The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1874-10-27

was crowded to its utmost capacity last
night, to witness Mr.. Jeterson's great
speciality, Rip Van Wrinkle. Never in
the history of amusements in Wheeling
has there beed such jam. Every nook
and corner .of the house was occupied,
and hundreds shouldered hundreds in
finding and maintaining places to stand
and see the actors on the stage. The wit
and beauty and fashion Of the city were
all there, and delicate danes jostled with
their own servants in the seats and aisles.
The audience was such one as no other
than Jefferson and Rip Van Wrinkle
could possibly draw, and was fit to in
spire any company Of players under the
sun.
The interest, Of course centered in JEFF
ferson himself. He is the master spirit
in the play; but couldn't he give us some
thing better than the blank dizziness that
pervades the scene when he is not pres
ent? Leaving Jefferson out, the re-
mander of the acting was fiat, stale and
improbable. Gretchen was very fairly
done, and the little folks in the first act
did better than their elders in the third,
but when this is said, about all the COM
mendation has been rendered that can
fairly be bestowed upon any beside the
great central figure, Jefferson himself
Our readers are doubtless familiar with
the story: Rip Van Wrinkle, good
hearted and gentle minded drunkard who
has wasted his patrimony among boon
companions, is finally driven from home
by his hard working wife, whose patience
has been exhausted by his oft-broken
promises of reformation, and he wanders
to the top of the Csatskill mountains,
where he meets the ghosts of Hendrick
Hudsons crew, and drinks some mysteri-
Gus liquor which makes him sleep twenty
wears. He returns to the village to learn
that all his former companions are
dead and that no one knows him.
His wife has remarked and his daughter
is about to be forced into an alliance
against her will, and his timely arrival
defeats the plots of his enemies and re-
stores him to the possession of his prop
crty.
The scene in the first act, where the
vagabond was driven from his home, out
into the storm, and forbidden ever to re-
turn to the house again, was well
wrought up, and very affecting; but We
believe the best piece Of acting was done
by Mr.. Jefferson in the third act, where
he shrinks from asking the fate Of his
wife and child. He has been told that
his intimate friends and associates are all
dead, and he breads to learn what
has become of the child whom he most
tenderly loved. The final recognition
was very well represented. Smiles and
tears chased each other alternately on
the countenances of the spectators, and
altogether the play was a grand success
and everybody was pleased.
Whether or not there Is any special
moral in Rip Van Wrinkle We have never
been able to discover. The sympathy of
the audience is, throughout, with Kip,
who would be turned from every respec-
table door in the city and compelled to
seek II lodging in the lookup, if he were
in real life to visit " heeling to-day.
There is no poetry, or eIoquence
OF, exatcd sentiment in the play, nothing
that is worthy Of being remembered,
nothing that can be quoted hereafter.
Everything that was charming or at
tractive was to be found in the manner
and tone of Mr.. Jefferson. In Rip Van
Wrinkle there is only this and nothing
more. That the representation draws
such crowds and delights such audiences
is certainly the highest possible tribute
that could be paid to the genius Of an
artist such as Mr.. Joe Jefferson undoubt-
eddy is.