Perhaps because the pantomime contains only the essential element of the
drama--action--it has always been a popular form of play; and it appears
very early in the history of the theater. Indeed, it seems to be the
sole type of play achievable by primitive man--if we may judge from
observations made among savages who are still in the earlier periods of
social development. Gesture precedes speech, and a pantomime was
possible even before a vocabulary was developed. In the Aleutian
Islands, for example, the pantomime is the only form of play known. One
of the little plays of the islanders has been described. It was acted by
two performers only, one representing a hunter, and the other a bird.
The hunter hesitates but finally kills the bird with an arrow; then he
is seized with regret that he has slain so noble a bird; whereupon the
bird revives and turns into a beautiful woman who falls into the
hunter's arms. This is the simplest of stories, but it lends itself to
effective acting; it is capable of being interpreted adequately by means
of gesture alone; and it is just the kind of play which would appeal to
an Aleutian audience, being wholly within their experience and their
apprehension.
Pantomime flourished in Rome and in Constantinople in the sorry years of
the decline and fall of the empire; and it was then low and lascivious.
A great part of the fierce hostility to the theater displayed by the
Fathers of the Christian Church was due to the fact that the only drama
of which they had any knowledge was pantomime of a most objectionable
character, offensive in theme and even more offensive in presentation.
With the conversion of the empire to Christianity, pantomimes of this
type, appealing only to lewd fellows of the baser sort, was very
properly prohibited. But pantomime of another type sprang up in the
Middle Ages in the Christian churches to exemplify and to make visible
to the ignorant congregations, certain episodes of sacred history. In
the Renascence dumb-shows were represented before monarchs, at their
weddings and at their stately entrances into loyal cities. And
dumb-shows were often employed in the Elizabethan stage, sometimes as
prologs to the several acts, as in 'Gorboduc,' for example, and
sometimes within the play itself, as in 'Hamlet.'
In the eighteenth century pantomime had a double revival, in France and
in England. In France, Noverre elevated the _ballet d'action_, that is
to say, the story told in pantomime and adorned with dances. Sometimes
these _ballets d'action_ were in several acts, relying for interest on
the simple yet ingenious plot, and only decorated, so to speak, with
occasional dances. From Noverre and from France the tradition of the
pantomime with interludes of dancing, spread at first to Italy and
Austria, and later to Russia.
In England the development of pantomime was upon different lines, due to
the influence of the Italian comedy-of-masks, with its unchanging
figures of Pantaleone, Columbina, and Arlecchino. These figures were
still further simplified; and to Pantaloon, Columbine, and Harlequin
there was added the characteristically British figure of the Clown. The
most famous impersonator of the clown was Grimaldi, whose memoirs were
edited by Charles Dickens. The mantle of Grimaldi fell upon an American,
G. L. Fox, whose greatest triumph, in the late sixties, was in a
pantomime called 'Humpty-Dumpty'--the riming prolog of which was
written by A. Oakey Hall (then Tweed's mayor of New York). G. L. Fox and
his brother, C. K. Fox (who was the inventor of the comic scenes), had
been preceded in America by a family of French pantomimists known as the
Ravels; and they were followed by the family known as the Hanlon-Lees,
who had originally been acrobats, and who appeared in a French play, in
which the other characters spoke while the Hanlon-Lees expressed
themselves only in gesture. Here again Scribe had been before them, with
his libretto for the opera of 'Masaniello,' in which there is a
principal part for a pantomimic actress, Fenella. And when the great
French actor, Frederic Lemaitre, had lost his voice by overstrain,
Dennery wrote a play for him, the 'Old Corporal,' in which he appeared
as a soldier of Napoleon's Old Guard, who had been stricken dumb during
the retreat from Russia.
This exploit of Frederic Lemaitre's is not as extraordinary as it seems.
A truly accomplished actor ought to be able to forgo the aid of speech.
Even in our modern plays gesture is more significant than speech. To
place the finger on the lips is more effective than to say "Hush!" The
tendency of the modern drama on our amply lighted picture-frame stage is
to subordinate the mere words to the expressive action. In Mr.
Gillette's 'Secret Service,' for example, the impression is sometimes
made rather by gesture than by speech; and a large portion of the most
effective scene, that where the hero is wounded while he is sending a
telegraph message, is presented in pantomime with little assistance from
actual dialog. Similar effects are to be found in many of Mr. Belasco's
plays, especially in the 'Darling of the Gods.' In all good acting the
gesture precedes the word; and often the gesture makes the word itself
unnecessary, because it has succeeded in conveying the impression and in
making the full effect by itself, so that the spoken phrase lags
superfluous.