The Sun. — 1868-08-14 (London, England)

PRINCESSY TIIEATRE.  Mr. G. Vining has commenced his regular winter season with a great and decided success. " After Dark," Mr. Boucicault's latest sensation drama, produced on the opening night, drew an overflowing audience, and both author an I manager have good reason to rejoice at the enthusiastic reception it met with. The new drama is in four acts, and abounds with sensation scenes, some of which exceed in intensity anything that has yet been accomplished even by Mr. Boucicault himself, who is now looked upon as the great sensational dramatist of the day. The plot of " After Dark" is very simple, although a great number of scenes are required to work it out. The heir to a title and estate has in the course of his wild career forged his father's name to a draft ; this gets:into the possession of a villauous bill discounter, who on the death of the father demands of the heir, George Medhurst, one-half of the value of his estate as the price of the forged document. The plans of the holder of the paper sets all the characters in motion ; George Medhurst, the forger, he compels to desert his Ns ife in order to contract marriage with another ; this drives Eliza, George's wife, to attempt suicide, from which she is rescued by a poor, besotted man named Old Tom, who turns out to be her father ; and Gordon Chumley, the friend of young Medhurst, narrowly escapes .a terrible death through his visit to a low music-hall in Westminster, in order to get possession of the forged bill, where he is drugged, and then laid on the metals of the Underground Railway, from which horrible position he is only removed by Old Tom an instant before the train passes over the spot on which his would-be murderers had placed him. However, all is worked out satisfactorily ; the forged bill is recovered, Old Tom reforms and claims the love of his daughter Eliza, who is recognised as Lady Medhurst ; and Chandos Bellingham and Dicey Morris, the two scamps of the piece, are walked off to prison, en route to the penal settlements.  The part of Old Tom is one of those Mr. Vining excels in supporting. At one time he is the poor old besotted drunkard, but eventually he becomes " a man fit to own a daughter," a change that gave the talented manager full scope for the exhibition of his great abilities as an actor. Mr. Walter Lacy, as Bellingham, deserves unstinted praise for his admirable rendering of his part, but Mr. Dominick Murray, as Dicey Morris, on this occasion is not so happily fitted as useal—it is quite a puzzler to know by his talk whether he is Irish or Hebrew. Mr. Montague and Mr. Shore, as George Medhurst and Gordon Chumley, were excellent. Miss Rose Leclercq, as Eliza, .acted with taste and feeling, and Miss Trissy Marston made a pretty Rose Egerton. The scenery, which comprises many well-known spots in the great metropolis, is particularly good ; the greatest effect being thrown into two, viz., Blackfriars-bridge on crutches, with the Thames and London by night as seen from the nest of the night birds, and the Underground Railway, with its red and green signal lights, the various lines of rails and its trains in motion. The drama is, as we have said, a great success, and doubtless it will rival iu attraction the celebrated " Streets of London."