Military dramas might, as a rule, be called with equal propriety
millinery dramas. In other words, their success is generally due to
their costumes. In this respect they afford a marked contrast to ballet
spectacles. The latter give us inanity without clothes; the former,
inanity in particularly gorgeous clothes. Which, again, leads to the
further remark that the difference between the two styles of inanity is,
after all, a clothes thing. This is a joke.
The _Lancers_, now running at WALLACK'S, (a proceeding which implies no
want of bravery on the part of that distinguished corps,) is, however,
unlike most military dramas, inasmuch as it is a bright and brilliant
play. Moreover, it is acted by the best members of the Company in their
very best manner. Miss LOUISA MOORE, whose golden hair and silvery voice
become an actress of genuine mettle as well as gentle grace, is ESTELLE,
the heroine; Miss EMILY MESTAYER is the Commanding Sister of Col. EPÉE
who is personated by Mr. FISHER; Mr. WYNDHAM is the Graceless Private,
who, having spent his last penny, enlists in the Lancers and spends vast
sums in beneficiary beer in company with his comrades; Mr. WILLIAMSON is
the Kindly Sergeant; Mr. RINGGOLD is the Genial Artist, whose velvet
coat suggests that he has recently managed a Starr _opera bouffe_
enterprise; and Mr. STODDART is happy in the congenial character of a
Clumsy Trumpeter. If any speculative manager pretends that he has a
better hypothetical cast in his eye than the present cast of the
_Lancers_, let him be given to the surgical tormentors to be operated
upon for malignant _strabismus_.
The curtain rises upon the Genial Artist searching for his friend, the
Graceless Private, in the empty jugs and glasses at the _Golden Sun
Inn_. To him enters the Clumsy Trumpeter.
_Genial Artist_. "Where can he be? It--it must, and yet--"
_Clumsy Trumpeter (without Stoddart's usual oath.)_ "He's got 'em.
Hallo! friend. Do you want any thing?"
_Genial Artist_. "Yes--no--that is--or rather it isn't--" (_Exit, while
Trumpeter makes faces at the gallery_.)
_Enter_ ESTELLE _and her maid, disguised as peasants, and pursued by a
troop of lancers_.
_All the Lancers_. "Let _me_ kiss 'em."
_Both the Girls_. "Scr-r-r-r-e-e-e-ch."
(_Enter Graceless Private_.)
_Graceless Private_. "I will protect you. Get out, all you fellows."
(_They get out_.)
A flirtation between the Private and ESTELLE is at once begun, from
which it appears that she came to catch a glimpse of the Colonel, who
wants to marry her. She and the Private sit on the table, and fall
instantaneously in love. As soon as they are well in, the Lancers
return, and ESTELLE flies. Graceless Private, having no money, pays for
the co-inebriation of the entire corps, and while engaged in this
praiseworthy occupation is found by the Genial Artist, who makes him
promise to attend a ball at a neighboring _château_. Enter Kindly
Sergeant, who arrests the Graceless Private, and puts him in the
guard-house. Curtain falls amid faces from STODDART (without his usual
oath) and applause from the audience.
_Veteran Play-goer_. "Well, I've seen STODDART in every thing he has
played this year, and this is the first time he has failed to swear on
every ineligible occasion."
_Young Lady who frequents Wallack's_. "Who is that Clumsy Trumpeter? I
don't know him."
_Accompanying Young Man_. "Why, don't you know STODDART?"
_Young Lady_. "Nonsense; that isn't STODDART. Why, he hasn't sworn
once."
_Fast Young Man_. "STODDART isn't himself to-night. He hasn't the spirit
to swear. Did you hear the good thing he said Monday night about Miss
MOORE? It was devilish good. Says he--" (_Repeats an indelicate joke_.)
_Irate Old Gentleman who overhears the story_. "If he said that, sir, he
ought to have been hissed off the stage, sir; and turned out of the
company, sir! It was an insult to an estimable lady, and an outrage on
the audience, sir!"
_The second act takes place in the salon of ESTELLE. The Colonel and his
Commanding Sister lay siege to_ ESTELLE'S _heart. Graceless Private, in
evening dress, countermines the Colonel's forces and routs them, wading
deeper than before in the exhilarating surf of love, hand in hand with_
ESTELLE. (_This metaphor has been leased for a term of years to a
distinguished hydropathic poet.) Clumsy Trumpeter drops books and things
all over the room, and recognises the Graceless Private. Finally the
Colonel and the latter quarrel, and go out in the back yard to fight,
where the Private is wounded in the arm. The Colonel returns and
announces the result to_ ESTELLE, _who swoons, or at all events, makes
an admirable feint of so doing. Curtain._
_Fast Young Man_. "STODDART didn't try his good joke to-night. He'll say
something yet, though, before the play is over."
_Every body Else_. "Did you ever see better acting than WYNDHAM'S and
Miss MOORE'S? And how capitally FISHER and Miss MESTAYER are playing?
STODDART positively hasn't sworn yet. What can be the matter with him?"
_Inquiring Maiden, to her travelled lover_. "Are the uniforms just like
those of the real French Lancers?"
_Travelled Lover_. "Very nearly. There is one button too many on the
front of the Colonel's coat. I know the regiment well. It's the crack
artillery regiment in the French service."
_Act III. shows us the Graceless Private brought before the Colonel for
examination. He feigns drunkenness, but the Colonel suspects him of
having been his adversary at the ball_. ESTELLE _visits the Colonel in
order to save her Private lover. He is proved to have broken his arrest,
and is sentenced to death_. ESTELLE _offers to marry the Colonel if he
will pardon the Private. The latter's discharge arrives in the nick of
time, and as he is thus beyond the reach of the Colonel's vengeance, he
graciously pardons him, and joins his hand to that of_ ESTELLE. _He
remarks--or ought to--"Bless you, my children." Every body suddenly
finds out that every body else is noble and generous. And so the curtain
falls upon a happy garrison, including a Trumpeter who has not sworn a
single oath_.
_One Half of the Audience_. "How do you like it? I like it so much."
_The Other Half_. "I like it immensely."
_Chorus from Every body_. "Why didn't STODDART swear?"
_Answering Echo from the Tipperary Hills_. "Because WALLACK has told him
that the public won't stand it any longer."
And the public is right. Mr. STODDART is an exceptionally able actor,
but of late he has grown intolerably coarse and vulgar while on the
stage. His profanity has disgraced himself and the theatre, and his
gratuitous insult to an estimable lady, who had the misfortune to appear
in the same scene with him on Monday night, should have secured his
instant dismissal from the company, and his perpetual banishment to
_Tammany_ or _Tony Pastor's_. Let him turn over a new leaf at once. He
does not swear in the present play, and the fact is creditable to him.
He is a gentleman in private life; let him be a gentleman on the stage.
By so doing he will soon be recognized as one of the best comedians of
the day. And PUNCHINELLO will be the first to praise him when he lays
aside the unnecessary vulgarity with which he has latterly bid for the
applause of the gallery.