New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-02-23
DIVORCE.

DIVORCE.
This name has been conspicuous on post
ers and in newspapers for few days, and
is billed for run until it exhausts our the
atre- going population. The play with this
title is correctly named, inasmuch as three
marriages and two divorces occur before
the curtain falls on the unalloyed happiness
of both the married and the unmarried
Tableau-Wedded life indicated with the
mother-inlaw, and fashionable dawdlerin a
back seat. This comedy is acted in gen
| teel way. The characters are well dressed,
the two dirorcee elegantly accoutred, as oc-
casion demands, either i'll promenade, visit
ing or travelling dresses. The highest com
pliment we can pay to the display is this,
that the audience failed to see in it any
! thing but what their eyes are accustomed
| to take in among the uses of fashionable
life, and hence were witnesses of bright
| refiec elton of nature.
| The hero and heroine are among the f.
F.s of New York, and are happily married;
but, from the assiduous undertaking of one
of those kind of rascals who have loose
| ideas touching the sanctity of marriage,
who is the villain in the piece, jealousy
| shadows the husband, and in the course of
a few years brings On an engagement"
| after the usual and necessary diminishing,
! the fight resulting in an application for di-
| vOrce. The wife, commanded to turn the
villain out of doors, which she would not
do is proof to the husband that she does
not love, honor and obey him. These scenes
4 are well worked up by the principal partici
pants, and although the play itself gives no
| opportunity, except in the unraveling OF the
| plot, for much expression of artistic powers,
the actors enchain the attention Of the au,
dience easily and gracefully, and without
| the inevitable stage stIut or the customary
business" usually repeated I'D nauSsam.
To introduce the petty meanness and
| intermedGllng nuisance Of what is known as
| divorce lawyer, the sister of the heroine.
| after the fat of separation is made between
| the hero and his wife, desires a little misery
! Of this kind on her own account: and al
| though her husband--an old Mails pro
yokingly good -natured and easy-tempered
she is prevailed upon by the lawyer, who
made 1nark Meldle Of himself to entrap
| him into giving blow. while the legal gen
| tleinan stands concealed and posts a kitchan
maid to overhear the contest in the hope
| Of making out case with witnesses. The
lawyer in the Mark Meddte get-up does the
thing to the humorous satisfaction Of the
audience, while the young wife succeeds in
making her kind husband indignant, and
she is about to get divorce sure enough.
though she relents before the plan has
grown cold. and commissions the dawdling
rascal to go and hunt up her outraged hus
band by all means, when it is apparently
too late.
The parties who first get into the squabble
have detective employed by the jealous
husband to 'work up" the madam, when
he, of course, finds out letters, reports
stolen interviews, and returns to his em-
ployer with sufficient evidence for himself.
and more than the husband cares about
seeing. OF course, no woman of this kind.
as the husband says, is fitted to be IN charge
of his child, and he prevails upon the de-
tectiye to put up job on madam. and steal
the child from its little bed which he pro
ceeds to do. aided by night, bulls eye
lantern, ghastly moonlight, and the husband
himself, who carries Off his own child, at
the same time giving emphatic maledictions
on his distressed wife, while the detective
chokes off the kite hen maid, and the tabieau
ends.
Soon after the husband turns up in Flor
ha nj in Ann
Convent ruins" could appear to advantage
by moonlight and the scene finds him again
just getting well from an attack Of fever,
attended by young lady who cares for
him, and indeed loves him, as she takes
little pains to conceal that fact at least.
The child has grown older, and still talks
of his mother, unrebuked by the father,
who, now in the melancholy stage, walks
about with the customary hand within the
customary side of his breast, and certainly
acts 50 as TO gain the sympathies OF the
iookerS-on The mother OF his wife, who IL
strong on the daughters side, gets up an
affidavit of lunacy against the husband,
unknown to the daughter, and just as hus-
band and wife are about to make up
assisted, charitably, by the young lady who
discovers her attachment, in comes the
doctor, arrests him, aided by the detective;
and the husband, believing the whole thing
trap set by his wife, curses in an extensive
manner, and falls, while his wife is appalled,
at the unfortunate ending. Tableau
We believe this scene showed good act
ing or the part of all concerned, it being
impossible, Of course, for the artistes to sup.
ply manifest DEFICIENCIES in the play itself.
The scenery, too, is elegant and new, and
the finishing brings down the house in en-
thuslasm. The lockers on are left in doubt
as to what becomes of the young lady OF the
ruins, and wonder whether she pinned in &C.
cret or married somebody else-the latter
being the most reasonable supposition of
the two, as she was both little and
young The last act, which winds up the
story, brings the husband and wife togeth
er: restores the sundered relations of the
sister and her good old man; cleans out the
villain, much to the satisfaction of every
audience that has run on the play; leaves
the intermeddling mother-in-law rebuked
but still indomitable; shows the triumph of