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A Very British Theatrical FormDateline: 15th December, 1999 From now until the end of January (February for some amateur companies), throughout the length and breadth of the country theatres amateur and professional will be filled with raucous cries of "Oh, yes it is! Oh, no it isn't!" and "He's behind you!". Women will dress up as men and men as women. Sweets will be thrown from the stage into the audience. Good fairies, en pointe, will wave magic wands. Evil demons will appear and disappear in clouds of smoke. Variety acts (which are hardly seen at other times of year) will suddenly have their moment of glory. Soap stars and top sportsmen and women will appear on stage, often for the first time. Jack will climb his beanstalk. Cinderella will go to the ball. Dick will hear the bells calling, "Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London." Aladdin will rub the magic lamp. Robin Hood will rescue the babes in the wood. Ali Baba will shout, "Open sesame!" Beauty will prick her finger and sleep for a hundred years. Ugly sisters, wicked stepmothers, Chinese policemen, broker's men will draw hisses and boos from thousands of excited children. Buttons will pine with unrequited love, and theatre managers will be in seventh heaven with the best houses of the year. Yes, it's panto time again. What a very British thing pantomime is! Wherever there's an ex-pat British community, there'll be a group putting on a panto. A couple of days ago I was talking to the chairman of the Royalty Theatre, an amateur company in Sunderland, who is also directing their pantomime. He tells me they have two new members, both American (one from Alaska and one from Maryland), who are in the panto chorus, and his gleeful description of their utter bemusement at what was happening just at rehearsals had both of us laughing aloud! For panto is unique, if not to Britain, then at least to Brits. I've heard of an attempt to put on a panto in the US which, to use the crude but expressive phrase from the world of light entertainment, "died on its arse"! What is a Pantomime? Back in 1997 I wrote a piece called Pantoland in which I outlined the history of panto from its earliest beginnings in the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, but it didn't really give a flavour of what a pantomime is, so, here, for those non-Brits who have always wondered just what this peculiar theatrical form is, is the rough outline of a typical panto. Let's make it Cinderella, for the story is well-known. The house lights go down. The orchestra begins to play, segueing from popular song to popular song. The curtain rises revealing a front cloth, a gauze (a scrim, for Americans!), painted with the show's title, probably surrounded by roses or other decoration. The orchestra begins to play the first chorus number and the lights go up behind the gauze, on the villagers (usually twice as many girls as boys, and probably with a group of very young children - the "babes"), who go into a song and dance number as the gauze is flown out. When the song finishes, the chorus breaks into smaller groups and go into deep conversation. A shout interrupts them, and on to the stage walks Buttons (originally the clown or "joey"). He yells a big"hello" and all the chorus shout back, "Hello Buttons". Then he turns to the audience: "Hello, boys and girls!" he cries, and the entire audience shouts back. But he didn't hear them! They have to shout again - and again - and again - louder every time until the entire theatre is shaking with the noise. Only then is he satisfied. He tells them who he is and asks if they would like to be in his gang. Of course they would, and tell him so - loudly. But not loudly enough for Buttons, so we go through the whole "I can't hear you!" routine yet again. Finally - back to the plot! Not that there is one yet, of course. But Buttons is going to tell us what's going on. It appears that Baron Hardup is just that, hard up, and so he has married again. At this point the Baron himself normally appears and from their conversation we learn that his new wife, although she has money, is horrible, but even more horrible are her two daughters - the Ugly Sisters - who treat his young daughter, Cinderella, like a slave, making her wear rags and do all the housework. Cinders arrives: she is young, beautiful, charming and thoroughly nice - and it is quite obvious Buttons is hopelessly in love with her. It is, unfortunately, equally obvious that she only thinks of him as a friend. Then the Ugly Sisters (traditionally men dressed up in outlandish fashion) arrive and proceed to bully Buttons, Cinders, the Baron and everyone in sight. This, of course, is the signal for the audience to hiss and boo, and for the Sisters to have a go at them. They send Cinders and the Baron back to Castle Hardup, and immediately they are gone there is a new arrival. It may be just a herald, it may be the handsome Prince (a girl dressed as a man), it may be Dandini, the Prince's best friend (another girl in man's costume), or any combination of them. The all-important announcement is made: the Prince is looking for a wife, and there is to be a great ball at the Palace to which all unmarried young wmen are invited. The Sisters are beside themselves. As well as being ugly and cruel, they also believe themselves to be irresisitably beautiful. They will go to the ball and win the Prince's hand. From then on different versions of the panto go into different scenes - depending often on who the stars and who the speciality acts are! But eventually we are inside Castle Hardup and we see the Ugly Sisters bullying Cinderella as they get ready to go to the Ball. It is, of course, unthinkable that Cinders should go. Soon they leave and Cinders is left, miserable and worn out. But now magic comes to her aid: her Fairy Godmother appears and announces the traditional words, "Cinders, you shall go to the Ball." In a transformation scene which goes right back to the earliest days of harlequinade and pantomime, the Fairy Godmother changes a pumpkin into a coach, mice into horses, and Cinderella's rags into a beautiful ballgown, complete with glass slippers. But even in pantomime nothing is perfect (not until the end, at any rate), and she warns Cinders that the spell will only last till midnight. She must return by then. (Throughout all this action, of course, are interspersed chorus and solo songs, comedy (including plenty of slapstick from the Ugly Sisters), and any other ingredients that the director cares to introduce.) Usually the interval occurs at this point, and it's got to be a long one, because all the children - and at least half of all panto audiences are children - want their ice cream and their drinks (and need to "go"!). There's no need to tell the rest of the story, except to say that all the baddies get their comeuppance, Cinders and the Prince marry (and live happily ever after) - and poor old Buttons is left with his unrequited love. Somewhere in the story are introduced the traditional pantomime set-pieces: the Dame (in Cinderella there are two, the Ugly Sisters) does a comic strip tease; some wicked villain (or a huge spider, or a ghost) creeps up behind the Buttons character (with all the shouts of "He's behind you!" from the audience); there's an argument in which the audience are invited to join in ("Oh yes they are!" - "Oh no they aren't!"); and there's lots of slapstick and the odd speciality act (UV puppet scenes are very popular). All pantos finish in the same way: everyone is off-stage with the exception of the clown and another character, and they get the audience to join in singing a song, the words of which are displayed on the stage. There's an argument between them as to which side sings the best, so they set up a "who can sing loudest?" competiton between the left and right sides of the audience. The clown welcomes the large groups which are in the audience. An excuse is found for some children to be brought onto the stage to take part in a competition (and all of them win prizes!). The reason for all this is so that the rest of the cast can change into their most glittering costumes and the stage crew can set up the last scene, usually the most opulent. This is the "walkdown", usually featuring a splendid staircase down which first the chorus and then all the main characters come down in twos to bow to the audience. The last to descend are the "hero" and "heroine" (remember: both are girls!) in their wedding outfits. This leads to the final song, a little bit of verse from (usually) the principal boy (i.e. the girl who is playing the hero), followed by a reprise of the song, and the evening's entertainment is brought to an end. Pantomimes are all the same, and yet each is different. They're a unique form of entertainment and great fun if you just let yourself go and become a kid again! They've got variety, music, comedy, romance, dance - a microcosm of entertainment all wrapped up in a simple story in which good triumphs and evil is roundly defeated. Oh yes, and the audience gets to wear its lungs out shouting! And the panto season starts now. Ladies and gentlemen of the orchestra to the pit, please. Beginners onstage. LX, stand by your cue one. House going out. Go overture! Articles Indices: |
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