Pantomime, Tableaux, Etc.

It is a curious fact that that which is the easiest form of dramatic expression to young children is the most difficult to adolescent young people, namely, the pantomime. This is explained by the fact that little children enter so unconsciously into action without the use of words, while the older ones are rendered more self-conscious by being restricted from the use of speech. Of pantomime for little children, the very simplest form is that of “statues,” in which the children pose, either dressed all in white with powdered hair or with no change of costume, to represent scenes from life, familiar people, common trades, form of action, famous people and well defined thoughts or feelings.

The next dramatic step is the tableaux, in which the children are grouped at least in pairs, arranged in a frame or behind a curtain, dressed in costume. Here, as in the statues, their own inventiveness may be largely depended upon, as they pose to represent characters in story-books, characters in poems, scenes from history, people of other lands and famous pictures.

The third variety is the shadow play, in which with even simpler properties but with more careful rehearsal the children pose as silhouettes and employ a few dramatic gestures. In Miss Perry’s When Mother Lets Us Act the details of all these pantomime performances are given quite adequately.

The next step in dramatic performances is story-playing. The easiest kind consists of simple character sketches, in which a child may portray quickly with language as well as gesture such characters as the father, an old witch, a newspaper boy, a school teacher. Animals may also be imitated. Miss Perry describes a lovely acting game, which she calls Playing Garlands.

“Garlands,” as she describes it, “is a little group of plays acted one after the other, all a part of the same idea and each one acted by one child only. When grandmother comes, you can have the garland of greetings. Encircle grandmother, hand in hand. Then let each child represent something that is glad to welcome grandmother. One represents the chickens and struts and flutters, one represents the flowers—this one spreads her skirts and acts like a flower; and so on. A garland of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems, each child taking one poem and speaking, or singing, and acting it, is charming.”

Doctor Gesell describes the way this activity develops in the elementary schoolroom: “Very soon the class will not be content with one player. The boy who is trying to represent the monkey will suggest that he have a hand-organ man; the hen will want chickens, and the scene will go naturally and easily without dictation. It is interesting to see how the children grow in power of representation and suggestion, and how naturally language begins to be the necessary accompaniment of gesture. The language of the children will be pictorial and full of unexpected terms and phrases. At this stage of the work it will be found helpful to put a screen between the player and the class. Such a device adds a little mystery to the play. The effect that such work may have upon voice culture is most significant.”

The next step will be stories with simple plot. In performing these it is not necessary to memorize, and it is undesirable to do so. Miss Fry in her Educational Dramatics describes in a vivid way how a story-play evolves. Here is a bit of her monologue, in which we can easily imagine the interruptions of the children. The play is a variant of the Cinderella story:

“Good! Let’s begin with the Market-Place! And the crowd is there, as the story says. What will the crowd be doing? Buying and selling, and walking about and gossiping, as crowds always do anywhere! Yes! We can have chairs about, to be the shops, and Cicily will be in the crowd, of course, shabby and shy, because she is poor, and no one notices her. O, no! Not unhappy, because she is a merry creature, even if she is poor! Barefoot? I s’pose so! Rags? O, let’s plan the whole story first and what they do, and then think about clothes and other things, or we never shall be through and doing it!

“Now what happens? The Bellman’s bell can sound outside the Square just as in the story, and we can hear him calling, ‘O, Ye’s! O, Ye’s!’ and the bell really ringing. Then what will happen? The Bellman will march in, yes! Ringing and calling, all the people of the place will ‘come running,’ as the story says. What a lot more fun it will be to be doing it than just hearing about it! O, yes! of course they chatter at him. The story does not say that, but any one would know it.”

Mrs. Braucher recommends for story-playing the following stories, some of which lend themselves to a more permanent form of acting:

We come now to the performing of memorized plays by adolescent young people. Before adolescence memorizing is of little value in dramatic performance, unless it be of poems to be acted, because it tends to hamper the freedom of original speech and action. Here Frederica Beard’s sensible statement is memorable: “The dramatic instinct is not utilized primarily by the seeing of plays, but by self-expression in the acting out of plays suitable to a particular age.” It is the children who have been surfeited by the drama and the moving-picture show who regard dramatic play as tiresome. Those who are leading in the Junior Drama League, instead of encouraging theater-going among children, are strongest in their insistence that children ought to be kept from the playhouses. Neither is it believed that the development of dramatic expression among children is likely to increase the number of young who go into that profession.

Development through patient drill of some capacity in the taking of parts, on the other hand, tends to help a child to discriminate between good and poor acting, and to appreciate all his life that which is truly fine in this great and ancient art. But the greatest difference between the spirit of the mother or teacher who coaches some young people in their amateur plays and the teacher of dramatic art is that the latter works almost entirely to specialize the actor for his business and art of acting, while the leader of amateurs is concerned chiefly with the results of the acting in developing the characters of the children through this exercise of the dramatic instinct.

Something more than the dramatic instinct may be exercised through these amateur home plays. One writer describes how once he started out with a group of young folks to give a pantomime of Hiawatha. The boys were to do the acting while he read part of the poem aloud. This seemed to be such an easy thing to do that they had not planned to have the preparations last more than a month, but they took all winter. The boys got so interested in making the costumes and painting the scenery that they worked enthusiastically week after week in doing so. They made their costumes out of brown cambric or denim, which was easily fringed. Their moccasins were made of the same material, and beads were liberally used on the moccasins and the bracelets. “Scalps” were made of old switches of false hair, and the blades of the tomahawks were very realistic with red paint. They secured old Christmas trees from the public gardens, they set up a tent of their own devising, they had a camp fire, lighted by red electric bulbs, they had scenery of their own painting and they even had a moon of their own which rose more or less spasmodically.

When the boys put on their warpaint and performed their dance, to an Indian chant of their own invention, under red fire, they were positively gruesome, and the dramatic climax of Hiawatha’s wedding was glorious in the extreme. Evidently, in these exercises it was not the dramatic instinct alone that counted, though that was central throughout, but the gang spirit was behind it all, and the handicraft instinct became involved, while music, art and the love of literature all found their place.

Miss Cora Mel Patten, who has had a varied experience in coaching young people in connection with the playgrounds and social centers of Chicago, advises that for the best results the leader should deal only with small groups. She believes that intensive work carried on patiently and for a long time with a moderate-sized dramatic club is more effective than the ambitious endeavor to deal with a large company. As in all social work that amounts to anything, it seems better to get somewhere with a few than merely to start with the many. In the small group the mob spirit is entirely absent, and if it be a selected company, everybody is in earnest. These statements suggest that the pageant, which is becoming so popular, is worth while for its patriotic and inspirational rather than its dramatic opportunities.