Pantomime

It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking countries, especially during the Christmas and New Year season.

[3][4] Pantomime is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is encouraged and expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers.

[citation needed] Roman pantomime was a production, usually based upon myth or legend, for a solo male dancer—clad in a long silk tunic and a short mantle (pallium) that was often used as a "prop"—accompanied by a sung libretto (called the fabula saltica or "dance-story") rendered by a singer or chorus (though Lucian states that originally the pantomime himself was the singer).

Performances might be in a private household, with minimal personnel, or else lavish theatrical productions involving a large orchestra and chorus and sometimes an ancillary actor.

The dancer danced all the roles, relying on masks, stock poses and gestures and a hand-language (cheironomy) so complex and expressive that the pantomime's hands were commonly compared to an eloquent mouth.

[citation needed] Roman pantomime was immensely popular from the end of the first century BC until the end of the sixth century AD,[14] a form of entertainment that spread throughout the empire where, because of its wordless nature, it did more than any other art to foster knowledge of the myths and Roman legends that formed its subject-matter – tales such as those of the love of Venus and Mars and of Dido and Aeneas – while in Italy its chief exponents were celebrities, often the protegés of influential citizens, whose followers wore badges proclaiming their allegiance and engaged in street-fights with rival groups, while its accompanying songs became widely known.

[failed verification] Yet, because of the limits imposed upon Roman citizens' dance, the populism of its song-texts and other factors, the art was as much despised as adored,[14] and its practitioners were usually slaves or freedmen.

It became an antecedent which, through writers and ballet-masters of the 17th and 18th centuries such as Claude-François Ménestrier (1631–1705), John Weaver (1673–1760), Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810) and Gasparo Angiolini (1731–1803), earned it respectability and attested to the capability of dance to render complex stories and express human emotion.

[14] In the Middle Ages, the Mummers Play was a traditional English folk play, based loosely on the Saint George and the Dragon legend, usually performed during Christmas gatherings, which contained the origin of many of the archetypal elements of the pantomime, such as stage fights, coarse humour and fantastic creatures,[15] gender role reversal, and good defeating evil.

[3][17] The development of English pantomime was also strongly influenced by the continental commedia dell'arte, a form of popular theatre that arose in Italy in the Early Modern Period.

These included the innamorati (young lovers); the vecchi (old men) such as Pantalone; and zanni (servants) such as Arlecchino, Colombina, Scaramouche and Pierrot.

[21] From these, the standard English harlequinade developed, depicting the eloping lovers Harlequin and Columbine, pursued by the girl's father Pantaloon and his comic servants Clown and Pierrot.

Tavern Bilkers, by John Weaver, the dancing master at Drury Lane, is cited as the first pantomime produced on the English stage.

An 18th-century author wrote of David Garrick: "He formed a kind of harlequinade, very different from that which is seen at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, where harlequin and all the characters speak.

"[30] The majority of these early pantomimes were re-tellings of a story from ancient Greek or Roman literature, with a break between the two acts during which the harlequinade's zany comic business was performed.

The theatre historian David Mayer explains the use of the "batte" or slapstick and the transformation scene that led to the harlequinade: Rich gave his Harlequin the power to create stage magic in league with offstage craftsmen who operated trick scenery.

Armed with a magic sword or bat (actually a slapstick), Rich's Harlequin treated his weapon as a wand, striking the scenery to sustain the illusion of changing the setting from one locale to another.

[33] Grimaldi's performances elevated the role by "acute observation upon the foibles and absurdities of society, and his happy talent of holding them up to ridicule.

He was so extravagantly natural, that the most saturnine looker-on acknowledged his sway; and neither the wise, the proud, or the fair, the young nor the old, were ashamed to laugh till tears coursed down their cheeks at Joe and his comicalities.

[35] By the 1800s, therefore, children went to the theatre around the Christmas and New Year holiday (and often at Easter or other times) primarily to witness the craziness of the harlequinade chase scene.

He would tap his wooden sword (a derivative of the Commedia dell'arte slapstick or "batte") on the floor or scenery to make a grand transition of the world around him take place.

"[35] The harlequinade began with various chase scenes, in which Harlequin and Columbine manage to escape from the clutches of Clown and Pantaloon, despite the acrobatic leaps of the former through windows, atop ladders, often because of well-meaning but misguided actions of the policeman.

Eventually, there was a "dark scene", such as a cave or forest, in which the lovers were caught, and Harlequin's magic wand was seized from his grasp by Clown, who would flourish it in triumph.

The good fairy would then reappear, and once the father agreed to the marriage of the young lovers, she would transport the whole company to a grand final scene.

[45] Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson, in his 2020 memoir, summarizes contemporary pantomime as classic folklore and fairy tales loosely retold in a slapstick theatrical comedy-musical, writing: "Think Mamma Mia!

Some of the most popular pantomime stories include Cinderella, Aladdin, Dick Whittington and His Cat and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,[5] as well as Jack and the Beanstalk, Peter Pan, Puss in Boots and Sleeping Beauty.

[59] It was first produced annually in Andorra by the English-speaking Mums' group, from the British expatriate community, in the Teatre de les Fontetes in the parish of La Massana.

Other notable players have included Oliver Samuels, Charles Hyatt, Willard White, Rita Marley and Dawn Penn.

The annual pantomime opens on Boxing Day at the Little Theatre in Kingston and is strongly influenced by aspects of Jamaican culture, folklore and history.

[76] While in many former territories of the British empire pantomime declined in popularity after independence, as it was seen as a symbol of colonial rule, the genre remains strong in Malta.