Article on the phases of the theatrical season

“Theatrical affairs in this city, after three weeks of unprecedented dullness, will to-morrow week (August 2) experience a slight [illeg.], which in the present dearth of musical and dramatic novelty, must prove welcome to the play-goers of the metropolis. There will be a general pricking up all around, and the vitality and excitement which will be infused at that particular time into the drama in this city will, beyond a doubt, hold good until the inauguration of the regular fall and winter season. On that particular night Mr. Joseph Jefferson commences a seven weeks’ engagement at Booth’s theatre [sic], opening with his famous impersonation of Rip Van Winkle, which possibly may prove sufficiently attractive to run through the entire seven weeks. Mr. John E. Owens, on the same night, at Wallack’s, will make his first appearance as John Unit, in the comedy of ‘Self.’ At Niblo’s Garden, on the same night, the drama of ‘Arrah na Pogue’ will be revived, after having been shelved for five years, with Mr. Dan Bryant, Mr. Dominick Murray and Miss Rose Eytinge sustaining the principal rôles. On the same night the Worrell Sisters will also commence a brief engagement at Wood’s Museum, appearing for the first time in their new operatic burlesque of ‘Lalla Rookh.’ Upon the whole, present appearances indicate that the 2d of August will be a memorable day, or rather night, in the annals of the New York stage, and as the theatrical heavens upon that occasion are to be illumined with dramatic ‘stars’ of acknowledged brilliancy our citizens need feel no apprehension whatever should they learn that a number of other dramatic ‘stars’ of uncertain magnitudes had suddenly flashed up behind the radiant halo of the footlights at some of the other theatres in town, to claim a small share of public attention and patronage. It was ever thus. Our sensations always come in bunches. We might languish in want of dramatic novelty for months without ever once receiving so much as one good-sized crumb were it not for the petty jealousies animosities that exist among our enterprising managers. Whenever one of our amusement caterers in the fullness of his heart prepares a feast for our delectation, the others, as a general thin g [sic], straightaway endeavor to induce large numbers of the invited guests to remain away from the entertainment which has been prepared for them at great expense by offering them other highly spiced dishes more congenial in many instances to their own dramatic tastes. This, in a measure, accounts for the milk in the cocoanut [sic], and this, probably, is why we are to have so many new sensations on the 2d of August.”