Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-10-06
SEMEN


This house was last week ~patroniZed
TO an extent that must have been graft
fying not only to the lessees and man.
ayers, but to Mr.. Oliver Doud Byron, to
whom the public is indebted for the ex-
cellent plays, in which the varied phases
Of the low life of New York and the
Western border are blended into a har-
mony that, to ordinary minds at first
thought, would seem impossible. We
say excellent plays, and mean il. They
do not pretend 10 copy after anything
known to the English or French stage;
they are not adaptations, o are they
scenes from dime novels, though there is
a strong dash of the cream that one will
gather who sticks to Beadle for g few
months. They are American plays.
We have the street Arab of Gotham,
who prides himself OF his ability to do
ANYTHING mean, and yet is always ready
to do a good turn-a fellow whose high
est ambition is to curl his upper lip over
a cigar held between his teeth, as the
Nose of our boyhood used to do it, and
swear in a style and with an accent
purely his own. We have low dance
house scenes, are introduced tOthe poorer
Irish, Germans and Italians, are per-
mitted to look into the novels of the
degraded, to see the cOwed and abject
slave who calls herself the wife
Of a drunken brute, who loses
himself in the insanity of mania
potI. Murderers, thieves, rogues, street
bullies, corner loafers and women
who walk on the borders of vice, who
live by it, without participating in it, or
TO any extent submitting their bodies,
and vet are worse than those who do; all
these march before us, playing their
brief hour in presence of those who are
far removed from the reality of which it
is a close counterpart. We cannot say
we like this sort of play, and we doubt
that any benefit is to flow from it;
vet we must give Mr.. Byron credit
for the construction Of a sim
pie plot, and a most admirable
grouping Of his characters about it.
OF its kind and class il is excellent, very
good-that is, it is as perfect a represen-
tation of low life as can be locke for,
and as delineated by the talented COM
pany, of which Mr.. Byron is himself
the very best and most brilliant mem
Der, is all that could be expected. The
negro characters were delineated to per-
fiction, so the New York b'hoy, and,
indeed, so with all. Byron is a host In
himself, put him where you will. He
makes up well, is easy and graceful, has
good stage address and manners, Is
quick to fill gaps, and, when on the
stage, carries everybody and every
thing with a swing that in
spires even the audience with
life. Oliver acts like a man who is
convinced he has a mission to perform
and is heartily engaged in the per-
Torrance of it. He wants, perhaps, to
prove that the lowest grades of human
ity are many-sided, and that with OPP
portunity they discover genuinely good
traits, human traits that are above in
stinct, and prompted solely by the bet
ter nature born in us all. If his plays
mean anything, this is what We get out
them. OF course, this is a very small
kernel to come from so large a nut, a
grain Of wheat out of a mountain Of
ehaff. vet the chaf is very
laughable, very amusing, sometimes
side-splitting, often pathetic. In this
respect we don't know that it is worse
than most of the plays nowadays
which have their scenes laid in drawing
rooms, and amid airs of refinement,
with velvet and gold accessories and
trimmings of lace. We give Byron
credit for being always OlIVef-Doud-
Byronic, that is, a rehash of every
thing sensational in New York life,
rom a gutter-snipe to a swell. Oil
yer has taken in Memphis, and on
4 second visit will do even better
han last week. He gives place to Mr..
Albert Aiken, who is on the same order,
and who is announced as a " c%olloquial
He viii appear tomorrow
night in what the bills denominate
he famous realistic play, in
i've acts, of New York city life,
Witches Of Ne1U York" We
nothing of this play save that it
lad a run of five hundred nights i'll
New York, and secured for the author
md actor the highest concentrations Of
he press. The New York Telegram
avs of it that it is fully equal to any
ensation ever produced, and that Aiken
IS an actor, is sal generis and unequal
ed. The critic of the Tribune, one of
he most accomplished in the country,
,ronOunces Aiken's plays to be eXtraor-
Iinary ones, and that as an actor be is
he best that has appeared in the me
since Booth vacated the boards.