TY - JOUR
T1 - Stage Echoes: Tracing the Pantomime Harlequinade through Comic Ballet, Trap Work, and Silent Film
AU - Norwood, Janice
N1 - © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society for Theatre Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2024/11/20
Y1 - 2024/11/20
N2 - In 2010 film and theatre historian David Mayer urged researchers to look to early film for evidence of continuing traditions of Victorian pantomime, arguing its audiences tolerated, even enjoyed, the same sight-gags and hackneyed routines that amused their Victorian ancestors. This article is a response to his challenge and in the process explores wider interconnections. The harlequinade was the portion of the pantomime that occurred after key characters from the narrative pantomime opening are transformed into Clown, Harlequin, Pantaloon, and Columbine. These stock figures, originally derived from commedia dell'arte, perform a series of comic scenes via mime, dance, and physical action rather than dialogue. Having been an important feature of Regency and Victorian pantomimes, by the end of the nineteenth century the harlequinade had largely vanished (with certain exceptions such as the Britannia Theatre), causing Clement Scott to lament that it is a pleasure lost for ever and denied to the generation of to-day. My contention is that there is a direct line of inheritance from the harlequinade through stand-alone comic ballets to chase scenes in early film. All demand a particular type of physical performance, choreographed fast-paced action, and humor. Uncovering the tradition allows us better to understand this form of popular amusement and see how Harlequin's antics were reinterpreted for new audiences. Starting from a seemingly unremarkable comic entertainment produced in 1871 at a minor London theatre, the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton, and bearing the intriguing title of Ki-Ki-Ko-Ko-Oh-Ki-Key, I trace its heritage as embodied culture, establishing its links to early nineteenth-century pantomime harlequinade and to simian performance, tracking the appearance of comic or dumb ballets in theatres and music halls in Britain, France, and the United States through one family of performers, the Lauris, and finally identifying the legacy of the complex trap work in silent film of the early twentieth century by examining Lupino Lane's Joyland (1929).
AB - In 2010 film and theatre historian David Mayer urged researchers to look to early film for evidence of continuing traditions of Victorian pantomime, arguing its audiences tolerated, even enjoyed, the same sight-gags and hackneyed routines that amused their Victorian ancestors. This article is a response to his challenge and in the process explores wider interconnections. The harlequinade was the portion of the pantomime that occurred after key characters from the narrative pantomime opening are transformed into Clown, Harlequin, Pantaloon, and Columbine. These stock figures, originally derived from commedia dell'arte, perform a series of comic scenes via mime, dance, and physical action rather than dialogue. Having been an important feature of Regency and Victorian pantomimes, by the end of the nineteenth century the harlequinade had largely vanished (with certain exceptions such as the Britannia Theatre), causing Clement Scott to lament that it is a pleasure lost for ever and denied to the generation of to-day. My contention is that there is a direct line of inheritance from the harlequinade through stand-alone comic ballets to chase scenes in early film. All demand a particular type of physical performance, choreographed fast-paced action, and humor. Uncovering the tradition allows us better to understand this form of popular amusement and see how Harlequin's antics were reinterpreted for new audiences. Starting from a seemingly unremarkable comic entertainment produced in 1871 at a minor London theatre, the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton, and bearing the intriguing title of Ki-Ki-Ko-Ko-Oh-Ki-Key, I trace its heritage as embodied culture, establishing its links to early nineteenth-century pantomime harlequinade and to simian performance, tracking the appearance of comic or dumb ballets in theatres and music halls in Britain, France, and the United States through one family of performers, the Lauris, and finally identifying the legacy of the complex trap work in silent film of the early twentieth century by examining Lupino Lane's Joyland (1929).
KW - pantomime
KW - silent film
KW - stage traps
KW - Lupino Lane
KW - monkey
KW - dumb ballet
KW - Charles Lauri
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85210270520&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S004055742400022X
DO - 10.1017/S004055742400022X
M3 - Article
SN - 0040-5574
VL - 65
SP - 185
EP - 207
JO - Theatre Survey
JF - Theatre Survey
IS - 3
ER -