R. J. Broadbent

“ Anyone may learn a part by rote, and do something bad, or indifferent, on another theatre. With us the affair is quite otherwise; and when an Italian actor dies, it is with infinite difficulty that we can supply his place. An Italian actor learns nothing by head; he looks on the subject for a moment before he comes forward on the stage, and entirely depends upon his imagination for the rest. The actor who is accustomed merely to recite what he has been taught is so completely occupied by his memory, that he appears to stand, as it were, unconnected either with the audience or his companions ”

“ There are few things, we think, more delightful than a Pantomime—that is, a good Pantomime, such as is usually produced at Covent Garden. We know there are a set of solemn pompous mortals about town, who express much dignified horror at the absurdities of these things, and declaim very fluently, in good set terms, upon the necessity of their abolition. Such fellows as these are ever your dullest of blockheads. Conscious of their lack of ideas, they think to earn the reputation of men of sterling sense, by inveighing continually against what they deem to be frivolity ”

“ Isaac Disraeli, of this grotesque family were the creatures of national genius, chosen by the people for themselves. Italy, both ancient and modern, exhibits a gesticulating people of comedians, and the same comic genius characterised the nation through all its revolutions, as well as the individual through all his fortunes. The lower classes still betray their aptitude in that vivid humour, where the action is suited to the word—silent gestures sometimes expressing whole sentences. They can tell a story, and even raise the passions, without opening their lips. ”

“ The first of Rich's successes was "Harlequin Sorcerer." On its production Pope wrote:—
"Behold a sober sorcerer rise Swift to whose wand a winged volume flies; All sudden, gorgon's hiss and dragon's glare, And ten horned fiends and giants rush to war. Hell rises, heaven descends, and dance on earth, Gods, imps and monsters, music, rage and mirth, A fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball, Till one wide conflagration swallows all; Thence a new world to nature's laws unknown, Breaks out refulgent with a heaven its own ”

“ To satirise the prevailing fashion, Garrick penned the following:—
They in the drama find no joys, But doat on mimicry and toys; Thus, when a dance is on my bill, Nobility my boxes fill; Or send three days before the time To crowd a new-made Pantomime. ”

“ Grimaldi is perfectly unrivalled. Other performers of the part may be droll in their generation; but, which of them can for a moment compete with the Covent Garden hero in acute observation upon the foibles and absurdities of society, and his happy talent of holding them up to ridicule. He is the finest practical satyrist that ever existed. He does not, like many Clowns, content himself with raising a horse-laugh by contortions and grimaces, but tickles the fancy, and excites the risibility of an audience by devices as varied as they are ingenious. ”

“ With the progress of, and also as an aid to, civilization how could the traveller or the trader, not only in the beginning of time, but also now, when occasion demands, in their intercourse with foreign nations (unless, of course, they know the language) make themselves understood, or be able to trade, unless they were or are able to use that "dumb silent language"—Pantomime? Civilization undoubtedly owes much of its progress to it, and, also the world at large, to this only and always universal language. To both the deaf, as well as the dumb, its advantages have ever been apparent. ”

“ Oh! the Clowns that I have seen in my time, The very peeping out of one of them would have Made a young heir laugh, though his father lay a-dying; A man undone in law the day before, (The saddest case that can be) might for his second Have burst himself with laughing, and ended all His miseries. Here was a merry world, my masters! Some talk of things of state, of puling stuff; There's nothing in a play like to a Clown, If he have the grace to hit on it, that's the thing indeed. ”

“ In the lower stages of humanity, even in our own times, there is, in all probability, a close similarity to the savagedom of mankind in the early Antediluvian period as "This is shown (says Darwin) by the pleasure which they all take in dancing, rude music, painting, tattooing, and otherwise decorating themselves—in their mutual comprehension of gesture language, and by the same inarticulate cries, when they are excited by various emotions." It naturally follows that even if there was only dancing, there must necessarily, as a form of entertainment, have also been Pantomime. ”

“ Our gallery gods immortalize thy song; Thy Newgate thefts impart ecstatic pleasure; Thou bid'st a Jew's harp charm a Christian throng, A Gothic salt-box teem with attic treasure. When Harlequin, entangled in thy clue, By magic seeks to dissipate the strife, Thy furtive fingers snatch his faulchion too; The luckless wizard loses wand and wife. The fabled egg from thee obtains its gold; Thou sett'st the mind from critic bondage loose, Where male and female cacklers, young and old, Birds of a feather, hail the sacred Goose. ”

“ Dramatic writers there certainly were before Aeschylus the former notwithstanding, we may, with the utmost propriety, style the inventor and father of heroic poetry, and the latter of the ancient drama, which, before his time, does not appear to have had any particular form but that of Pantomime, song, and the union of song and dance. Aeschylus first introduced dialogue, that most essential part of tragedy, and by the addition of the second personage, threw the whole fable into action, and restored the chorus to its ancient dignity. ”

“ Even Harlequins themselves have written elaborate treatises on the almost insurmountable difficulties of their art. I despair to convey the sympathy they have inspired me with to my reader; but every Tramontane genius must be informed, that of what he has never seen, he must rest content to be told.
Of the ancient Italian troop we have retained three or four of the characters, while their origin has nearly escaped our recollection; but of the burlesque comedy, the extempore dialogue, the humorous fable, and its peculiar species of comic acting, all has vanished. ”

“ Having briefly traced the origin of Pantomime, and the source of dancing, let us, in order to further amplify my subject, look at also for a moment the origin of music, in the time of prehistoric man.
From Nature also do we derive this art, as "The sighing of the wind passing over a bed of reeds is Nature's first suggestion of breath," and of music. The clapping of hands and the stamping of feet is man's first element in the making of music, which developed itself into the formation of drums, bells, and cymbals, and the evolution of the same primary principle. ”

“ The man who refuses to smile at the humours of Grimaldi is made of bad materials—hic niger est—let no such man be trusted!
Can there possibly be a more captivating sight than that which the theatre presents nightly, of hundreds of beautiful children all happy and laughing, "as if a master-spring constrained them all;" and filled with delight, unalloyed and unbounded, at the performance of one man? ”

“ We may say of present-day Pantomime that the trail of the music-hall is over it all. I admit the extreme ability of certain music-hall comedians. I object, however, altogether, to the intrusion of such artists into the domain of Pantomime, and I do so because they, and others not so able, bring with them, so to speak, an atmosphere which it is sad to see imported into the theatre. They bring with them, not only their songs, which, when offensive in their wording, are sometimes made doubly dangerous by their tunefulness ”

“ When we read that an actress "danced" her part well in the tragedy of Medea, that a carver cut up food dancing, that Heligobalus and Caligula "danced" a discourse for an audience of state, we are to understand that they—actress, carver, and emperor—declaimed, gesticulated, made themselves understood in a language without words. Acting is also oftentimes confounded with dancing, and it is, therefore, manifestly impossible to distinguish now one from the other. ”

“ Herein, therefore, lies the true imitativeness of the actor, and the natural form of acting. The word actor "Is a name only given to the persons in a dramatic work, because they ought to be in continual action during the performance of it." It does not mean that the actor is to stand still, and to be in action only with his tongue when speaking his "lines." No! he bears the honoured name of actor, and he should bring the full power of gesture language—Pantomime—that he has at his control into play in order to be convincing in the character that, for the time being, he is. ”

“ The fool of our early plays denoted a mere idiot or natural, or else a witty hireling retained to make sport for his masters. The Clown was a character of more variety; sometimes he was a mere rustic; and, often, no more than a shrewd domestic. There are instances in which any low character in a play served to amuse with his coarse sallies, and thus became the Clown of the piece. In fact, the fool of the drama was a kind of heterogeneous being, copied in part from real life, but highly coloured in order to produce effect. ”

“ Indeed, let the subject be what it may, it never fails to become highly amusing in the hands of Grimaldi; whether it is to rob a pieman, or open an oyster, imitate a chimney-sweep, or a dandy, grasp a red-hot poker, or devour a pudding, take snuff, sneeze, make love, mimic a tragedian, cheat his master, pick a pocket, beat a watchman, or nurse a child, it is all performed in so admirably humorous and extravagantly natural a manner, that spectators of the most saturnine disposition are irresistibly moved to laughter. ”

“ The Pantomimes, or, as they have been described, the continual Masquerades, of Ruzzante, with all these diversified personages, talking and acting, formed, in truth, a burlesque comedy. Some of the finest geniuses of Italy became the votaries of Harlequin; and the Italian Pantomime may be said to form a school of its own. The invention of Ruzzante was one capable of perpetual novelty. Many of these actors have been chronicled either for the invention of some comic character, or for their true imitation of nature in performing some favourite one. ”

“ From the origin of Tragedy and Comedy, and to the days of Thespis, and from this time to that of Aeschylus, all is doubt, conjecture, and obscurity; neither Aristotle, nor any other ancient writer, gives us the least insight into the state and progress of the Greek Drama; the names of a few, and but a few, tragedians, during this dark period, are handed down to us; such were Epigenes, the Sicyonion, and Pratinas, who wrote fifty-two plays, thirty-two of which are said to be satirical. ”

“ We have seen, and traced, from the Creation of this planet, and through succeeding ages, how Pantomime has always flourished; we have seen also how the Interlude gave way to the Comedy; we will now see how this love of light entertainment formulated in this country by the Interlude, and, about the same time, by the Italian Masque Comedy, the progenitor of Pantomime (referring to the whole as a spectacle) , and the forerunner in France, also of that other form of light entertainment known as the French Vaudeville, cultivated by Le Sage and other French writers of note. ”

“ This kind of spectacle is peculiar to Italy; one cannot deny that it has graces perfectly its own, and which written Comedy can never exhibit. This impromptu mode of acting furnishes opportunities for a perpetual change in the performance, so that the same Scenario repeated still appears a new one: thus one Comedy may become twenty Comedies. An actor of this description, always supposing an actor of genius, is more vividly affected than one who has coldly got his part by rote. But figure, memory, voice, and even sensibility, are not sufficient for the actor all' improvista ”

“ Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were the three great tragic poets; and from the works of these three illustrious writers, and from them alone, we must draw all our knowledge of the ancient Greek Tragedy.
Comedy, like Tragedy, owes its origin to the union of music, song, dance, and Pantomime; Tragedy to the dithyrambick, and Comedy to the phallica; and each of them (emulating Pantomime) , began to form themselves into dramatic imitations; each studied to adopt a measure suited to their purpose:—Tragedy, the more lofty, chose the tetrameter ”