THE PRINCESS'S THEATRE.

Evening Star, Issue 6727, 8 October 1885, Page 2

THE PRINCESS'S THEATRE.

Messrs MacMahon and Lcitch seem determined that their patrons shall have no ground of Complaint as concerns lack of variety in the fare placed before them, for dtfrif/g the present shorifCason they have given us three plays of an entirely different Miaraetefc, First we fattd "The Lights o' Loridfai/" with its scenes rf saflalid wretchedness &M rpwerfries?, enliyenea only by occasional snatch&j 6t iinro humor' traces of which will be found Mmiig the most poverty-stricken of the lower CHMffiSs fn the metropolis. Next we were treated to tte sensational "Pearl Divers," a piece crammed to repletion with startling and improbable incidents and situation, strung together apparently without any pre-deterniined arrangement. Now we have presented to lis & piece ill which the domestic element abounds, atitt in which there i* not even the slightest, approach |o sfensatioaalism, - For this very reason probably its advent is most welcome, the contrast'.being refreshing ill the extreme; but the intrinsic merits sf "The Two Brothers; or Sithors to Grind'-' ~m its title runs—are by themselves of a Bufficidfltly high standard to makeit always a popular play. j. Thkf : principal character is that of joe Stammers, a poor knife-grinder and tinker, with nothing" . worth living for except an invalided daughter „ana the memory of a brother whom he has not seen for thirty or forty years, to whom he was devotedly attached «a a youth, and who, he fondly hopes, will some day turn up arid make him happy once more. The daughter, Milly, has a sweetheart in the shape of one Ted Bluff, a blacksmith, who at first sightappears to be a fine specimen of a manly, straightforward fellow, but who turns out to he a weak-minded, inconstant, and contemptible • character altogether. Joe's brother Tom does not appear on the scene till near the end of the piece. Since the two parted in the early days of their life he had amassed a fortune and lost it through business reverses. He had also married twice, and "wasi by his first wife left a daughter—between whom and thesecond Mrs Thomas Stammers there arises a deadly enmity. Mr Stammers disappears after he has become ruined, and is believed to be dead. He leaves his daughter and her step-mother in his old residence, Mrs Stammers having a good rom'id sum of money in her own right through a settlement previous , to her husband's downfall. In a short time she drives her step-daughter out of the house, and she is forced to take refuge in the poor cottage in which her uncle Joe lives. She, too, has a; lover in Lord Templemore, who, although not a particularly brilliant individual, has at any rate the merit of constancy, and who remains true to her through all. In the end the vicious step-mother is confounded by the sudden loss of her fortune, by the return of her missing husband, and finally by its being discovered that she has been guilty of bigamy—she having a husband living when . she married Mr Stammers. The objectionable party being thus satisfactorily got rid of, the Stammers family are reunited* and everything winds up happily. In the part of Joe Stammers Mr Leitch gives us a splendid bit of character acting, playing the character with an admirably balanced mixture of pathos and quaint humor. His crippled daughter Milly is nicely reprej sented by Miss Herrick, and her lover Ted Bluff rather boisterously by Mr Oscar Balfe. In the character of Mrs Thomas Stammers, Miss Bryce gives us a picture of one of those youthful stepmothers that are occasionally to be met with, but not often. She infused a good deal of spitefulness into her representation of the part, but showed scarcely sufficient fervor in it. Eleanor Stammers found a graceful and altogether pleasant representative in Miss Kate Douglas, while Lord Templemore was satisfactorily played byMrG. Thompson. The remaining characters, who have, however, little to do, are Tom Stammers (Mr K. Vernon) ; Mr Hacute, the family lawyer (Mr W. Herbert); and Finette, a French lady's maid (Miss Carrie Davcy). The piece will be played for the last time to-night.