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plays put upon our stage. The actors and actresses speak with a foreign accent, and all their allusions and asides are foreign. The only places of amusement where the entertainments are indigenous are the African Opera Houses, where native American vocalists, with blackened faces, sing national songs, and utter none but native witticisms. These native theatricals, which resemble the national plays of Italy and Spain, more than the performances of the regular theatres, are among the best frequented and most profitable places of amusement in New-York. While every attempt to establish an Italian Opera here, though originating with the wealthiest and best educated classes, has resulted in bankruptcy, the Ethiopian Opera has flourished like a green bay tree, and some of the conductors of these establishments have become millionaires. It was recently proved that one of the "Bone soloists" attached to a company of Ethiopian minstrels, had spent twentyseven thousand dollars of his income within

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managers of our theatres do not take a hint from the success of the Ethiopian Opera, and adapt their performances to the public tastes and sympathies. manager of the National Theatre, one of the least attractive of all the places of public amusement, has made a fortune by putting Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom upon his stage. Uncle Tom, as a drama, has hardly any merit, it is rudely constructed, without any splendors of scenery and costume, or the fascinations of music; the dialogue is religious, and the Bible furnishes its chief illustrations; but it is American in tone, all the allusions have a local significance, and the sympathies of the people are directly appealed to. The result is an unheard-of success, such as has never before been accorded to any theatrical performance in the New World. The manager of the National Theatre is himself an American, and nearly all his corps of actors are also natives, and though he only aims at the tastes of the lowest

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sentiment of his plays are foreign to us. He nowhere gives that touch of nature which makes the whole world kin, but compels us all the while to feel that we are assisting at an alien performance. There is one point, however, he may claim the credit of having established; he has greatly im proved the upholstery of the stage, and. by the introduction of "real furniture" transformed the before bare-looking scenes of interiors into something which bears a recognizable resemblance to a modern drawing-room. Mr. Bourcicault is the

most successful of the present class of English dramatists; but, the regular drama died with Sheridan; since the School for Scandal was produced, there has been no play written in England which stands the remotest chance of being known by name half a century hence. The regular drama is as foreign now to the wants

of the theatre, as the Greek tragedy, or the mediaeval mysteries. The theatre survives for other purposes than the representation of the drama; its presentations are merely sensuous, and not intellectual; Shakespeare is only endured for the sake of the star actor who impersonates the one character suited to his physical powers. The pieces which attract audiences and fill the treasury are as unShakespearian as possible. Tableaux, burlesques, thrilling melo-dramas, ballets, spectacles, horses, dwarfs, giants, ropedancers, any thing that is monstrous and wonderful, form now the great attractions of the theatres, and any thing is considered as "legitimate" by the public, which affords amusement, and as proper, by the manager, which fills his house.

The lecture-room has now become a kind of compromise between the theatre

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and the Church, it is a neutral ground, upon which all parties and conditions may, and do meet, and the peripatetic star lecturer occupies nearly the same position which Roscius did in the early days of the stage. The greatest achievements in poetry are the plays which were never intended for print; and, doubtless, the best additions to our literature will be the lectures which were only written to amuse an audience, and not intended for publication in another form.

There are innumerable places of recreation in such cities as New-York, which are not properly entitled to be classed under the head of places of public amusement, which we are considering now. The theatre has always been, and still is, the principal place of public amusement, and, though its character has greatly changed, and its frequenters are no longer of the class who once gave it its chief support, it occupies too prominent a place in the social organization of our great towns to be overlooked by professed moralists and religious teachers. Its existence, and the fact of its being frequented

by immense numbers, of people whose morals need looking after, should be sufficiently strong reasons for the clergy, and all others who are by virtue of their office public teachers, to exert themselves to render it as little harmful as possible. To stand outside and denounce the theatre without knowing any thing of its interior, is not the true way to improve it. The representation of moral, and even religious plays has been found not only very effective upon the audiences who attend upon them, but profitable to the manager who brings them out.

As religious novels form a very considerable part of the popular books of the day. we see no reason why religious dramas should not also form an important part of theatrical entertainments. The fact that such a drama as Uncle Tom's Cabin can be represented two hundred nights in succession, at one of the lowest theatres in New-York, converting the place into a kind of conventicle, and banishing from it the degraded class, whose presence has been one of the strongest objections to the theatre which has been made by moralists,

is sufficient to show that religious plays, like religious novels, may be pressed into the service of education with powerful effect. It is stated by Mrs. Mowatt, in her autobiography, from which we have already quoted, that in the catalogue of English dramatic authors there are the names of two hundred clergymen. But we imagine that none of these have written any religious plays. There are six regular theatres in New-York, which are open nearly every night in the year, excepting Sundays, for dramatic representations, and the public that sit night after night with a fortitude and good nature to us incredible, to see the School for Scandal and the Lady of Lyons would be but too happy to vary their amusements by a religious drama, if it were only new and intelligible. The chief of our city theatres, which claims to be the Metropolitan, since the destruction of the Old Park, is the Broadway. It is a very large house, capable of seating some 4300 persons. It was built by Col. Alvah Mann, a great circus proprietor, who ruined himself by the speculation, and is now the property of Mr. Raymond, another millionaire of the ring. Broadway is a "star house," and depends more upon the attraction of a single eminent performer than upon the general character of its performances, or its stock company; and it is at one time a ballet, another a tragedian, again an opera, then a spectacle, that forms its attractions. Forrest has here appeared one hundred nights in succession; here too Lola Montez made her debut in America, and any wandering monstrosity is seized upon by the manager to secure an audience. The regular drama, excepting with the attraction of a star, is found to be a regular bore to the public, and a regular loss to the house. The manager of the Broadway, E. A. Marshall, Esq., is neither an actor nor a dramatist, but simply a man of business; and, besides the Broadway Theatre, he is also proprietor of the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, and of the theatres in Baltimore and Washington. Neither the exterior nor interior of this house is at all creditable to the city; it has a shabby and temporary look externally, and the ornamentation of the auditorium is both mean and tawdry. No class of people seem to frequent it for recreation but only to gratify an excited curiosity.

The "Bowery," which is the oldest of all the theatres in New-York, is about the same dimensions as the Broadway, but has a stage of much greater depth, and better adapted to spectacle. It is

frequented chiefly by the residents of the eastern side of the city, and its pit is generally filled with boisterous representatives of the first families in the city-that is, the first in the ascending scale. The performances at the Bowery are, of course, adapted to the tastes of its audiences, who have a keen relish for patriotic devotion, terrific combats, and thrilling effects, and are never so jubilant as when suffering virtue triumphs over the machinations of persecuting villainy. It was for such audiences as these, with a slight infusion of better natures. that Shakspeare wrote his dramas, and for whose amusement he was willing to personate the humblest of his creations. The present edifice is the fourth that has been erected on the same ground, since the first one was erected in the year 1826, the others having been destroyed by fire. The late proprietor of the Bowery Theatre amassed a fortune here, and left the establishment to his heirs, to whom it now belongs. It is understood to be a very profitable concern, as it has been from its first erection. It was in the Bowery Theatre where Madame Hutin, the first opera dancer seen on this side of the Atlantic made her debut, and where the first ballet was performed, one of the troupe being the then unknown Celeste. It was here, too, that Malibran made her first appearance on the stage after her unfortunate marriage, and filled the house with the beauty, fashion, and intellect of the city. Such audiences have never since graced its pit and galleries. It was on the stage of the Bowery that Forrest achieved his greatest triumphs, and laid the foundation of his fame. But it is long since stars of such magnitude have shed their sweet influences on Bowery audiences.

Niblo's is not, strictly, a theatre, but a show house, open to any body that may choose to hire it. It is one night a circus, another an Italian Opera House; then a dramatic temple, and then a lecture room. It is called a "garden," but it is one of the roomiest, best constructed, and most convenient of all the places of amusement in the city, and is unexceptionable in its character. Its interior decorations are very inferior to the other threatres, but it has the great advantage of being clean and well ventilated. The entrance to it, through the Metropolitan Hotel, is extremely elegant and capacious. Under the same roof, within the walls of the same hotel is Niblo's Saloon, a splendid room used for concerts and balls. The whole ground now covered by the Metropolitan Hotel was once Niblo's Garden, and the theatre was merely an appendage

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