The Evening critic. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1881-1885, 1881-10-25

business to watch the thing that there is
at present growth in the demand for the
| legitimate drama. Different kinds of act.
ing are as susceptible to the law of supply
and demand as other things. This season
Booth, Mccullough, Barrett, Mary Andcr-
son, Wardc, Keene, Sheridan, Rossi and
Paulding will all be in the field in
the United States. This is u formid-
able number of stars of the strictly lc-
gitimatc type for the people to assimiate,
but IL would not be thus large If there was
not some reason for IL. The Chicago Ne,c,
Letter. the authority spoken of, thus goes
on to say that there has been a surfcit OF
comic opera and sensational society plays.
So many changes have been rung on the
general plans of these that they have grown
monotonous. The legitimate drama has
never altogether lost its constituency but
there is an uncertain margin which drifts
from one taste to another, and gives pre-
dominance for the time to particular
class of performances. This drift is quickly
comprchended by managers, actors and
play.writers, and catered to.
Let us hope for the sake Of postcrity that
all this is true. The sensation for the time
being is no doubt pleasant enough, but
there is nothing permanent in striped hose,
green trunks, and the STACEY contortions of
the opera bouffe blondes. When the cur
tain falls, you carry home the recollection
of frisky melody, or, perhaps, the image
of some manufactured human form divine.
But that's all there is in this whole line of
business. 1t was invented solely for the
purpose of whetting the appetites of young
men into oxtravagant habits, and enticing
the old fellows, whose days of frivolity are
over, into sweetly sad dreams of the past.
Neither in prospect nor retrospect can any
thing remotely resembling permanent adj
vantage be found in the destinations of the
boufic stagc-exccpt to the man in the box
Office.
We are not hypocrites enough to raise our
hands in holy horror, like some oily Peck
sniff at the spectacle of French abandon
behind the footlights; but, admitting the
attraction, it may be rs well also to admit
the froth and nonsense at the same time.
Between cigarettes, opera boufie, and hair
and watch-chains parted in the middle, our
young men are rapidly getting into condi-
tion to be brainless snobs, if they have not,
in fact, ALREADY reached that stage of mental
and physical decay.
Hence it is pleasure to note promised
change in the fashion of the drama. for we
as the poor wretch who tugs away at the
galley oar, or drags some dungeon chain.
How has this change, probably, been
wrought?
Well, 1t is barely posi- BILE to account for
it by the natural laws Of surfeit. We get
abundance of even the sweets of life, and
find in time that they are only sugar.
coated in the majority of cases, and when
the feeling of cnnui and scmi-disgust once
takes hold Of us, a very decided reaction is
likely to set in.
Perhaps, too, talking about this aesthetic
craze now sweeping over the country, there
may be some slight leaven Of good in it
after all. If Mr.. Fitznoodle gets it worked
into his skull that he must talk philosophy
at evening parties instead of French "trip
peries of the stage, perhaps that hippant so.
ciety jackass may be induced to turn his
thoughts into another; channel, and en-
dcavor to pick up a few ideas beyond
spangles and rouge and scarlet trunks and
bewitching can-can melodies. Not, be it
understood, that his mind in full blast will
ever make an impression on people who
think, but simply that conceit may be as
good as consumption SO far as the
benefits of change in fashion are con-
cerned.
After all, however, to paaphrase Tenny-
SON
" Legs may come and tights may go,
But.thought goes on forever"
The stage was originally intended to re-
fleet all traits and types of human charac-
ter for the mixed purpose of amusement
and instruction. If drama is to live any
length of time, these two must be skillfully
blended, and always, in some way, COM
bined. The Congrevcs and Wycherleys,
with all their brilliance, are dead to the
stage, because they pandered simply to a
transient demand for fashionable indecen.
cies
The Pistol in Politics.