THEATRE ROYAL.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1546, 1 February 1879, Page 3

THEATRE ROYAL.

Etgnold’s Benefit. The attraction of seeing Mr George Rignold in tho pieces last night, apart from the fact that the performance was for his benefit, bad the eff ct of drawing the largest house that he has played to since his opening night. The first piece was a pretty comedy drama in three acts, the joint production of Palgrave Simpson and Herman Merivale, in which Mr Rignold sustained his original character of Colonel Chaldee. The materials of which it is composed are slight, but the production bears the stamp of tho facile pens of two of our best modern playwrights. The plot is interesting, and the characters well drawn, that of Colonel Challine affording scope for the displ iy of Mr Rignold’a peculiar ability as a character actor. The Colonel, who is afflicted with blindness, has in early life married a woman who never truly loved him, and only became his wife from pique, and this fact, discovered too late, has embittered his life and rendered him a suspicious and unhappy man, haunted with the belief that all women ere false. This feeling becomes intensified by the discovery that his daughter, the only issue of his unhappy union, has eloped from? her boarding school and bee mes, as be supposes, the degraded companion of a certain Captain Bertie Cameron, to whom she is not married. This fatal belief poisons bis existence, as be is unaware that the whole story < f his daughter’s ruin and dishonor is a falsehood and the result of a conspiracy contrived and instigated by the jealousy of a schoolf flow, who had fixed her unrequited affection upon the Captain All the actors in this episode are the victims of three deceptive letters, written by their con-triver-one to Colonel Chillice, apprising him that if he goes to the school where he has placed his daughter, he will find her absent under the disgraceful circumstances already alluded to—a second to Captain Cameron making an appointment for him to meet the Colonel’s daughter, and a third conveying the intelligence of the Colonel’s sudden illness to his daughter, as a decoy to induce her to leave the school to meet some one who will convey her to him. The plan succeeds only too well. The Colonel finds his worst fears realised. The deluded girl too late finds out that she has been betrayed. She of course imagines that she has been entrapped by the Captain into an assignation with him at the inn appointed for her to go to, and after indignantly refusing to listen to his explanations and unable either to return to her school or fly to her father’s roof for protection eventually takes shelter with a female relative. In this conjuncture of affairs the play opens. The poor girl, anxious to obtain her father’s forgivene-s, and yearning for his love, contrives, through the kindness of Mrs Thornton, an attractive young widow and a friend of the colonel’s, to be introduced into his house in the capacity of reader to him, a post hitherto filled by Stratton Strawless, a scheming connection of the old gentleman’s, who, however blind as he is, sees through him, and despises him ac ordingly. The plan succeeds admirably, the girl makes her way by her very friendlessness to her father’s heart being ns much “ alone” in her sorrow and helplessness as he is in his blindness. The same fair deus ex machina aided by a kind hearted young doctor, who is in love with her, also contrives to bri- g Bertie Cameron, who is her cousin, into the society of the colonel’s daughter, who is passing under his roof un er the assumed name of Maude Trevor. He of course explains his innocent share in the trick that was played on her and is rewarded by finding after that he is not indifferent to her A written confession of the contriver of the plot, who is now united to Stratton Straw! ss, wrung from her by remorse, opens the eyes of the colonel and convinces him of the girl’s purity, and he joins the hands of the young lovers, the gallant doctor at the same time being rewarded ‘>y Mrs Thornton accepting him as her husband. Mr Rignoldgavean admirable portrait of the colored, ail the phases of the character being d epicted with consummate skill, and he received enthusiastic applause from the audience. Mias Jennie Watt as Mrs 1 hornton was sprightly and fascinating, her complaints of her imagin *ry maladies being extremely amusing. Miss Annie Mayor infused a great amount of tenderness and t inching pathos in her rendering of Maude Trevor. Mr C. C. Vincent played remarkably well as Dr. Micklethwaite, and Mr Elliott gave au excellent rendering of tho scheming, selfi-h, para-ite Strawless. Bertie Cameron was played by Mr Hooper. Mr Rignold received special calls at tho end of each act, and on the termination nil the principal characters passed before the curtain. The performance concluded with the time honored drama “ Black eyed Susan ” Mr Rignold gave a jovial rendering of the British Tar, and in the course of the drama played the violin, and executed a sailor’s hornpipe with agility and skill. Miss Solange Novaro undertook the character of Susan, and played the part very nicely, her appearance alone being ample excuse for William’s devotion. The rest of the characters were well sustained, and the drama was well put on the stage. To-night Mr Rignold will appear for the last time as Claude Melnotte in tho “ Lady of Lyons,” Miss Jennie Watt playing Pauline Deschapelles. "Black-eyed Susan ” will be repeated as the after piece