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PRINCESS'S THEATRE.

The manner in which the Tempest is performed at this house is marked by the most complete originality of design on the part of the manager. The large ship, filled with living persons, that is tossed about on canvas waves at the commencement, is not, indeed, without precedent, but from the moment when Prospero is first discovered with Miranda to the moment when he takes his final leave of the audience every group is executed after a fashion altogether new. Instead of standing on the level sands to hear the roar of the departing “tempest,” the Magician and his daughter watch the subsiding waters from the edge of a projecting rock. Instead of speaking the “epilogue” at the footlights, Prospero delivers it from the hip itself, which glides from the stage when the apologetic speech is ended.

Especial pains have been taken to endow Ariel with those attributes that always suggest themselves to the student of the play in the closet, but have never been exhibited on the stage. To sustain the character of Ariel as a vocalist the etherial spirit has hitherto been divested of his lightness, and a substantial full-grown lady has been supposed

“-------to tread the ooze of the salt deep; “To run upon the sharp wind of the north.”

In the Princess's Tempest, on the other hand, we have a juvenile Ariel in the person of Miss Kate Terry, and while she floats before the picture the music is sung behind the scenes by Miss Poole. To heighten the illusion every sort of mechanical and optical contrivance is adopted. An electric light accompanies the spirit wherever he strays; he darts swift as thought across the sky without any visible means of movement, and every time he appears it is from the corner where he is least expected. All parts of the sublunary world are equally permeable to Ariel, and consequently in all parts of the scene he can find with equal facility an entrance and an egress. The costume of the spirit is likewise new. When he leads Ferdinand across the “yellow sands” he indeed wears the ordinary attire of a sea nymph, but his habitual aspect is that of a semi-celestial being with wings of the angelic kind. As Ariel is the ever-prominent personage throughout the action, so does he remain sole occupant of the stage at the end of the play. Prospero has spoken his epilogue, the ship has glided off, the island slips away in the opposite direction, and all that remains is the expanse of water over which Ariel is suspended, exulting in his newly acquired liberty. This is, perhaps one of the most poetical ideas ever embodied by means stage contrivance.

In the scene where Alonzo and his companions are tantalized with the show of a feast through the magical arts of Prospero an extraordinary effect is produced. A picture of mere barrenness, in which two withered trees are the principal objects, is gradually changed into one of luxuriant vegetation, the foliage actually growing before the eyes of the spectator. The “strange shapes” vaguely indicated by Shakspeare are interpreted by Mr. Kean as the nymphs and satyrs of antiquity, and naiads, who dance on the surface of undulating water, join them in their revels. The old fashion of making a table rise from a trapdoor is abolished, and the nymphs, who carry baskets of fruit on their heads, bring them together, so that they themselves form the table, the illusion being perfected by the festoons of flowers that conceal their figures while they crouch beneath the load of conglomerated dainties. The classical character given to this scene is in harmony with the masque in the fourth act, in which the speaking personages are Juno, Ceres, and Iris. Of course, this masque brings with it another striking tableau, and flying figures, suspended on the principle already adopted with so much success in Faust and Marguerite and Henry VIII., float amid brilliant light, while Miss Poole, gorgeously attired as the Queen of the Gods, and accompanied by radiant peacocks, warbles forth her song of gratulation.

Whatever may be said to the contrary, the serious characters in the Tempest afford no opportunity for very remarkable acting; and when we say that Miss Leclercq as Miranda and Miss Buston as Ferdinand both looked exceedingly beautiful, and deported themselves with exceeding grace, we have said that they did all that was required of them. The great Prospero himself has only to appear extremely dignified, and to feign much more dogged ill-nature than really belongs to him, but, nevertheless, we have seldom heard a more perfect specimen of quiet declamation than the “epilogue,” as spoken by Mr. Charles Kean on Wednesday night. A hitch had taken place in the machinery, and had occasioned an unexpected pause in the performance, so that the words “Release me from my bands “With the help of your good hands; “Gentle breath of yours my sails “Must fill, or else my project fails, “Which was to please;” might be construed as a sort of address from the manager himself to the audience, and were thus endowed with extraordinary pathos. They were answered with enthusiastic acclamations, and when the ship had departed, and the beautiful figure of Ariel remained sparkling against the sky, all remembrances of impatience were forgotten in a general sensation of admiring wonder, and calls for “Kean” arose on all sides.

0002

Mr. Ryder's Caliban is a fine picturesque savage, and Mr. Harley is at home in the quaint pleasantry of Trinculo, but Stephano is susceptible of more weight and unction than is given to him by Mr. F. Matthews. But the effect of the comic portion of the play is in some degree marred by the long pauses which ensue between the acts, and which, notwithstading a notice affixed to the doors of the theatre, craving the indulgence of the public, relax in some degree the powers of attention. No doubt pauses of more than ordinary duration are inevitable, for so complicated is the machinery of the piece that—as the notice tells us—more than 140 operatives (unseen by the audience) are employed in working it; but still we would recommend that every effort should be made to reduce them as much as possible.