate the talents of Mr. KEAN—warm and un-
affected as we own our admiration of his unrivalled
powers to be, if we imagined for one moment that
his conduct in this transaction had been dishonour-
able, pr even disingenuous, nothing should induce us to
advocate his claim to the protection and sympathy of the
public. For Mr. BARTLEY, personally, we entertain all
the respect that his gentlemanly demeanour and worth
in private life demand. Of Mr. CIIARLES KEMBLE,
our opinion cannot be so briefly, or so easily, expressed.
Remembering as we do the honourable promptitude with
which, even at the risk of being made personally re-
sponsible,and personally the sufferer, for all the untoward
consequences of an unsuccessful system of management
to which he was but a party—he came forward, and
encountered the difficulties of a situation from which
others,who were equally liable, shrunk;—remembering the
high principle with which, on that occasion, he vindicated
his own pretensions to the character of a man of the strict-
est integrity ;—remembering too the liberal and generous
spirit in which his manly confidence was met, and the
enthusiasm with which his efforts to retrieve the ruinous
state of the Theatre were supported by the public : how
shall we express the anxiety we feel, lest in his excessive
solicitude for the exclusive prosperity of that Theatre, he
may destroy the credit which he then so nobly acquired—
by measures which, whatever their real source may be,
the world will be but too apt to ascribe to the unworthy
and degrading influence of professional jealousy, illibe-
rality, and selfishness ?
Tenacious, however, as our memory may be; these cir-
cumstances,we are assured, must be more deeply impressed
upon a mind susceptible of such warm and grateful im-
pulses as Mr. C. Kemble has manifested ; but it does
seem as if, " in the multiplicity of business incidental
to the managerial functions," Mr. Kemble had suffered
the actual condition of affairs, at the commencement of
the prevent season, to escape his recollection. He can-

not, however, have forgotten, that in order to open the
Theatre with any prospect of surmounting its financial
difficulties, every engagement was broken through, as
• matter of necessity, and sacrifices were required
at the bands of most of the performers, of some portion
of their stipulated salaries. Now, although these sacrifices
were cheerfully submitted to, yet without them, and,
consequently without a virtual defeasance of all such con-
' tracts by the managers themselves—the theatre could not
have been opened with even a chance of success—and,
:Pith them, that chance depended, in the first instance,
upon the result of that experiment which has been so
eminently—so triumphantly successful—in the acqui-
sition of such an actress as Miss Kers lux bas proved :
arid, secondly, upon the grattatons exertions of some of
the most popular and aftrective performers of the day—
amongst whom Mr. 'CRAW displayed a generous anxiety
for the resloretion of the establishment, which we must
say has been somewhat unhandsomely requited. Our es-
timate of Miss Kix ar.e's talents is before the world; and
we refer to it at this moment with peculiar satisfaction,
as illustrating the principle and feeling by which these
remarks have been dictated, and in which they are
ersitten. Her most anxious friends, her most sanguine
adnakers, could not have hailed her success with more
sincere gratulation% than we did :—but we must not
Baer the chance of another result having attended
that experiment whilst it was yet untried, to be lost
sight of, when we are considering the circumstances
under which Covent-girden Theatre was opened. Miss
}Ent er.c might have failed,—or she might have sue-