Cite: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2248620

Tags (Keywords)

Add New Tags

5 corrections, most recently by Stephen.J.Arnold - Show corrections

Public Amusements.

ROYAL VICTORIA THEATRE.

MONEY.

"The standard of the acting drama has been elevated.   The audience has evidently become more discrimi- nating—more appreciating. An effect has been pro- duced analogous to that which is wrought on the young painter when he is sent to Rome, to live only in the familiar contemplation of the productions of the great masters of art."

The above observations were penned with great force some twenty years ago, when Van Amburgh was iu the ascendant at Drury Lane, and Shakespeare at Covent Garden, and we are glad to perceive are now applicable to the fullest extent in Hobart Town, where a purer and loftier tone is imparted to theatrical enjoyment than it has been our lot to experience for very many years in England, and not at any period in this colony, the latter fact being fully provided by the mode in which a performance is taken, the lioness of the points which are marked for approbation, the degree of earnest attention, and a thousand indications of growing perception and refine- ment, which now fall nightly under observation.

But the Play.—The critic of the Literary Gazette, we perceive, considers that the genuine power of this performance belongs to an ancient, recognized, and high order of the comic — "the power of seizing the characters and manners of the age, and holding the mirror up to society; and that, too, after it has so long   been asserted that the progress of civilization had destroyed the materials for such a purpose." Although it was first produced at the Haymarket Theatre, on

the 8th December, 1840, we believe it has now been  

put on the stage for the first time in Van Diemen's

Land.

The main circumstance connected with the success

of the present management of the Victoria Theatre   has been particularly noted as in the production of Money." There have formerly been, as at the Patent "Theatres in London, considerable approxima- tions towards correctness of costume, occasional splendour of theatrical adornment, and striking dis-

plays of individual talent, but it was reserved for   Mr. Watson and his painstaking stage-manager, assisted by the admired artistes, Mr. and Mrs. Waller, to furnish a systematic illustration of the drama, with a corps dramatique fully adequate to the per- sonation of the characters, and with all that concert

and pervading unity that are requisite to realise a

scene.

Sir John Vesey (Mr. Tuthill), a baronet and a man of the world, who values men not for what they are, but what they seem to be, and without merit or money of his own, trades on the merits and money of other people, is on the look-out for a suitable match for his daughter Georgiana (Mrs. Morton), who has, when poverty stared her in the face, had a serious flirtation with Sir Frederick Blount (Mr. Cox), but having suddenly become possessed, as she believes, of a fortune by the death of an uncle in India, is induced to yield to her parent's solicitous regard for her welfare to aspire to a higher mate. There are two poor cousins in the family, Alfred Evelyn (Mr. Waller) and Clara Douglass   (Mrs. Waller), and Lady Franklin (Madame Carandini), half-sister to Sir John Vesey. These, with Stout (Mr. Graham), a radical politician, and Lord Glossmore ( Mr. Morton), an aristocratic con- trast to the former, with Graves (Mr. Sefton Parry), ever lamenting a lost shrew of a wife, and betrayed into laughable extravagances by his very griefs, and Dudley alias Deadly Smooth (Mr. Leris), are the principal dramatis personæ very strong cast.

Alfred Evelyn, who possesses a great deal of talent, acts as private secretary to Sir John, prepares his speeches, writes his pamphlets, and looks up his calcula- tions, without a salary, is the principal character. His dependence upon Sir John Vesey renders him bitterly satir¡cal and apparently reckless, and this Mr. Waller depicted in a very forcible manner. In the first act he fruitlessly endeavours to draw on the benevolence of his patron to aid a poor woman, who was his nurse and his mother's last friend. Miss Vesey consenting to advance the money—if she gets the fortune—takes the address, which Clara manages to copy, and with the kind co-operation of Lady Franklin contrives to transmit the money, unknown to Evelyn. The arrogant attentions of Sir Frederick Blount to Clara draw forth from Evelyn a declara- tion of love and an offer of his friendless hand, which she rejects as a marriage of privation, for they both are poor, of penury,—of days that dread the morrow—a lot which she had seen. After this affecting scene, which passed off with an interest which could not be improved, we have the whole party assembled to read Mordaunt's will, which astonishes and confounds the whole tribe of them, and Alfred especially, for the Nabob has bequeathed the whole of his fortune to him, on the ground that he was an oddity like himself, the only one of his relations who had never fawned upon him, and who, having known privation, may the better employ wealth. Sir John now considers that wealth, which poor Clara looks upon as even more than poverty, a cause for eternal separation—a cause of high con- gratulation—declares Alfred an immense match for his daughter, and thereafter plots his utmost to secure the consummation of the hymeneal rites,

Mr. Lewis personated the character of Smooth in a very easy, gentlemanly style; Mr. Graham is just the man—we are not joking—for Stout; and the fan-

tastical coxcomb, Blount, received fall justice at the

hands of Mr. Cox.

We next find our hero surrounded with every appliance of wealth, and pestered by crowds seeking his distinguished patronage, but of all his new friends he most esteems Graves, (whom Mr. Parry personated in a strikingly faithful and artistic manner), and in a confidential interview informs him of a kind of condi- tion, asked as a favour, embodied in a letter from the deceased, whose property he had inherited under will, that he should marry either Georgiana or Clara. Regarding this as a moral obligation, believing that the seasonable relief conveyed to his nurse was the act of Georgiana, and refusing to owe to his gold what was denied to his affection—the love of Clara Douglass, he offers his hand to her frivolous cousin. He has, however, taken care, as a sweet morsel of revenge, to give it out that he had received a codicil, to Mordaunt's will leaving Clara £20,000, and paid it to her to place her in an independent position. He proposes in the presence of Clara, the act-drop falling and putting an end to a scene which was better acted than any yet acted upon these boards.

Alarmed by some reports as to the high playing   and extravagance of Alfred, Sir John Vesey hurries on the match with the liveliest promptitude, and heart-

lessly lacerates the feelings of Clara, to get her out of ** thd "way. Gladly consenting to take a trip' to the Continent to avoid the struggle and the shame conse- quent upon the marriage of Evelyn with her cousin, site prepares to depart, when, he arrives, and .a scene of deep pathos ensues. Her gentle heart cannot bear to leave in enmity, and she seeks a reconciliation as a friend. And to the last, from a wayward mis- understanding, he becomes the rash slave of jealous anger, and dashes the enp he wishes most from his lips. In the fourth act, Evelyn is apparently in dis- tress: he obtains cheques for a few hundreds from Sir Frederick and Glossmore, and borrows £500 from his intended father-in law. He persuades Georgiana he is embarrassed, but promises never to gamble again as long as he lives, if she will let bim have the £10,000 she has in her own hands for a few weeks. The bank breaks, In which he is reported to have his money lodged-he is finally arrested by the tailor, and all hi* friends desert him excepting Graves and Lady Franklin (chariuiiigly personated by the lady to whom the character was allotted). It will be needless to say, however, that this report has been got np, to a great extent, by Evelyn, to-test their principles. Clara having heard that ¿10,000 would clear him from his liabilities, does not stand idly by - she hears that it was ho who enriched her, reflects that she was once the woman of his love, and flies to place the money at his service,

Another mistake in the delivery of this money le ids to the supposition that Georgiana sent it, and a scene of embarrassment takes place between the lovers. No pen could adequately inscribe the deep feeling and passion with whioh Mrs. Waller informed Alfred of the reason she rejected him. The best idea we can give our readers is in the passage itself;

Clara.-In this hour, when they say you are again as poor as before, 1 forget the world-my pride - perhaps too much my own sex : I remember but your

sorrow-.1 am here 1

Eve.-And is this the same voice that, when I knelt at your feet, and asked but one day the hope to call you mine, spoke only of poverty, and answered " Never ?" ' ? '

Clara.-Because I had been unworthy of your love if I had ensured your misery. Evelyn, hear mel My father, like you, was poor-generous; gifted, like you, with genius, ambition ; sensitive, like you, to the least breath of insult. He married, as you would have done-married one whose only dowry was penury and caro ! Alfred, I saw that genius the curse to itself ! I saw that ambition wither to des-

pair !-I saw the struggle - the humiliation . the proud man's agony -the bitter life-the early death ! -and heard over his breathless clay my mother's groan of self-reproach ! Alfred Evelyn, now speak ! Was the woman you loved so nobly to repay you

with such a doom ?

Jive. Clara, we should have shared it !

Claru.-Shared? Never let the woman who really loves comfort her selfishness with snob delu- sion I In marriages .like this the wife cannot share the burden : it is he - the husband to provide, to scheme, to work, to endure - to grind out his strong heart at the miserable wheel ! The wife, also, cannot share the struggle she can but witness despair ! And, therefore, Alfred, I rejected you.

An explanation afterwards takes place, the mistake is rectified, ami Clara succeeds where wealth had failed ; she reconciles Alfred to the world and to minkind, and he confesses that " amidst the humours a id the follies, the vanities, deceits and vices that p'a.v their part in the Great Comedy of Life-it is our owii f mit if ive do not find snob natures, though rare and few, as redeem the rest, brightening the shadows that ara flung from the form and body of the Tihb with glimpses of the everlasting holiness of Truth and Lqvb."

Zoom

plus
thumb
minus
left
thumb
right
up
thumb
down