Demon Kings, Principal Boys AND Dames

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 70, 15 December 1933, Page 16 (Supplement)

Demon Kings, Principal Boys AND Dames

CHRISTMAS-TIME WAS ONCE THE SEASON OF PANTOMIMES

{By

Harcus Plimmer.}

try, at all events, been ever associated ■ with Christmas-time —the pantomime. : To quote one instance, the Drury Lane ; pantomime was an institution for near--1 ly half a century, and the parents of children, near and far, must have been > very hard up indeed if their progeny had to forgo that annual treat. ’While differing very widely from its original intention; the English pantomime became at one and the same time a glorified spectacular vaudeville show, a riotous farce, and a scrumptious fairy tale in a glowing setting that beggared the imagination. Rather than being a dumb show, it was always a particularly articulate one; while the “dame." who is usually.the fountain of fun, is perhaps one of the most loquacious fig- , ures in the scroll of the drama So it is at this time of the year that the ■

LL MIMICRY” is the literal meaning of the word pantoJjy mime, pantos being ancient Greek for “all” and mimos meaning a mimic. It is one of the most ancient forms of entertainment, known to the Greeks and Romans of the earlier centuries of Christendom. A “mime” or “mummer” was the actor who expressed his meaning by facial changes and gesticulated in dumb show. Under the Roman Empire the term was also applied to a sort of spectacular ballet in which the actors were restricted to dancing and dumb show while the text was sung by the chorus, with little, if any, dialogue. In modern use it denotes a particular sort of Christmas performance, originally for children, consisting of two parts, the first a play founded on

the rottenness and unhealthiness of these morbid novels and shows is that, whatever else they may excite, they never cause anything nearer a laugh than a snigger. To my mind that one fact stamps and damns them as unwholesome. “What is the effect of this pruriency ' and nastiness upon the younger generation? Is it not giving them thoughts that no decent mind should have at their age? Does it send boys to the • cricket Held or girls to the lawn tennis ' court? I have known the music hall 1 intimately for more than forty years, ‘ and I can honestly give it a good name ' in the matter. We of the variety stage 1 encourage people to laugh at life’s * genial sides; we don't teach them to snigger at its nasty ones.” 1

some fable or nursery tale, the latter,

Tyj T HERE are the “dames” of yesteryear, the principal boys W and girls, the demon kings and the glittering fairy queens? Gone, or almost gone, from the New Zealand theatrical season is this time-honoured adjunct to the British Christmas season. A lament for its passing is contained in this breezy review of the pantomime’s halcyon days. ,

or’ harlequinade, merely a series of tricks, romps and dances by harlequin, columbine, clown and pantaloon. There are authorities who state that the legitimate stage

is tottering to its

doom. Under the onslaught of better talkies, with all the advantages they possess in the freedom of scenario, gorgeous trappings, wonderful mass effects, expensive costuming, and all the appurtenances cool millions of money can provide, is it any wonder? What chance has the poor old stage of existing in anything approaching its former glory ? What: chance, indeed 1 While inclined to agree that the stage has been dealt a staggering blow, it saddens me beyond words to think tha\ the coming generations may not have the privilege of seeing real people in'

Think of the shimmering glories of the- ■ pantomime as it was in the hey-dey of its popularity. Fortunes were spent . on, the scenery, the “transformations,”, the glittering costumes in endless variety . and colour’; its regiments of beautiful girls; the funny old "dame,”, and the rednosed husband; the dashing principal ‘■boy” (who always was a girl)'; the fascinating principal “girl” (evera darling) ; the mystical and gorgeous-fairy queen ; thedemoniacal demon of darkness; the swaying ballet; the wonderful “specialties”; the dazzling lighting effects —truly they included all the fun of the fair. Then there was always attached, as a sort of phantasmagoric aftermath, the “Harlequinade,” a kind of presto movement, in which King Harlequin, ordered utter confusion to exist, .between Harlequin, Columbine, Pantaloon, the clown, the butcher boy, the fat policeman, the comic old woman, and anyone else the producer liked, to introduce. It was a sort of riotous Donnybrook, which gave the acrobat, the dancer, and the comic people a chance to mime with the fullest abandon.

thoughts of so many turn to those halcyon nights, when they were whisked out of the cold stinging air and transported as by a magic carpet, into that wondrous land of make-believe, where everything is either transcendently beautiful, or wildly amusing. Such impressions last a lifetime. Ask almost any English man or English woman 1 There were those here and there who turned up their noses at pantomimes, on the-ground that they are rather vulgar in spots. So they are! But does not 95 per cent, of the public love a little, wholesome, honest vulgarity now and again. Isn’t there something deepdbwn human in it? George Robey, in his book, “Looking Back on Life,” says: “Honest vulgarity is the finest antidote to the present-day hypocrisy Who will deny .that the grandmotherly regulations which have been besetting us on every hand, especially since the. war, have bred a rather repulsive typo of smug hypocrite?. Don’t we know the type who appears (or tries to appear) everything that he isn’t? ... I have heard people say that the music halls are dens of vice, that the songs heard there arc vulgar, and so on. I have heard miles of such talk—ail humbug. So far as sin is concerned I’ll wager that the saintly folk who blat this twaddle know quite as much about sin as those of us who don’t write ‘Saint’ in large letters across our hats. Yes, and perhaps they know a bit more. As good pld Dr. Johnson said, these people are badly in need of a mental bath to clear their minds of cant.’ - Let them come to the music hall and hare a good laugh.’ That would clear their vision, and they would be all the better for it. .. . . Another of the benefits is that it keeps us from brooding over matters of sex. and godliness knows that is sufficiently needed today. Half our novelists seem to think of nothing else. And though I hate to say it, the theatre and picture house seem to be following their example. You can scarcely walk a street without seeing some new entertainment advertised as possessing “sex.appeal.” The’ phrase leaps at you everywhere. And I venture to say that the best proof of

the splendid drama, romances, musical comedies, and comic opera with which we were from time to time thrilled during the first quarter of the twentieth century.

This was the most delightful interlude of all to the very young, who always shrieked with laughter at these knock-about revels, which always brought a really strenuous evening to a close. While.no one, I thank What gods there be, can rob me of my memories, I f sometimes find myself inclined to grieve

While having no serious intention of discussing the merits or demerits of the screen, reasonable people will admit that the shadow does not always compensate for the substance. Personally I would much prefer to see Evelyn Laye at the Princess, London, than in a picture. I would certainly like to see John Barrymore bestride the real stage rather than the photograph of one; and I am quite certain in my own mind that I would sooner see Diana Wynyard, ’ Vilina : Banky, Marlene Dietrich,. Marie Ney, 'Ethel Barrymore, Helen’ Twelvetrees. Ralph Lynn, or Laurel and Hardy in the flesh than in its reflection. Of-course the obvious answer to that is that possibly .everyone is of the same mind ; but, seeing that. we cannot hope to see’ these attractive people in the flesh/their screen shadows are excellent substitutes. And so they are. Pictures are becoming better and better. . The technique of the English-made pictures has improved 100 per cent, in the last three years, and if they go on as they promise they- will - soon have no superior in the world. . . . But still, the glamour of the real thing—to those who have known it—cannot be gainsaid. . .. •

To most of the younger set these speculations will appeal about as much as the rattle of a falling can. Listen to them! They kp&w all the line points of every screen actor and actress, and • often how many times they have been married and divorced—but they know not Brough, or Boucicault. Bland Holt. Julius Knight, George Rignold. Frank Thornton, Charles Arnold. Johnny Sheridan, Wilson Barrett, George Titheradge,' or Marie Tempest, the Irvings, the Comptons. or the Terry's—and, what is more, they care less. No one.is.to blame. It is merely an accident of time and change, due to the mechanisation of the stage. . ... ... ... . ... , . One can scarcely think of the stage, without recalling that phase of its activities which have, in the Old Coun-

over the fact that the youth of to-day and to-morrow may, when they come to middle age, have no memories of the kind to which I refer. They may be deprived of the pleasure of yarning over stage favourites they have seen —they will, alas, be able only to speak of people whose shadows have been projected on to a white screen. Fancy the children of the future not having the exciting thrill of the Christmas pantomime — those dear old, highly-coloured burlesques on the nursery stories and fairy tales of our baby-hood! “Ridicu-

lous rot,” I hear someone say. Of course it was; but when you have ridiculous rot presented by clever people, with brains in their heels as well as in their heads, people with out-standing

personalities; people with charm and infinite variety of talent, that ridiculous rot becomes a

•vastly amusing entertainment. There are a great many people to-day who seek diversion in what they consider a superior way, producing plays of erotic tendencies, with sex aggressively in the foreground, who would turn up their noses at the panto- . mime, as they have known it in England for a hundred years at Christmas time, and which we in New Zealand use to get regularly in winter time. So strong is tradition that I am inclined to believe that as long as there is a legitimate stage, so long will the pantomime endure. For some seventy-live years Christmas time was always pantomime time to the profession. Even portentious and august members, used to playing “juvenile leads” or “heavies,” dropped for the nonce their expositions of the “villainy vanquished, virtue triumphant” mummery to don the motley of the pantomime, fully appreciating the magnetic attraction which existed in such titles as “Aladdin,” “Sinbad the Sailor,” “Puss in Boots,” “Forty Thieves,” “Cinderella,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “Jack the Giant Killer,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Little 80-Peep” at the festive season. What was the biggest war-time: success in London? It was “Chu Chin Chow” —merely a clever adaptation of “Forty Thieves.” And what household names were established in England in the fifty years preceding the Great War? There were such names as Teddy Royce and Fanny Robina (who played in “Dick Whittington” at the Theatre Royal, Wellington, in the ’SO's), Dan Leno, Arthur Roberts, Fred Leslie. Fred Storey, Nellie Farron, Herbert Campbell, E. J. Lonnen, Robert Courtneidge (father of Cecily Courtneidge), Ada Reeve, James Fawn. Eugene Stratton, George Graves, George Robey, Mille Hilton, Edward Terry, May Yobe, Violet Lorraine, Kate Vaughan, Bessie Bellwood, Belle Bilton, Seymour Hicks, the Macnoughtons, Dan Rolyat, and a host of others who helped to feed the iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiininiitv

flame of pantomimic art in the palmy days. Their successors have beeu legion. Maybe they have been every bit as clever and amusing, but with other distractions they have not become the "household words” to the same extent since the coining of the mechanical stage.'.

Of the many mummers who have made English pantomime memorable during the last half century, none deserves special mention more than the irrepressible Dan Leno, who was the life and soul of the Drury Lane pantomimes, when the productions of Arthur Collins were the brightest and best in in the kingdom. Poor Dan, who died when only forty-three years of age (in 1905) was hailed as the king of low comedians, and was a quick-witted, warm-hearted, generous fellow, who always had something new to say, and a fresh way of saying it. Moreover, he could write humour as “Dan Leno, Uys Booke,” which had an enormous sale, shows. His end was lamentable. He had a stroke, which one paper called “general paralysis of the insane.” This, medical authorities stated, was usually fatal, yet seven months afterward he was again in the bill at Drury Lane, as bright and gay as ever, and he performed right up to the occasion of a second stroke, which did prove fatal. Dan was generous. A story is. told of him in connection with a gutter singer, a dirty, unkempt, ragged man, who would perch himself before theatre queues, and sing deplorable ballads in a husky, toneless voice. This object was singing “Where is My Wandering Boy To-night” when Leno passed, listened, and stopped. “You shouldn’t be doing this! you know,” said Dan. “A bloke has to do suflink fer a livin’, ’ replied the kerbside balladist. “Yes, I know,” said Dan. “But you shouldn’t sing—if lets us all down. Take this and stop singing.” With that be handed the dirty one a fiver. The man stared at it in wonder. Then, without as much as a thank you, ran for his life. If anyone wishes to read the most comical version of the story of Lady Godiva, Dan Leno’s version is recommended. And when he died Helen Mathers, the novelist, wrote:— Sad eyes that smiled, and tender heart that wept ■ For others’ sorrows'; little children's friend. .. To one and all “dear Dan,” wlic bravely kept Our tears at bay; and laughter with out end Showered on the world! Perchance tin hour he slept Deaf to the shouts, that called hin. forth to play, . IT«s rest.to him, that longed-for holi day. In New Zealand the memory of most people who are wearing on to the fifth and sixth ages of man will recall the untold delight-that was derived from the fine pantomimes produced yeai after year under the direction of" the late Mr. Tom Pollard, at first by his juvenile company, and, later, by adud organisations under his control. O 1 those productions “Aladdin,” with Maud Beatty in the. name part, Alf Stephens as the Widow Twankey, anc W. S. Percy as Abanazar, the magician stands out in high relief. “Fortj Thieves” was also a very fine show under the same direction. Then aftei the Pollard regime the J. C. William son management commenced sending its pantomime companies to New Zea land each year. The show was origin ally produced either in Sydney or Mel*** bourne, and reached New Zealand ii July or August, but even thougl Christmas was then remote, there wa: always enthusiastic patronage for sucl companies. Most of us can recall sui-.l (Continued on Page IS.)