THEATRE ROYAL.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1636, 19 May 1879, Page 3

THEATRE ROYAL.

A new domestic drama, or more properly speaking, a modernised version of an old French melodrama, entitled a " Woman of the People," was produced at the Theatre Eoyal on Saturday night. Adapted from the French of MM. Dennery and Maillant, undor the title of "Madelaine, or the Orphan of Paris," it was very popular some thirty years ago, but the present version was reconstructed for the purpose of furnishing the celebrated English actress Mddle. Beatrice with a (haract er fitted to display her remarkable sympathetic and emotional style of acting. It was this piece with the venue changed to Sydney, and the characters re-christened, that was produced on Saturday. The plot, though not very intricate, is interesting, and the leading characters afford scops for some good acting Tho incident which furnishes the plot of the piece is that of a mother relinquishing her child to be brought up as a foundling. The child, however, when abandoned on the door step of the asylum by its mother, is stolon by the villain of the piece, and substituted for another recently dead, by which he hopes to gain tho hand of its mother, a wealthy wielow. The mother of tho abandoned infant subsequently becomes an inmato of the house to which it is taken, and recognising her offspring, is denounced as a mad woman, and consigned to an asylum for the insane. Thanks to the exertions of a suitor for the widow's hand, tho child is returned to its right mother, her sanity admitted, the villains frustrated, and all ends happily. As Annie Laury, tho heroine of the play, Miss Beatrice exhibited far greater powers than she had been previously credited with. The girlish lightheadedness of the happy new made brido in the opening act was very charmingly pourtrayed, but it was in the succeeding acts that she created the most favorable impression. Hor anguish at tho forced self-abandonment of her child to save its life, and her repudiation of her drunken husband, when in self abasement he begs her forgiveness, were very forcibly depicted, and the audience were prompt and enthusiastic in recognition of tho fact. Again, in the situation where she recognises her babe in the possession of another, her acting was full of pathos; and she again created a very genuine sensation in the scene in the concluding act where she momentarily doubts whether she is not really mad. Mr Theo. Hamilton sustained the character of Donald Deering, another reclaimed drunkard, in an excellent manner. "Shocking examples " seem to be a specialty of this gentleman's, but to his credit it must be said that he never oversteps the mark, or indulges in exaggeration, hence he always succeeds in pleasing the audience. Mr D'Orsay Ogden was quite at home as a comic scamp who lures his rather wok-minded friend Donald along the flowery path that leads to destruction. There is a quaint mannerism about this gentleman's acting that pervades all his characters —a sort of Sandy Morton or Solon Shingle—but he is nevertheless genuinely funny, a rather scarce qualification of comedians of the present day. The minor characters were all well sustained, but Mr Lance Lenton must be specially complemented for the imperturbable gravity and sang Jro\d with which ho sustained tho character of Dr. Tucker, M.D., the proprietor of the lunatic asylum. The most startling incidents following each other with lightninglike rapidity failed to disturb his serene equanimity. The piece was very well put on the stage, and a country dance in the first act was loudly applauded. " A Woman of the •People " will be repeated this evening.