SHADOW-PANTOMIME WITH ALL THE MODERN IMPROVEMENTS
I
An American; improving on a suggestion of a Frenchman, has declared that "language was given to man to conceal his thoughts—and to woman to express her emotions." Unfortunately, language is so often inexact that even when it is sufficient to express emotion, it is not precise enough even to conceal thought. Sometimes a term is wholly devoid of truth, as when we call a certain solid a "lead-pencil," which contains no lead, and when we label a certain liquid "soda-water," which contains no soda. Sometimes the term is so vague that it may mean all things to all men. Who, for example, would be bold enough to insist on his own definition of "romanticism"? Sometimes again the term covers two or three things which demand a sharper differentiation. This is the case with the compound word "shadow-pantomime." It is the only name for three distinct things.
First, there is the representation by the dark profile of the human hand upon a wall or a screen, of human heads, and of animal figures, either by an adroit arrangement of the fingers alone, or by the aid of adjusted shapes of cardboard, so as to suggest a hat on the head and a pipe in the mouth and other needed accessories; this primitive entertainment is sometimes styled "shadowgraphy."
Second, there is the full-sized silhouette of a human figure, due to the shadow cast by the body standing before a lamp, and magnified or diminished as it approaches or recedes the spectators. This is the familiar parlor amusement which Sir James Barrie cleverly utilized with dramatic effect in the final act of his 'Professor's Love-Story,' when one of the characters, standing outside a house, sees the black profiles of other characters projected clearly on the drawn shade of the window before which he is placed.
Then, thirdly, there is the true shadow-pantomime, called by the French "Chinese shadows," ombres chinoises, in which the tiny figures, made either of flat cardboard or of metal, are exhibited behind a translucent screen and before a strong light. This is by far the most interesting and the most important of the three widely different kinds of semi-dramatic entertainment, often carelessly confounded together even in the special treatises devoted to this humble art. In France these Chinese shadows have been popular for more than a hundred years, since it was in the eighteenth century that the performer who took the name of Séraphin established his little theater and won the favor of the younger members of the royal family by his presentation of the alluring spectacle, the rudimentary little piece, still popular with children, and still known by its original title, the 'Broken Bridge.'
It may not be fanciful to infer that the immediate suggestion for this spectacle was derived from the contemporary vogue of the silhouette itself, this portrait in solid black taking its name from the Frenchman who was minister of finance in 1759. At all events, it was in 1770 that Séraphin began to amuse the children of Paris; and it was more than a century thereafter that M. Lemercier de Neuville elaborated his ingeniously articulated Pupazzi noirs. It was a little later still that Caran d'Ache delighted the more sophisticated children of a larger growth, who were wont to assemble at the Chat Noir, with the striking series of military silhouettes resuscitating the mighty Napoleonic epic. And it was at the Chat Noir again that Rivière revealed the further possibilities latent in shadow-pantomime, and to be developed by the aid of colored backgrounds supplied by a magic lantern. Restricted as the sphere of the shadow-pantomime necessarily is, the native artistic impulse of the French has been rarely better disclosed than by their surprising elaboration of a form of amusement, seemingly fitted only to charm the infant mind, into an entertainment satisfactory to the richly developed esthetic sense of mature Parisian playgoers. Just as the rustic revels of remote villagers contained the germ out of which the Greeks were able to develop their austere and elevating tragedy, and just as the modern drama was evolved in the course of centuries out of the medieval mysteries, one source of which we may discover in the infant Christ in the cradle still displayed at Christmastide in Christian churches thruout the world, so the simple Chinese shadows of Séraphin supplied the root on which Parisian artists were able to graft their ingenious improvements.
The little spectacle proffered originally by Séraphin was frankly infantile in its appeal, and the 'Broken Bridge' is as plainly adjusted to the simple likings of the child as is the lamentable tragedy of Punch and Judy or the puppet-show in which Polichinelle exhibits his hump and his terpsichorean agility. The two arms of the broken bridge arch over a little stream but fail to meet in the center. A flock of ducks crosses leisurely from one bank to the other. A laborer appears on the left-hand fragment of the bridge and begins to swing his pick to loosen stones at the end, and these fragments are then seen to fall into the water. The figure of the workman is articulated, or at least one arm is on a separate piece and moves on a pivot so that a hidden string can raise the pick and let it fall. The laborer sings at his work; and in France he indulges in the traditional lyric about the Bridge of Avignon, where everybody dances in a circle. Then a traveler appears on the right-hand end of the bridge. He hails the laborer, who is hard of hearing at first, but who finally asks him what he wants. The traveler explains that he wishes to cross and asks how he can do this. The laborer keeps on picking away, and sings that "the ducks and the geese they all swim over." The irritated traveler then asks how far it is across, and the laborer again sings, this time to the effect that "when you're in the middle you're half-way over." Then the traveler inquires how deep the stream may be, and he gets the exasperating response in song, that if he will only throw in a stone, he'll soon find the bottom. This dialog bears an obvious resemblance to that traditionally associated with the tune of the 'Arkansaw Traveler.'
