IS PANTOMIME DYING?

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 84, 7 January 1928, Page 20

IS PANTOMIME DYING?

THE OLD AND THE NEW NO DEMAND FOR FAIRY PLAYS A. year ago (says the Loudon “Observer”) the best pantomime to be seen in London was a German film. The “Cinderella” film was like a glove thrown down before the pautoniitncmakere. It showed that even the hardest-worn fairy stories could still be made urgent and alive; it seemed to realise an ideal that lias always been vaguely at the back of the minds of the pantomime managers. Au ideal of which they have, perhaps, never been fully conscious—the ideal of a fairy story told as a fairy would tell it, supposing fairies ever condescended to talk of their own affairs. One could not but ask, will managers take up the challenge? Arc they aware that the glove lias been thrown down? Will they try, this year, next year, or the year after that to show that the theatre is a better place to tell 1 such stories in? When a representative of the “Observer” put these questions to Mr. C. B. Cochran recently he received a very unhopeful reply. Mr. Cochran said that he bad no' hope that pantomime, however seriously it was challenged by the film, would ever dress itself in new clothes and become bright and new; would ever become a tiling of to-day and cease to cling to its old traditions atid faint memories of the Victorian Age. Those traditions, those memories, were, he thought, the only assets pantomime had left. The Fairy Play. As a showman., as one who looks at such ideals through the eyes of a showman, he thought there was little hope even for the ideal fairy play. “Once there were half a dozen children’s plays; you could see three or four of them in London every year. They simply disappeared. This year I think 'Peter Pan’ is the only one to be seen. Peter goes on for ever—but, of course, if you get a Barrie to write your children’s plays. . . .” There is an old piece of humbug that is rapidly dving. “In ten years the theatre will'have ceased to make any special provision for children. Once upon a time there was a pretence that pantomimes, Christinas plays, Christmas circuses, and the rest were for children. “But it was only a blind. It seems to me that the rumours that pantomime was once a thing distinctive and of itself are much exaggerated. Time was when the pantomime fulfilled a useful function in that it provided a useful break in the monotonous succession of dramas and ‘straight’ plays. Christmas brought a longing for more frivolous entertainment—and we blamed the children. “In those days, apart from the musical comedies at Daly’s aud the Gaiety burlesques, there were no musical shows. In the provincial cities musical show's were positive rarities. Therefore pantomime was introduced simply as a change in the menu; but now the menu needs a different kind of spicing.” The Gaiety Model. He thought that pantomime, like so many other things, nev'er was “as good as it used to be.” “It is my impression that it was never really a children’s entertainment; the earliest pantomimes were very like the Gaiety burlesques, which ran all the year round. I, remember in my own youth that the pantomime comedians thought no more of the children than they do now. Their best jokes were about Home Rule aud Mr. Gladstone.” Mr. Cochran told how some years ago he thought to test the real demand for “a children’s show,” and produced the “Babes in the Wood” at “The Oxford,” a pantomime in which everything was concentrated on the eleihent of faery. “It was aclaimed by the Press as ‘a good old-fashioned pantomime,’ a children’s show at last! But the parents were bored—and I lost £12,000.” “In the West End of London there will be, I think, only one pantomime this year—that is, of course, the Lyceum. That illustrates my argument. Pantomime survives in the houses which are famous for an ancient tradition of drama; houses which have specialised audiences apart from the general, the sophisticated theatre audience. With them tlie need for a break in the year’s programme of drama remains. But the day of these localised affections is almost done. The special audience merges in the general—and that is the end of pantomime.” A Gloomy Forecast. Each year when the first principal boy slaps her thigh there are not lacking praisers of times past who shout retorically; “Who said pantomime was dead f‘> To their optimism Mr. Cochran replies: “In a few years Christmas in the theatre will be marked only by a few special matinees; the more frivolous the entertainment the greater the number of special matinees and the better the business done. It is too late to give pantomime the accent of the present day; it is too late to develop a new technique of pantomime. In a few years, when the last pantomime has been played, it may tie time to put on another in tlie best old-fashioned style as a museum piece. But the time for that is not yet. ‘The Triumph of Neptune,’ that mild jest that Mr. Sitwell and the Russian ballet made last winter, was curiously like the pantomime that followed in the same theatre almost immediately on its heels. Pantomime is too lively yet for the museum ; but it will not be long before it is dead.”

LOSS BY FIRE — WAR MEMORIAL HALL destroyed. Tblkgkaph.— I’kess Association. Wliangarei, January 6. The War Memorial Hall at Whakapara has been destroyed by fire. The building, which was opened in 1922, was erected by means of subscriptions and the free gift of timbers, and was valued at £ls(io. It had not been used for a week, aud the origin of the fire is a mystery. The are £6OO on the building and £6O on the piafio and fittings. The need lor protection against finloss is obvious Consult The Mercan tile aud Genet al Insurance Company Ltd.. Panama Street, Wellington.Adv I.