HARLEQUIN AND CO.
What is called the "legitimate drama" has always found in pantomime
just such a rival and a relative as Gloucester's lawfully-begotten son
Edgar was troubled with in the person of his base-born brother Edmund.
The authentic professor of histrionic art may even have been addressed
occasionally by his illicit opponent in something like Edmund's very
words:
Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? with bastardy? base, base?
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land;
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate: fine word "legitimate."
The antagonism between the two forms of entertainment is by no means
of to-day merely. Shakespeare noted with an air of regret that
"inexplicable dumb shows and noise" enjoyed public admiration in his
day, and, centuries before, the audiences of the ancient actors
underwent reduction by reason of the rival performances of the
dancers, mimes, and mountebanks of the period. The Roman people began
in time to care less for the comedians than for the mimes. Some of
these had the art to represent an entire play, such as the "Hercules
Furens," to the delight and astonishment of the spectators. Augustus
is said to have reconciled the Romans to many severe imposts by
recalling their favourite mime and dancer, Pylades, who had been
banished for pointing with his finger at a spectator who had offended
him. The "dumb shows" referred to by Hamlet, however, were not so much
distinct entertainments as excrescences upon the regular performances
of the theatre, interpolations to win the applause of the groundlings.
Pantomime proper was a development of ballet; the result of an
endeavour to connect one dance with another by means of a slight
string of story. In England systematised entertainments of dancing and
singing were brought upon the English stage by Davenant, "to check,"
we are told, "the superiority enjoyed by the royal comedians in their
exhibition of the regular drama." English singing, however, had
declined in public favour when the taste for Italian opera arose here
about the close of the seventeenth century, and dancing became then
the only feasible counter-attraction to the regular drama. The first
ballets were produced at small cost; but by-and-by the managers
increased more and more their expenditure on account of the dancers,
until the rival theatres were compared to candidates at an election,
competing in bribery to secure "a majority of the multitude." Cibber,
while defending himself against Pope's attack upon him in "The
Dunciad," admitted that he had not virtue enough to starve by opposing
the public, and pleaded guilty to the charge of having as a manager
produced very costly ballets and spectacles. At the same time he
condemned the taste of the vulgar, avowed himself as really on the
side of truth and justice, and compared himself to Henry IV. of France
changing his religion in compliance with the wishes of his people!
Hitherto the ballets had dealt exclusively with mythological subjects,
and nothing of the Italian element comprised in modern pantomime had
been apparent in our stage performances. It is probable that even upon
their first introduction to our theatre the real significance of the
characters of ancient Italian comedy was never wholly comprehended by
the audience. Few could have then cared to learn that types of
national or provincial peculiarity, representatives of Venice,
Bologna, Naples, and Bergamo, respectively, were intended by the
characters of Pantaloon, the Doctor, Scapin, and Harlequin. Yet, in
the first instance, the old Italian comedy was brought upon the
English stage with some regard for its original integrity, and the
characters were personated by regular actors rather than by mimes. So
far back as 1687 Mrs. Behn's three-act farce of "The Emperor of the
Moon" was produced, and in this appeared the characters of Harlequin
and Scaramouch, who play off many tricks and antics, while there are
parts in the play corresponding with the pantaloon, the lover, and the
columbine of more modern pantomime. But at this date, and for some
years, harlequin was not merely the sentimentalist, attitudiniser, and
dancer he has since become. He was true to his Italian origin, and
very much the kind of harlequin encountered on his native soil and
described by Addison: "Harlequin's part is made up of blunders and
absurdities; he is to mistake one name for another, to forget his
errands, and to run his head against every post that appears in his
way." Marmontel describing, however, the harlequin of the French
stage, writes: "His character is a mixture of ignorance, simplicity,
cleverness, stupidity, and grace; he is a kind of sketch of a man, a
tall child, yet with gleams of reason and wit, and all whose mistakes
and follies have something arch about them. The true mode of
representing him is to give him suppleness, agility, the playfulness
of a kitten, with a certain grossness of appearance, which renders his
conduct more absurd; his part is that of a patient, faithful valet,
always in love, always in hot water, either on his master's or his own
account, troubled and consoled as easily as a child, and whose grief
is as entertaining as his joy."
It will be observed that the character thus described more nearly
resembles the modern clown than the modern harlequin, and the early
harlequins of the English stage were therefore naturally played by the
low comedians of the time. The harlequin of Mrs. Behn's farce was
personated by an actor named Jevon, who was followed in the part by
Pinkethman, a comedian much commended by Steele in "The Tatler."
Pinkethman was found so amusing in his motley coat, and what Cibber
calls "that useless unmeaning mask of a black cat," that certain of
his admirers fancied that much of the drollery and spirit of his
grimace must be lost by the concealment of his face. Yielding to their
request, therefore, he played one night without his mask. But the
result was disappointing. "Pinkethman," it is recorded, "could not
take to himself the shame of the character without being concealed; he
was no more harlequin; his humour was quite disconcerted; his
conscience could not with the same effrontery declare against nature
without the cover of that unchanging face. Without that armour his
courage could not come up to the bold strokes that were necessary to
get the better of common-sense."
Early in the eighteenth century the characters of the Italian comedy
were introduced into ballets. Harlequin ceased to speak, and assumed
by degrees a more romantic, a less comic air, and the peculiarities of
modern pantomime were gradually approached. Rich, the manager of the
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields and afterwards of Covent Garden--the
"immortal Rich" of "The Dunciad"--became famous for his pantomimes,
and under the name of Lun acquired great distinction as a harlequin.
Pope handles severely the taste of the town in regard to pantomimes,
and the excessive expenditure incurred on account of them. "Persons of
the first quality in England" were accused of attending at these
representations twenty and thirty times in a season. The line "Lo! one
vast egg produces human race," had reference to the trick, introduced
by Rich, of hatching harlequin out of a large egg. This was regarded
as a masterpiece of dumb show, and is described in glowing terms by a
contemporary writer. "From the first clipping of the egg, his
receiving motion, his feeling the ground, his standing upright, to his
quick harlequin trip round the empty shell, through the whole
progression, every limb had its tongue and every motion a voice." Rich
was also famed for his "catching a butterfly" and his "statue scene;"
his "taking leave of columbine" was described as "graceful and
affecting;" his trick of scratching his ear with his foot like a dog
was greatly admired; while in a certain dance he was said to execute
300 steps in a rapid advance of three yards only. A writer in _The
World_ (1753) ironically recommended the managers to dispense entirely
with tragedy and comedy, and to entertain the town solely with
pantomime, people of taste and fashion having given sufficient proof
that they thought it the highest entertainment the stage was capable
of affording--"the most innocent we are sure it is, for where nothing
is said and nothing meant very little harm can be done." Garrick, it
was fancied, might start a few objections to this proposal; "but," it
was added, "with those universal talents which he so happily
possesses, it is not to be doubted but he will in time be able to
handle the wooden sword with as much dignity and dexterity as his
brother Lun."
Possibly harlequin became a mute, in the first instance, to suit the
limited capacity in the matter of elocution of some such performer as
Rich; or the original dumbness of the harlequinade figures may be
attributable to the strictness with which of old the theatres,
unprotected by patents, were prohibited from giving _spoken_
entertainments. What were then called the "burletta houses" were
permitted performances of dancing, singing, tumbling, juggling--anything,
indeed, but _speech_ unaccompanied by music. The popularity
of these performances was beyond question, however, and, in time,
the mute drove the speaking harlequin from the stage: the great
theatres probably copying the form of pantomimes of the minor houses,
as they were by-and-by also induced to follow the smaller stages in
the matter of their melodramas and burlettas.
The comic "openings" known to modern times had no place in Rich's
pantomimes. These were divided into two parts, the first being devoted
to scenic surprises and magical transformations of a serious nature,
and the last to all kinds of comic antics, tumbling and dancing. No
allusions to passing events or the follies of the day were, however,
introduced.
Harlequin lost his place as the chief member of the pantomime troop,
when the part of clown was entrusted to the famous Grimaldi, "the
Garrick of clowns," as Theodore Hook called him. This great comic
artist devised the eccentric costume still worn by clowns--the
original whiteness of the Pierrot's dress being used as a groundwork
upon which to paint variegated spots, stars, and patches; and nearly
all the "comic business" of modern harlequinades is of his invention.
The present dress of the harlequin dates from the beginning of the
century only. Until then the costume had been the loosely fitting
parti-coloured jacket and trousers to be seen worn by the figures in
Watteau's masquerade subjects. In the pantomime of "Harlequin Amulet;
or, The Magic of Mona," produced at Drury Lane in 1800, Mr. James
Byrne, the ballet-master, the father of the late Mr. Oscar Byrne,
appeared as harlequin in "a white silk shape, fitting without a
wrinkle," into which the coloured silk patches were woven, the whole
being profusely covered with spangles, and presenting a very sparkling
appearance. The innovation was not resisted, but was greatly
applauded, and Mr. Byrne's improved attire is worn by all modern
harlequins.
Some eighty years ago John Kemble, addressing his scene-painter in
reference to a forthcoming pantomime, wrote: "It must be _very short,
very laughable_, and _very cheap_." If the great manager-actor's
requirements were fairly met, it is certain that the entertainment in
question was of a kind very different to the pantomime of our day--a
production that is invariably very long, rarely laughable, and always
of exceeding costliness. Leigh Hunt complained in 1831 that pantomimes
were not what they had been, and that the opening, "which used to form
merely a brief excuse for putting the harlequinade in motion," had
come to be a considerable part of the performance. In modern pantomime
it may be said that the opening is everything, and that the
harlequinade is deferred as long as possible. "Now the fun begins,"
used to be the old formula of the playbills announcing the
commencement of the harlequinade, or what is still known in the
language of the theatre as the "comic business." Perhaps experience
proved that in point of fact "the fun" did not set in at the time
stated; at any rate the appearance of harlequin and clown is now
regarded by many of the spectators as a signal for the certain
commencement of dreariness, and as a notice to quit their seats. The
pantomime Kemble had in contemplation, however, was of the fashion
Leigh Hunt looked back upon regretfully. Harlequin was to enter almost
in the first scene. "I have hit on nothing I can think of better,"
writes Kemble, "than the story of King Arthur and Merlin, and the
Saxon Wizards. The pantomime might open with the Saxon witches
lamenting Merlin's power over them, and forming an incantation by
which they create a harlequin, who is supposed to be able to
counteract Merlin in all his designs for the good of King Arthur. If
the Saxons came on in a dreadful storm, as they proceeded in their
magical rites, the sky might brighten and a rainbow sweep across the
horizon, which, when the ceremonies are completed, should contract
itself from either end and form the figure of harlequin in the
heavens; the wizards may fetch him down how they will, and the sooner
he is set to work the better. If this idea for producing a harlequin
is not new do not adopt it."
The main difficulty of pantomime-writers at this time seems to have
been the contriving of some new method of bringing harlequin upon the
scene. Now he was conjured up from a well, now from a lake, out of a
bower, a furnace, &c.; but it was always held desirable to introduce
him to the spectators as early as might be. In Tom Dibdin's pantomime
of "Harlequin in his Element; or, Fire, Water, Earth, and Air,"
produced at Covent Garden in 1807, the first scene represents "a
beautiful garden, with terraces, arcades, fountains," &c. The curtain
"rises to a soft symphony." Aurino, the Genius of Air, descends on a
light cloud; Aquina, the Spirit of Water, rises from a fountain;
Terrena, the Spirit of Earth, springs up a trap; and Ignoso, the
Genius of Fire, descends amid thunder from the skies. These characters
interchange a little rhymed dialogue, and discuss which of them is the
most powerful. Ignoso is very angry, and threatens his associates.
Terrena demands:
Fire, why so hot? Your bolts distress not me,
But injure the fair mistress of these bowers,
Whose sordid guardian would her husband be,
For lucre, not for love.
Rather than quarrel, let us use our powers,
And gift with magic aid some active sprite,
To foil the guardian and the girl to right.
The proposition is agreed to, and thereupon, according to stage
direction, "Harlequin is produced from a bed of parti-coloured
flowers, and the magic sword is given to him." He is addressed by each
of the spirits in turn. Then we read: "Ignoso sinks. Aquina strikes
the fountains; they begin playing. Terrena strikes the ground; a bed
of roses appears. Harlequin surveys everything, and runs round the
stage. Earth sinks in the bed of roses, and Water in the fountains.
Air ascends in the car. Columbine enters dancing; is amazed at the
sight of Harlequin, who retires from her with equal surprise; they
follow each other round the fountain in a _pas de deux_. They are
surprised by the entrance of Columbine's guardian, who comes in
preceded by servants in rich liveries. Clown, as his running footman,
enters with a lap-dog. Old man takes snuff; views himself in a
pocket-glass. Clown imitates him; old man sees Harlequin and
Columbine, and pursues them round the fountains, but the lovers go
off, followed by Sir Amoroso and servants." The lovers are pursued
through some sixteen scenes, till the fairies unite them in the Temple
of the Elements. At this time, it is to be noted, the last scene held
that place as a spectacle which is now enjoyed by the transformation
scene. Throughout the pantomime the relations of Clown and Pantaloon,
or Sir Amoroso, the guardian (he is called by these titles
indifferently), as master and servant are carefully preserved.
Although in "Harlequin in his Element" there appears little answering
to the modern "opening," and no "transformation" of the characters,
yet both these peculiarities are to be discovered in the famous
pantomime of "Mother Goose," which was presented to the town a year
sooner, and was the work of the same author. In "Mother Goose" there
are four opening scenes and fifteen of harlequinade--the pantomime of
to-day generally reversing this arrangement of figures. Colin, a young
peasant, is changed to Harlequin; Collinette, his mistress, to
Columbine; Squire Bugle to Clown; and Avaro, an old miser, to
Pantaloon. In the harlequinade are scenes of Vauxhall Gardens, and the
exterior of St. Dunstan's Church, Fleet Street, with a crowd assembled
to see the figures strike the bell (these figures were subsequently
removed to the Marquis of Hertford's villa, in the Regent's Park), a
grocer's shop and post-office, an inn, a farm-yard, &c.; while many of
the tricks are identical with those still delighting holiday
audiences; but the allusions to political events and current topics,
so dear to modern purveyors of burlesque and pantomime, have no place
in the entertainment. The doggerel and songs of the opening are
without puns or pretensions of a comic kind, and must certainly be
described as rather dull reading.
Without doubt the modern pantomime opening owes much of its form to
modern burlesque and extravaganza, of which the late Mr. Planché may
be regarded as the inventor. Mr. Planché's first burlesque was
produced at Drury Lane in 1818, and was called "Amoroso, King of
Little Britain." "The _author_!" wrote a fierce critic in
"Blackwood"--"but even the shoeblacks of Paris call themselves
_marchands de cirage_!" Mr. Planché had compensation, however. His
burlesque was quoted in a leading article in _The Times_; the King of
Little Britain's address to his courtiers, "My lords and
gentlemen--get out!" was alluded to in relation to a royal speech
dissolving Parliament. "Amoroso" was a following of "Bombastes
Furioso." But, by-and-by, Mr. Planché was to proceed to "Pandora,"
"Olympic Revels," "Riquet with the Tuft," and other productions, the
manner and character of which have become identified with his name.
Gradually he created a school of burlesque-writers indeed; but his
scholars at last rebelled against him and "barred him out," a fate to
which schoolmasters have been often liable. Still burlesque of the
worthy Planché form, and of the spuriously imitative kind, which
copied, and at the same time degraded him, grew and throve, and at
last invaded the domains of pantomime. "Openings" fell into the hands
of burlesque-writers, their share in the pantomime work ceasing with
the transformation scene; punning rhymes and parodies, and comic
dances, delayed the entrance of clown and harlequin, till at last
their significance and occupation seem almost to have gone from them.
The old language of gesture, with perhaps the occasional resort to a
placard to supplement and interpret the "dumb motions" of the
performers (a concession to, or an evasion of the old prohibition of
speech in the "burletta houses"), vanished from the stage. The
harlequinade characters ceased to take part in the opening, and that
joy to youthful cunning of detecting the players of the later scenes
in the disguises of their earlier presentment--harlequin, by the
accidental revelation of parti-colour and spangles, and clown by the
chance display of his motley trunk and hose--was gone for ever. Smart
young ladies in the blonde wigs, the very curt tunics, the fleshings
and the high heels of burlesque, appeared in lieu of these; and the
spectacle of the characters in the opening loosening tapes and easing
buttons in good time to obey the behest of the chief fairy, and
transform themselves for harlequinade purposes, became an obsolete and
withdrawn delight.
Yet what were called "speaking pantomimes," that is, pantomimes
supplied to an unusual extent with spoken matter, were occasionally
produced in times not long past. Hazlitt mentions, only to condemn
however, an entertainment answering to this description. It was called
"Shakespeare _versus_ Harlequin," and was played in 1820. It would
seem to have been a revival of a production of David Garrick's. "It is
called a speaking pantomime," writes Hazlitt; "we had rather it had
said nothing. It is better to act folly than to talk it. The essence
of pantomime is practical absurdity keeping the wits in constant
chase, coming upon one by surprise, and starting off again before you
can arrest the fleeting 'phantom:' the essence of this piece was
prosing stupidity remaining like a mawkish picture on the stage, and
overcoming your impatience by the force of _ennui_. A speaking
pantomime such as this one is not unlike a flying waggon," &c. &c.
"Harlequin _versus_ Shakespeare" was generally voted dreary and a
failure. Of another "speaking pantomime," called "Harlequin Pat and
Harlequin Bat; or, The Giant's Causeway," produced at Covent Garden in
1830, Leigh Hunt writes: "A speaking pantomime is a contradiction in
terms. It is a little too Irish. It is as much as to say: 'Here you
have all dumb-show talking.' This, to be sure, is what made Grimaldi's
talking so good. It was so rare and seasonable that it only proved the
rule by the exception. The clowns of late speak too much. To keep on
saying at every turn, 'Hallo!' or 'Don't!' or 'What do you mean?' only
makes one think that the piece is partly written and not written
well." We may note that Mr. Tyrone Power, the famous Irish comedian,
appeared as harlequin in this pantomime, assisted by a skilled
"double" to accomplish the indispensable attitudinising, dancing, and
jumping through holes in the wall. Power abandoned his share in the
performance after a few nights, however, and the part was then
undertaken by Mr. Keeley, and subsequently by Mr. F. Matthews.
Gradually, speaking was to be heard more and more in pantomimes; and
some forty years ago an attempt was made to invest this form of
theatrical entertainment with peculiar literary distinction. In 1842
the staff of _Punch_, at that time very strong in talent, provided
Covent Garden with a pantomime upon the subject of King John and Magna
Charta. The result, however, disappointed public expectation. _Punch_
was not seen to advantage in his endeavour to assume the guise of
harlequin. At a later date, Mr. Keeley, at the Lyceum, produced a
fairy extravaganza of the Planché pattern, called "The Butterfly's
Ball," and tacked on to it several "comic scenes" for clown and
pantaloon. The experiment was not wholly successful in the first
instance; but by degrees the burlesque leaven affected the pantomimic
constitution, and pantomimes came to be what we find them at present.
The custom of interrupting the harlequinade by the exhibition of
dioramic views, at one time contrived annually by Clarkson Stanfield,
expired about thirty years ago; as a substitute for these came the
gorgeous transformation scenes, traceable to the grand displays which
were wont to conclude Mr. Planché's extravaganzas at the Lyceum
Theatre, when under the management of Madame Vestris. Mr. Planché has
himself described how the scene-painter came by degrees to take the
dramatist's place in the theatre. "Year after year Mr. Beverley's
powers were taxed to outdo his former outdoings. The last scene became
the first in the estimation of the management. The most complicated
machinery, the most costly materials were annually put into
requisition, until their bacon was so buttered it was impossible to
save it. As to me, I was positively painted out. Nothing was
considered brilliant but the last scene. Dutch metal was in the
ascendant." This was some years ago. But any change that may have
occurred in the situation has hardly been for the better. The author
ousted the mute; and now the author, in his turn, is overcome by the
scene-painter, the machinist, and the upholsterer.