The Portland daily press., 1878-11-23
Miss Eytiuge as Nancy Sykes.


The audience at the Portland Theatre last
night was small as was to be expected in such
storm as prevailed. Those who did brave the
elements, however, were amply repaid for their
trouble. The play presented was dramatiza.
tion OF Dickens novel of Oliver Twist revised
expressly for Miss Eytipge and, we suspect re-
revised little on this occasion on account of
the smallness of the audience. If the play was
cut, however, the pruning was done judiciously
and did not mar the representation. All the sit
nations which give Miss Eytinge opportunity to
display her power were left 10, and those that
were taken out left SO many the less for the
support to display its weakness in.
The story of Oliver Twist deals largely, and
the dramatization almost wholly, with very un-
pleasant people. 1t introduces us to haunts of
crime and wickedness which most people know
exist only because they have been so told
The characters are low and brutal, and their
passions are like themselves in kind. They are
burglars and sneak thieves, knowing nothing
better and caring for nothing above their mis-
cradle existence. The only one of this gang
which live by crime, whose nature is not COM
pletely brutalized and whose conscience is
not entirely stifed, is Nancy Sykes. Thief
though she is, surrounded with all that is
low and degrading from the time she saw the
light, the instincts of better nature still re-
main alive within her, and occasionally flash
up so brightly as to transform her from
the debased creature she is into grand and
noble woman. The assumption of such char
acter is obviously a difficult one, but Miss
Eytinge in it achieves a magnificent success.
All the varying passions as they possess the
wretched Nancy's soul are mirrored in the
actress face and indicated by her voice and
gestures with wonderful lfelikeness. Her de-
fance of Fagin and her husband when she
tells them they shall not make Oliver thief,
is magnificent in its strength and intensity and
her pathos when she finds Oliver kneeliog at
his bedside, and again when she kisses Rose
Maylie's handkerchief is extremely touching.
All the fine points, which toe inferior artist is
prone to neglect, are carefully attended to-
Every look and every motion is consistent with
the passion that she is portraying and the re-
suit is an admirable portraiture finely sus-
tanned throughout and remarkable for the
vividness with which it represents the pas
sions of the human heart. Miss Estinge's
new version is not much different from the
one that theatre3goers have long bsen familiar
with. Perhaps the coarseness of her Nancy
Sykes is less marked and her good qualities of
heart trife exaggerated.
The support did fairly. Mr.. Ssarls's Bill
Sykes does not impress an audience strongly.
He compsls them constantly to remember that
he is only acting. The effect of the murder
scene was greatly weakened by his faults. Mr..
Moore's Fagin was hardly the mean, cowardly,
sordid Jew that Dickens painted. The prison
scene, the most trying to the personstor of
Fagin, was left out. Mr.. Frankan's Charley
Bates, and Mr.. Dunston's Artful Dodger, were
both creditable characterizatons, though the
former in his denunciaticn of Sykes in the last
act fell into rant. Miss Ames' apparently nat
ural timidity made her good Oliver Twist
Miss Whiting as Rose Maybe did very we'll
what little falls to her lot to do, and the other
characters were fairly taken.
This afternoon a matinee will be given, at
which "Led Astray" will be produced, and
this evening t'Oliver Twist" will be repeated
These two last opportunities to see one of the
first actresses on the American stage in two of
her strongest imper sonatons should not be
neglected,