THIRD ACTION: ROMAN

COMMUNITY ACTORS [150]

Comprise

Participants and Specials
 Individuals [2]
Caligula, Emperor of Rome
Naevoleia, a female Mime
 Roman Patricians [21]
 Roman Populace [80]
 Musicians [10]
Two Players of Flutes
 ”” ” Citherns
 ”” ” Lyres
 ”” ” Scabillae [foot cymbals]
 ”” ” Shields and Cymbals
 Pantomime Actors [7]
Pantimimus, announcing the Pantomime, “Hercules and the Sphinx.”
Two Boy Pantomimi
Hercules, the demigod
Silenus, the satyr
Servus, a slave
Omphale, a Nymph [afterward disguised as the Sphinx]
 Mimes and Dancers [32]
16 Boy-Mimes, as Fauns
16 Girl-Mimes, as Nymphs

THEME

The Emperor Caligula witnesses a farcical comedy in pantomime, enacted in a street of Rome, A. D. 40.

ACTION

As the last of the Greeks disappear right, the Interlude trumpets sound at the left gate. There immediately resounds a great shout and clamor of voices, crying aloud: “Caligula! Salve, Imperator!” The gate is thrown open, and the Roman populace throng in, accompanying—in varied groups of squalor and poverty—the gorgeous Patricians that escort the Emperor Caligula, borne in a chariot, behind which follow a troupe of Roman Pantomime Actors and Mimes who carry a light platform with curtain, which they set up [centre, north], facing the altar.

The curtain is painted to represent the street exterior of a house, in the Pompeian-Roman style. In the centre, set in a lintel frame, is depicted a wide squat door, the stage platform forming its sill. Above the door is a window casement. Both door and window are devised to open and close practically. The top of the curtain is designed as an over-jutting tiled roof.

With the Pantomimists come a group of Musicians, consisting of players on flutes, shields and cymbals, citherns and lyres, and two who wear fastened to their ankles pairs of scabilla, a kind of cymbal for the feet.