It may be well to pause here and see whither the wise, serious men of to-day are taking us. I suppose they will abolish Will-o’-the-Wisp by draining all the marshes, and their extreme industry will render Puck’s kindly household labours ludicrously unnecessary. They will turn their swords against all the bad barons, unjust kings, and spiteful magicians, whose punishment has been hitherto the fairies’ special task; and this they will do in blackleg fashion, neither demanding nor receiving their just wages of beauty and immortality. They will scornfully set aside the law, so dear to the younger inhabitants of nurseries, by which it is always the youngest son or the youngest daughter whom the gods delight to honour. They will fill with porridge and deck with flannel underclothing the little flower-girls and crossing-sweepers, whose triumphs set faith in the eyes of babes. With their hard, cruel facts they will completely wreck the fairy civilisation which has taken centuries of dreaming and wondering children to construct. They will brush our fancies away like cobwebs.
A while ago, when I was a little boy, some enemy seeing me admire the stars thought it necessary to tell me exactly what they were; later, my natural interest in the extraordinary behaviour of the sea led another enemy to place a globe in my hands, and prick the bubble of the universe with ridiculous explanations. So it is that when I regard the heavens I see enormous balls of rotting chemicals, rendered contemptibly small by distance, floating in a thin fluid called space; so it is that when I look at the sea my mind is occupied with stupid problems about the route of floating bamboos, when I ought to be exalted as one who peers out through the darkness towards the Unknown. Where there were two then, there are to-day twenty kindly persons about every child, eager to prove the things it would like to believe in superstitions, and eager to explain away its miracles in terms of dustcarts and vegetable soup. Our babies are taught to hang out their stockings and to batter in their empty egg-shells, but are reminded at the same moment that these charming rituals are but follies, and that the capital of Scotland is Edinburgh. Youngsters babble Imperialism and Socialism when they ought to be standing on their heads to look at the Antipodes, and their parents commend their common sense. Already, I fear, the wings of many of the fairies are beginning to fade, and Puck capers but mournfully in his lonely haunts.
But fairies, goblins, elves, call them what you will, they are worth having, and that is why I would entreat the wise men who are arranging to-morrow for us to spare them, even though they have forgotten themselves all that the presence of fairies in the world is worth. By all means feed the children and give them Union Jacks, but let their faith in the beautiful be looked to as well. And, finally, to the serious person who says with raised eyebrows, “You can’t honestly say you believe in fairies!” I would answer this: In a world which at present is fiercely antagonistic to the belief in any emotion less material than hunger, it is impossible to avoid occasional doubt concerning the existence of anything which it is not possible to eat. But when I am in the company of those who really do believe I do not fail to hear the echoes of fairy laughter in their speech, and see the flicker of fairy wings reflected in their eyes, and with this knowledge I am content.
DRURY LANE AND THE CHILDREN
We have noticed that in writing about pantomimes the critics of our contemporaries usually make two rather serious mistakes. The first is the assumption that pantomime is really intended for the amusement of children, and the second (which to a certain extent is implicit in the first) is the conclusion that most pantomimes are unsatisfactory because they fail to provide the children with suitable fare. A glance at any pantomime audience should dispel the first illusion. Even at matinées the children are in the minority, while at night the disproportion is quite startling. To us it seems that the real purpose of modern pantomime is to give conscientious objectors to music-halls an opportunity of witnessing a music-hall entertainment without shame. It follows that, even if the second criticism were just, it would not be very important; but though we agree that the average pantomime is far removed from the ideal entertainment for children, it is at all events quite harmless, and contains a number of elements that children like. They appreciate the colour of the pageant, the papier-mâché treasures, the gilt moons and ultramarine sunsets, the jewelled and gilt scenery; they like the funny clothes and red noses and boisterous horseplay of the low comedians; they like the “little girls” in short skirts, in whom the sophisticated recognise the tired ladies of the ballet; they like, in fact, nearly all the things which writers with sentimental views on children think it necessary to condemn. As a general rule they do not care for the love-making or the singing; after a long experience of pantomimes we are prepared to say that they are right, though our reasons are not perhaps theirs. The singing in pantomimes is nearly always extremely bad, and the fact that the principal boy is always the principal girl makes the love-scenes ridiculous. The wonder is that in an entertainment that must at all costs be made attractive to adults there should be so much that gives genuine pleasure to young people.
From the days of our youth we have always had a kindness for Drury Lane Theatre, and, above all, for Drury Lane pantomime. The theatre has an individual atmosphere, the pantomime is not like the pantomime one sees anywhere else. In order to appreciate the size of the place it is necessary to put on a very small pair of knickerbockers and gaze upwards from the stalls between the chocolates and the ices. It is like looking into the deeps of heaven, though here the gods suck oranges and make cat-calls—those fascinating sounds that our youthful lips would never achieve. Drury Lane is the only theatre that preserves the old glamour. We never enter its doors without thinking of Charles Lamb, and it would hardly astonish us if Mistress Nell Gwynn came to greet us with her basket of China oranges, wearing that famous pair of thick worsted stockings that the little link-boy gave her to save her pretty feet from the chilblains. Outside, the image of Shakespeare leans on its pedestal, sadly contemplative of the grey roofs of Covent Garden. The porters who carry about bunches of bananas unconsciously reproduce the pictures of Mr. Frank Brangwyn. If Shakespeare ever slips down from his perch to watch a scene or two of the pantomime from the shadows of the auditorium, he must wonder a little at our twentieth-century masques. Like the children, he would probably appreciate the splendid colour and brightness of the spectacle, and, having been an actor himself, he would perhaps pardon the actors’ cheerful neglect of the rights of the dramatist. For modern pantomime is a business of strongly contrasted individualities rather than the product of blended and related effort. This is especially true of Drury Lane, whose stage at this season of the year is always crowded with vaudeville Napoleons and musical-comedy Cleopatras. In detail the pantomime is excellent; as an artistic entity it does not exist.
At first sight this seems rather a pity. Given a wonderfully appointed stage, gorgeous mounting, a fine orchestra, and a number of gifted performers, it is natural to expect that the result should be more than the mere sum of these units. But, as a matter of fact, pantomime is essentially formless. Those critics who clamour for straightforward versions of the old nursery stories would be vastly disappointed if they got what they wanted. The old stories are well enough when told by firelight in the nursery after tea of a winter’s evening. But they lack humour, and are not, as a rule, dramatic. (“Bluebeard,” of course, is a striking exception.) When a story lasting twenty minutes must be expanded to last four hours the story is bound to suffer. When, in addition, all the characters are played by performers whose strength lies in their individuality, it will be surprising if any part of the illusion created by the original fable survives at all.
CHILDREN’S DRAMA
At a season of the year when children invade both the stage and the auditorium of many theatres in unwonted numbers it would be at least topical to speculate as to the philosophy of pantomime and the artistic merits and defects of child actors and actresses. But while juvenile mimicry of adult conceptions of drama is entertaining enough, it is more to our purpose to consider the dramatic spirit as it is actually present in children themselves. Pantomimes certainly do not reflect this spirit, and, in spite of the sentimental, but hardly more childish influence of fairy-plays, are still aimed exclusively at adult audiences who grant themselves no other opportunity of appreciating the humours of the music-halls. Probably the ideal children’s play would have the colour of pantomime, the atmosphere of “Peter Pan,” the poetry of the “Blue Bird,” and, most important of all, a downright melodramatic plot. It is this last that is invariably lacking in entertainments nominally provided for children; it is the first consideration in the entertainments they provide for themselves.
If grown-up people were in the habit, which unfortunately they are not, of meeting together in moments of relaxation and acting little extemporary plays, these plays would surely give a first-hand indication of the dramatic situations that interested them. Yet this is what children are always doing, and in terms of play every little boy is a dashing and manly actor and every little girl a beautiful and accomplished actress. From the first glad hour when little brother cries to little sister, “You be Red Riding Hood, and I’ll be the wolf and eat you!” the dramatic aspect of life is never absent from the mind of imaginative youth.