Pantomime (theatre)
Encyclopedia : P : PA : PAN : Pantomime (theatre)
In Great Britain, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand pantomime (informally, panto) refers to a theatrical genre, usually performed around the Christmas and New Year holiday season.
Origin
The performance of Pantomime originates at its earliest in ancient Greece, but exploded in popularity during the reign of Augustus in ancient Rome. The style and content of modern panto has very clear and strong links with the Commedia dell'arte, a form of popular theatre that arose in Italy, in the early middle ages, and which reached England by the 16th century. The gender role reversal resembles the old festival of Twelfth Night, a combination of Epiphany and midwinter feast, when it was customary for the natural order of things to be reversed. This tradition can be traced back to pre-Christian European festivals such as Samhain and Saturnalia.In Restoration England, a pantomime was considered a low form of opera, rather like the Commedia dell'arte but without Harlequin (rather like the French Vaudeville). In 1717, John Rich introduced Harlequin to the British stage under the name of "Lun" (for "lunatic") and began performing wildly popular pantomimes. These pantomimes gradually became more topical and comic, often involving as many special theatrical effects as possible. Colley Cibber and his colleagues competed with Rich and produced their own pantomimes, and pantomime was a substantial (if decried) subgenre in Augustan drama. This form had virtually died out by the end of the 19th century.
Today
Traditionally performed at Christmas, with family audiences consisting mainly of children and parents, British pantomime is now a popular form of theatre, incorporating song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, satire and mild sexual innuendo (but to the innocent everything is pure). Plots are often loosely based on traditional children's stories, the most popular titles being:- Aladdin (sometimes combined with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves)
- Babes in the Wood (often combined with Robin Hood)
- Cinderella
- Dick Whittington
- Jack and the Beanstalk
- Mother Goose
- Puss in Boots
- Sleeping Beauty
- Goldilocks and the Three Bears
- Snow White
- Peter Pan
- The leading male character (the "principal boy") is played by a young woman.
- An older woman (the pantomime dame) is played by a man in drag.
- Risqué double entendre, often wringing innuendo out of perfectly innocent phrases.
- Audience participation, including calls of "he's behind you!", and "oh yes it is!" or "oh no it isn't!"
- The pantomime horse or cow, played by two actors in a single costume, one as the head and front legs, the other as the body and back legs.
One of the most popular and critically acclaimed (not to mention commercially successful) pantomimes in recent years has been the one at the York Theatre Royal. It features no guest celebrities, but rather a regular cast headed by Berwick Kaler, who has played the dame there for 27 years and has built up a devoted fan-base. Kaler has been credited with reviving a dying tradition. Tickets go on sale April 1; in 2005 the first buyer turned up at 3am. Well before the opening they had sold 30,000 of the 50,000 seats, something that many celebrity-centred pantos could only dream of. He was interviewed by The Independent newspaper in 2004 for an article marking his 25th season:
- "The panto," Kaler says, "has been said to be dying for years. Well, some of them deserve to die." These are the ones that flout tradition by casting a young man as principal boy, or by diminishing the role of the dame, sometimes writing her out altogether. Having cast clapped-out TV stars to draw the audiences, these pseudo-pantos "make no further effort. They just don't try. I dive into a tank of water every year. Who wants to do that?" [link]
Pantomime in Australia
Pantomimes in Australia at Christmas have also always been very popular, and professional productions often feature celebrities. During the 1950s, a Christmas Cinderella pantomime in Sydney featured Danny Kaye as Buttons. There are also radio pantomimes at Christmas which are featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Pantomime in America
The Kennett Amateur Theatrical Society presents a pantomime every January [link].
The Shoestring Shakespeare Company, a troupe based in San Antonio, Texas, puts on a panto every year.
In the United States, however, "pantomime" is more commonly understood to refer a mime artist, such as Marcel Marceau.
Pantomime in Canada
The Courtenay Little Theatre Company, a troupe based in Courtenay, British Columbia, puts on a panto every year, usually incorporating jokes about local politicians, and different areas making up the Comox Valley.
External links
- [The origins of pantomime stories]
- [Pantomime tutorial]
- [The Magic of Pantomime]
- [Write a Brilliant Pantomime]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.