A Licentious Stage

We are always desirous of encouraging every innocent recreation, and unwilling to injure private interests in our remarks upon public amusements. In that spirit we have frequently noticed the performances at the Theatre, giving most ungrudgingly the praise we considered the manager deserved, for keeping the house open when, it appeared to us, the attendance was not sufficient to protect him from loss. Our notices were occasional, as our visits were irregular; but whenever we referred to the Lazars (as actors), we did so in terms of commendation, and' were not critically severe on anything. We made every allowance for the insufficient support received, and we were complaisant enough to suppose that there really was no histrionic talent in the colonies, except that possessed by the manager, his family, and the ''ladies and gentlemen" whose 'sweet voices' he secured. We sneered not at the taste that, with such appliances, suggested the production of "Grand Oriental Spectacles," or the manner in which they were got up; the miserable contrivances were passed over; the shabby wardrobe unnoticed; the wretched scenery uncondemned, although never appropriate to the piece, nor in keeping with itself, and seldom shitted into the intended position until it was time to re move it again, while, through the openings, the audience were favoured with "long-drawn vistas" into that terra incognita, the back of the stage. We complained not of trees and flowers growing in the recesses of a "donjon keep", or marble columns springing from the deck of a vessel, and were content to imagine a little back parlour a Parisian saloon ; a cottage, with a practical door, an Italian colonnade. We carried our critical forbearance further, and, in consideration of the "rapid succession of novelties," were satisfied with as much of each piece as the players and the prompter pleased to give us, nor did we protest against the curtailments of the one nor the interpolations of the other. We forgave alike the ruthless scissors of the manager and the treacherous memory of the mimic, who frequently substituted his own amusing mistakes for the "ponderous levity" of his author. We have heretofore only noticed to praise, or "with mute expressive silence mused" our disapprobation; but we can pursue that course no longer without a dereliction of duly. For some time past we have noticed, with pain, that Lazar, to provoke a laugh, never hesitates to broach indecency. He deals out, with unblushing effrontery, allusions culled from or calculated for the especial gratification of the ladies of Light-square, who are, we confess, his firmest supporters. But on last Saturday evening he exceeded himself, and so outraged propriety as to merit the interference of the police, who are, we imagine, bound to suppress obscenity on the stage as well as in the saloon or any other public place. If the police have not power to interfere, it is time that such a system of licensing such places were adopted as would furnish the guardians of peace, good order, and public decency, with the proper power to prevent the repetition of immoralities like those referred to. We have seen Lazar "so overstep the modesty of nature" as to compel even the prostitutes to blush, and send the indignant blood tingling to the ear- tips of every decent man in the house. There can, to our minds, be no greater, no more dangerous nuisance, than an indecently conducted theatre —no greater theatrical atrocity than to announce a "juvenile night," to lower the prices so as to induce an attendance of young people, and then to present an entertainment not only indecent, but brutally and unnaturally so. We cannot praise that man's spirit who keeps open a Theatre, even at a loss to himself or his supporters, who can outrage all propriety by the unwarrantable introduction of filthy obscenities in the presence of a mixed audience, including a member of his own family. We are bound to warn all parents against permitting their children to attend this hotbed of demoralization. As the Theatre is at present conducted, no man can sit out a performance without being disgusted; no lady can enter the impure precincts without contamination.