'Sumurun,' like the 'Enfant Prodigue,' was supported by its music, which
sustained the gestures and which sometimes suggested more than gesture
alone can do. In the 'Enfant Prodigue,' for example, one of the most
amusing scenes is that in which the elderly rich man tenders his
affections to the charmer who has fascinated the Prodigal Son. She
insists upon marriage. It would be difficult to convey this idea in pure
pantomime. So she points to the fourth finger of the left hand, and the
orchestra plays the familiar Wedding March, thus instantly conveying the
idea. When she goes off to get her bonnet, the elderly suitor repeats
her gesture, and the orchestra repeats the Wedding March, whereupon he
winks and shakes his head, giving us clearly to understand that his
intentions are strictly dishonorable.
'Sumurun' is rather a spectacle than a play; and therefore it makes
comparatively little use of the conventionalized gestures which may be
described as the accepted vocabulary of pantomime, and which have been
developed by the followers of Noverre in France and in Italy. This
vocabulary of gesture is only a codification of the signs which we
naturally make--shaking the head for "no," nodding for "yes," and laying
a finger on the lips for "hush!" The basis of any such vocabulary must
be the series of gestures by the aid of which man has always expressed
his emotions. This is why the traditional gestures of theatrical
pantomime do not, and indeed cannot, differ greatly from any natural
sign language. The universality of this pantomimic vocabulary was
curiously evidenced forty years ago when Morlacchi, the Italian dancer,
married Texas Jack, the American scout. She had been trained in
pantomime at La Scala, in Milan, and he had acquired the sign language
of the Plains Indians. And they found that they could hold converse with
each other in pantomime, she using the Italian-French gestures and he
employing the gestures of the redskins.
(1912.)