Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 04, April 23, 1870 | Page 3

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THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.
[Illustration:]
Booth's Theatre has become famous as the place where Mr.
MOLLENHAUER nightly leads his admirable orchestra, and plays
with exquisite skill and infinite tenderness his unrivalled violin solos.
Since this theatre opened, there have been several attempts to add
dramatic entertainments to the attractive concerts given by Mr.
MOLLENHAUER. Two great actors, Mr. JEFFERSON and Mr.
BOOTH, have at different times appeared at this house, and in Rip Van
Winkle and Hamlet have given us the most perfect specimens of
dramatic monologue. Lately, there was an attempt made to present
Macbeth during the intermissions in the performance of the orchestra.
Had an actor been engaged who was capable of playing Macbeth, and
had a company been engaged to support him, the tragedy would
doubtless have been well played. There was really little else wanting to
make it a meritorious Shakespearean revival.
To visit this theatre is held to be a solemn duty by a large class of
respectable and serious people. They don't go for amusement--they are
far too sensible for that--but they go to support the legitimate drama, to
testify their respect for SHAKESPEARE and for Mr. BOOTH'S classic
brow. The Worldly-Minded Persons who attended the representations
of Macbeth, found themselves assisting at a scene compared with

which a funeral would have been jovial, and a hanging, a wild
dissipation.
This is the sort of thing that presents itself to our memory as we recall
the first night of Macbeth.
A large and elderly audience enters the portals with subdued and
mournful mien. The ushers, who, in imitation of Mr. BOOTH, do a
little of the classic brow and curl business themselves, chew tobacco
with an air of resigned melancholy, and spit upon the carpet, as though
renouncing the pleasures of the world and the decencies of civilization.
At the first intermission of the orchestra, the curtain rises upon the
three Weird Sisters. Mr. HIND is a Weird Sister, and he improves the
opportunity to howl with a weirdness that draws an involuntary laugh
from an irreverent young lady.
Respectable Father. "Laughing in BOOTH'S, my dear! I am astonished
at you. Sh."
Respectable Mother. "Ellen, if you can't behave in ch--in the theatre,
you ought not to come." _Irreverent young lady becomes an object of
scornful pity to every one in the neighborhood. She never smiles
again_.
The play proceeds. An inarticulate person is brought in on a litter, who
looks like a Tammany man whom some irate young Democrat has "put
a head on." He indulges in an inarticulate speech, which is warmly
applauded by the gallery. Then the Weird Sisters meet MACBETH and
BANQUO on the heath, and Mr. HIND howls at them until the
Worldly-Minded auditor blesses the memory of the Salem
witch-burners. Then the King brevets MACBETH. Then Lady
MACBETH reads a letter from her husband with the demonstrative
energy of a Chicago Wild Woman reading the decree that divorces her
from a kind and honorable husband. Then the King arrives, and
MACBETH and his wife agree to kill him. Then the curtain falls, and
Mr. MOLLENHAUER repays the Worldly-Minded Person for having
stayed through the first act. Conversation