In consequence of the very unfavourable weather the attendance ab the Lyceum Theatre on Monday night was much thinner than at previous performances of the Bandmann Combination; though, on the whole, much better than might have been expected. The play was a drama iv three acts—emotional drama it was called in the programme—vy the late Tom Paylor, entitled Dead or Alive?? Tt is said to have been written expressly for Mr. Bandmann and to have had a run of two hundred nights on first being placed on the Boards in London. The plot depends on an episode of the battle of Austerlitz, and possesses little or nothing of the morbid sensational type. On the eve of the battle Col. de Maurienue commits his wife and infant daughter to the caro of the Duc de Laval, who ultimately roves to be the villain of the piece.
In due course news arrives that De Maucienne has fallen in the action, whereupon De Laval marries the widow. 'A great deal of this, by the way, is left to the imagination of the audience, or to be gathered by them from the dialogue. An interval of eighteen years is supprised te have elapsed between the first and second acts. By this time De Manrienne's wife is dead and his daughter grown up. The curtain rises on a lawyer's office, which De Maurienue, whom every one supposes to be dead, suddenly enters. In conversation with one of the clerks he learns the parti culars of his wife's second marriage and subsequent death. The daughter makes her appearance, and is recognized by her father through a resemblance to her mother. When dead men come to life at inconvenient moments it is usually perplexing for somebody. It was so in this instance for De Laval, and he accordingly had recourse to a well-worn stratagem to extricate himself from the dilemma—that of incarcerating the man he has wronged in a i on the plea of insanity. p-daughter and a young doctor his unwitting tools, and for a time succeeds in his design. All however ends happily. De Maurienne proves his identity and sanity, De Laval is foiled and disgraced, and Melanie and the doctor are married. After witnessing Mr. Bandmanu's successful impersonation of such striking reles as Hamlet, Shylock and Romeo, we, and perhaps the audience generally, some degree of disappointment at the bill of fare on Monday night. Well played, and (comparatively) well put on the as it was, it of necessity lacked interest, following three of Shakspeare's most admired plays. 'The continual doubling of parts necessitated by the smallness of the company gave a somewhat grotesque element to the performance, which we would much rather have not observed. 'Those, however, are defects that cannot be' avoided ' and have therefore to be excused. Mr. Bani mann's rendering of Col, de Maurienne was, his previous efforts excepted, one of finest samples of tragic acting that have ever been seen on the stage of the Lyceum. In the pathetic passages he was especially powerful, particularly in the scene where he first sees his daughter, and also in the closing one where he is finally reconciled to her and is restored to his title and estates, Miss Beaudet, who doubled the parts of Madame De Maurienne and Melia: former of which was a short and ensign ficant one—fully sustained her reputation in the latter. Her grief and remorse when she discovers she lias been the innocent cause of her father being confined in a Tunatic asylum was splendidly acted and most vehemently applauded, as also was her of "Have I not been kind to Thee."
Fergusson was very successful as Marengo, a vivandiere, Mr, Dorey Ogden was thoroughly at home as the Duc de Laval, and Mr. Russell caused much amusement by his lively and spirited representation of Simmineau, in addition to the shorter role of Bancal. At the close of the performance Mr. Bandmann and Miss Beaudet received a most enthusiastic call before the curtain.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.