The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-08-16 00:00:00

THE DRAMA.

•
Mr. and Mrs. Yates made their first appearance for seven 1
years at our theatre, on Monday night, in " Henriette the For-
saken," and in the '" Sleep Walker," Yates sustaining the
part of Somno, originally written for the display of Mathews's
mimic powers.
On Tuesday night they made their second appearance in
" Victorine; or, I'll Sleep on it." This " peculiar and popular
drama, as acted at the Adelphi, London," is, we suspect, of
French origin, but; n' importe, come from whence it may, it
possesses all the requisites for the display of good acting, and
an interest that rivets the attention of an audience.
The first scene opens with Victorine, an embroideress of nine-
teen, who is discovered in a garret, subject to the annoyances
arising from the caprice of her customers, and an indecision as
to whether she ought to accept the hand of her lover, an hum-
ble but honest hard-working upholsterer, for whom
he has an
affection, whose means are too circumscribed for her ambition, or
become the mistress of a Duke. To meditate on this point she
tells the upholsterer, who is importunate for an answer, that
she will "Sleep on it." - With this determination she retires to
her couch, and in her sleep has a dream which is represented in
the second and third acts.
The second act opens after a supposed lapse of five years, and.
presents the audience with Victrwinc, aged 21, in all the splen-
dour of the mistress of a man of fashion, and surrounded by ail
the luxuries that money.can purchase. In the mere wantonness
of her caprice she decides on having her rooms newly fur-
nished, sends for an upholsterer, and is waited upon by Michael,
her former lover, in the capacity 'of the upholsterer's foreman.
She offers him money, which he indignantly rejects, and leaves
the room. At the close of this act she receives a letter from the
Duke closing the connection between them, on account of her
supposed infidelity.
the third act commences after a supposed lapse of twenty
years, and in the first scene Victo; ine appears as the ci-devant
keeper of a low gambling-house, out of which she is about to be
turned, saving lost all that she had in the world, and unable to
procure even the necessaries of life. Two escaped convicts,
who had been her companions, are traced to this house, and
Michael, now a Captain in the National Guard, enters in ptir-
suit of them, and again recognises in the person of the mistress
of the house, where stolen property is discovered, the Victorine
whose memory he still fondly cherishes. In a fit of distraction
she rushes out, and is• supposed to have thrown herself into the
Seine, when the scene changes, and Victorine is discovered
lyingon her couch, awakening from the horrid dream which has
been thus represented. Michael knocks at her door, is admit-
ted, and frankly accepted as her future husband.
Having given this outline of the piece, in which several other
good characters are introduced, and especially the one per-
formed by Mr. Yates, Alexandre, a roue, aged 35, in the first
act, M. de St. Alexandre, a horse-dealer of 40, in the second,
and Alexandre, a juggler and escaped convict, of 60, in the last
act, we have to uvtice the performances of Mr. and Mrs.
Yates, both of wiinni stand high in their profession.
Mrs. Yates possesses an agreeable person, with a voice of
peculiar sweetness, and in her acting reminds us of Miss Kelly.
We can truly say that we never saw a more perfect perform-
ance than her Victorine. In the scene with Michael in the
second act, she drew a fine picture of the workings of a mind
roused to a consciousness of its degradation from following a
vicious life;. and again in their second intervie‘v in the garret of
the gambling-house, where the retrospect of her past life drives
her to distraction. We cannot in this summary omit the scene
in which she awakens from her dream, with a feeling of suffo-
cation, from drowning.. Her doubtS as to the reality of the
scenes that had passed before her mental vision in her horrid
dream," and her restoration to a consciousness that she was
not the wretched being that she fancied herself, but the inno-
cent Victorine, were beautifully pourtrayed.
Air. Yates is best known on the London boards as a mimic
and a caricaturist, and is so happy in representing the extrava-
gancies of nature, that we verily believe he would be more
at home in the character of a hog with six legs than in one
with four. His style of acting is peculiarly his own, and excel-
lent in its kind. In' Sylvester Daggerwood he introduced some
imitations of Young, Alunden, Kean, Blanchard, and others—
his best were those of Kemble, Young, and Keau; but we doubt
if the likenesses can be properly appreciated by a provincial
audience.
The great attraction of last night was the first appearance of
Tagl,ioni, her "aide-de-dance," M. Silvain, and Mademoiselle
Garbois. After the "new petit Comedy" of " Was Ito Blame,"
Mademoiselle Terpsichore made her first appearance in "Le
pas de la Sylphide," and her salute to the audience was an-
swered by a general round of applause. These preliminaries
being adjusted, the dance commenced with great spirit, and
perhaps a more beautiful display of agility, coupled with grace-
ful and classic attitudes, was never exhibited than those of
Tao-lioni and Silvain. Many of them would have been fine
subjects for an artist's studio, and this brings to our recollec-
tion that some of them have been copied and published. The
dance was succeeded by the farce of "£20,000; or, London
Love ;" when the dancers gave us another treat in " La Tyro-
lienne." The house was literally an overflowing one, and
Mademoiselle Taglioni_ has had the honour of accomplishing
what all the other stars that have appeared here have tailed to
do. This, we suppose, bespeaks " the march of intellect" in
Liverpool, and proves the vast superiority of operatic dancing,
as an intellectual entertainment, over every other species of
theatrical amusement.