Awoke in my fifth room, in 17 days: the only room I’ve actually had any input on
– the first room I’ve really ever WANTED. (There are several very tempting ones
on the 2nd and 3rd floors that also have a nice view, (I’ve
always believed the higher the better), but there’s one major difference this
one has that the others don’t: a bed
that faces the window – so you LOOK out at the sea, as you LIE in bed! Perfect for taking full advantage of both the
position of the hotel – situated across the street from the beach AND the sea –
as well as the room that bears in that direction. (Not all of them do – believe
me, I know. Been there and done those, too!) Almost as tantalizing as seeing the
sea is hearing the break of the surf, though admittedly just faintly. (I MUST
be in a dream – but PLEASE, don’t wake me if I am!) Finally, I can put down
some roots! (Tentatively, anyway . . . )
As long as I’m on a roll, why stop gloating now?!
Then there’s the weather – long sleeve shirt temperatures. 52 at this very
moment – a nasty 3 in Provo (that’s minus 16 in centigrade). ‘Course, it’s
night there now, so that accounts for it – wink, wink. I really am SO sorry!
Had taken on a couple different jobs today. One
was to clean the bar area where tinsel from removing the Christmas decorations
had fallen all over everything – plus the explosion of confetti, etc. from our
‘riotous’ New Year’s Eve party. (I think this term, ‘bar,’ must cause concern for
some people. Let me just say that ‘the bar’ in the Richmoor Hotel is a large
room on the ground floor with tables and chairs (the other large room with
tables and chairs is the dining room, and it is located in the basement), has a
dance floor in the center, and coincidentally off in the corner has an area
where alcoholic beverages can be prepared and served when called for.)
My other project was going through and checking every
room in the hotel, making certain each was equipped with all the necessary finish
pieces to make them complete and ready to be let – in other words, detail work.
There had been such a big turnover yesterday that the commercial washers and
drivers (three of each) we have here could not keep up with the chambermaids,
and they finally went home with the job half finished. I’ll just say that this
sort of making a list and checking it twice is just up my alley – even though,
in the end, I myself didn’t finish the task either, as more clean towels
swirled in the dryers. (Also serviced the rooms of the two men – construction
workers, working on an expansion of the prison, one told me – who are renting
rooms.) Just so you know, I am SO thorough that I saved an old person from
having a heart attack when their cup holder in the bathroom DIDN’T fall off the
wall (with a glass in it!) because I fixed it – with my handy dandy kitchen
knife for a screw driver.
Following these tasks I allowed myself a short
break and had my first walk along the shore since arriving two and a half weeks
ago – just haven’t had a moment to spare for frivolous things like that! Wow,
there really IS a beach out there –with sand and everything! Somehow I remember
thinking it was all pebbles the first time I visited here. That’s cool! (I had
to have been the ONLY person not out taking his dog for a walk today. I knew
people in England were great lovers of dogs, and from what I’ve seen, at the
beach is no exception.)
The reason I took the time for a walk on this
particular morning was to see when I was going to go to the pantomime, at the
Weymouth Pavilion (thus the destination of my walk) – because, come hell or
high water, I was going! Of 20 days, and 30 separate performances, I was now down
to three possibilities for seeing the production before it ended. Loraine and I had begun talking about the possibilities
of when and who, in regards to the Pantomime, weeks before, but the discussion had
always gotten bogged down by the vastness of the contingencies. I was
determined that even if it took me going alone, these trivial things were NOT going
to stop me from realizing my goal of getting there!
Have had the desire of going ever since I first
heard mention of THE Pantomime way back in Grimsby, soon after arriving in England;
and then again from Myfanwy in Birmingham – each of these places with
community, as well as professional, theatre, indicating they were prime
locations for a pantomime production. I learned in Birmingham that performances
were quite expensive, and took place off over in town at the Hippodrome. Even
Leah’s school, with teachers in the lead roles, performs it annually, she told
me. Unfortunately this year, as they just had moved into their new facility at
the beginning of the new school year, and all that entailed - it was to be
postponed till later in the winter. (Drat! and after all of Leah’s ravings
about this silly musical-dance-theatre art form!) As I drove away from
Birmingham the second week in December, I accepted the fact that, for me, the
opportunity had past – that the Pantomime would have to wait for another time,
another year. Imagine my exhilaration when days after arriving in my new home
by the sea, as I was perusing the flyers on the entry table that highlighted
local events, I discovered one for a pantomime – it was still going on, AND it
was right here in Weymouth!
The pantomime in England is as common an
institution in England as the British tradition of children’s nativities performed
annually in schools and churches across the country every December (both the
Harborne Ward and the Weymouth branch were examples of that this past year) – as
much a bit of ‘local color’ in this country as a kabuki stage play is to Japan.
It has a
long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical theater,
and developed partly from European and British stage traditions, such as
17th-century masques. The word "pantomime" derives from a Greek word originally signifying a group
who "imitates all,’ later it came to be applied to the performance itself.
It was a popular form of entertainment in ancient Greece and later, Rome.
Like theatre of the time, it encompassed the
genres of comedy, tragedy, and sex. In the Middle Ages, the Mummers Play was a traditional British folk play
performed during the festive gatherings of both urban and rural communities,
and contains many of the archetypal elements of the contemporary pantomime such
as stage fights, coarse humour, and fantastic creatures. It is often claimed
that many of these elements are even the cultural remnants of pre-Christian
beliefs. The gender role reversal
resembles the old festival of Twelfth Night, a combination of Epiphany and
midwinter feast, when it was customary for the natural order of things to be
reversed. It first began in this country as entr’actes between opera
pieces, eventually evolving into separate shows – often
considered a low form of opera, much like the French Vaudeville. Over
time, the pantomime developed into a distinctly English form of entertainment.
Today’s modern panto,
for short – not to be confused with the theatrical medium of mime – is
a form of musical comedy stage
production, designed for families, developed in the UK and mostly performed
during the Christmas and New Year season. Now that I’ve been, I can add that, in
MY experience, on the most basic of levels, the panto is a crazy musical-dance-theatre,
almost vaudevillian, sort of production – very much like the road shows that
became institutions in the church before they petered out – minus the innuendo,
of course. (I pick up periodic indications that in the church here locally,
they haven’t died out at all – but live on!) Elements of a modern pantomime include
songs, slapstick comedy and dancing, and gender-crossing actors, as well as
combines topical humour with a story loosely based on a well-known fairy tale –
in this case, it was Jack and the Beanstalk. It
is a participatory form of theater, in which the audience is expected to sing
along with certain parts of the music and/or shout out phrases to the performers,
like ‘Oh, NO, YOU DON’T,’ or ‘ . . . ,
I’m NOT,’ or ‘ . . ., it isn’t,’ in response to the actors’, ‘Oh,
YES, you do;’ or ‘Oh, YES,I am,’ etc. - and other various and
sundry forms of these lines. Another expected line occurs when something scary
(like a ghost) creeps behind the most vulnerable character, and when the audience
starts yelling to warm him, he calls out, ‘I don’t see anything, do you, boys
and girls?’ at which point the audience calls out, ‘it’s BEHIND you!’ in a kind
of sing-songy voice, and at which point that sequence goes on way too long for
the ADD brain.
Another established practice is that the stars of
your local pantomime are often non-local, semi-celebrities. For instance, in
ours we had 1) a lady who is in a major television soap and plays the bad
fairy, Fairy Fleshcreep (pretty fantastic character actress, with a wonderful
alto voice – just check out the links below!); then 2) the alternative fairy,
who takes the part of a goody miss two-shoes, in the role as Fairy Fabulous
(somebody somewhere writes this stuff!) performed by an actress/singer who was
a pop sensation (Lolly) back in the 90s; and 3) the king played by a man who
was a recent runner up (though it hasn’t stopped him from launching a career anyway) on X Factor, Britain’s original version of American Idol.
The major roles in the pantomime include the
principal boy (Jack) or girl, the panto cross-dressing dame – often
the principal’s mother, the co-principal boy or girl – usually the love interest (Princess
Apricot), her father, the King, often the one in whom the mother is interested,
the comic lead (Simple Simon, Jack’s supposed brother), the villain (Fairy
Fleshcreep), the animal or animals (the family cow, in this instance), and
the good fairy or wise woman (Fairy Fabulous). Everybody else is a dancer or
ghost or some other unspecified, unscripted thing.
Add into this mix of characters a great deal of comic
relief. (So you get the idea – the principle and co-principle boy and girl, as
well as the king, are like real-life people, while everybody else is sort of a caricature,
like something out of a fantasy.) One of them, in this particular show, was the
brother of Jack – Simple Simon – who told really dumb jokes (at which time the
drummer of the live band would roll out a quick riff on the snare and hit the
symbols). He also took the part in the story of the one whose lines contained
the bawdy jokes and word plays that would appeal to a 13 year-old boy, but hopefully
escapes the many children in the audience. My favorite character, hands down, and
probably the most common character you expect from every panto production, was the
panto dame – where a man plays the part
of a woman (in this case, a very large woman, with incredible wigs and outfits
to match! In Jack in the Beanstalk, she is known as Dame Trott, Jack’s mother.
This actor/character REALLY kept me enthralled - the most intriguing part of
the entire show (‘the pig,’ you could easily say). You can definitely see where the inspiration
for the character of Tracey’s mom in Hairspray got its start– with a male actor
in the roll since it first hit Broadway in 2002, based on the 1988 hit film
starring Divine.
Pantomime has a definite form with a number of
conventions, some of which have changed or weakened a little over the years, all
of which are by no means obligatory. Some of these conventions were once common
to other genres of popular theatre such as melodrama. Our evening performance
of Jack and the Beanstalk contained all of the following:
·
●An older woman (the pantomime dame –
often the hero's mother) is usually played by a man in drag.
·
●Risqué double entendre, often wringing
innuendo out of perfectly innocent phrases. This is, in theory, over the heads
of the children in the audience and is for the entertainment of the adults.
·
Audience participation, including calls
of "He's behind you!" (or "Look behind you!"), and
"Oh, yes it is!" and "Oh, no, it isn't!" The audience is
always encouraged to boo the villain and "awwwww" the poor victims,
such as the rejected dame, who is usually enamoured with the prince.
·
●Music may be original but is more
likely to combine well-known tunes with re-written lyrics. At least one
"audience participation" song is traditional: one half of the
audience may be challenged to sing "their" chorus louder than the
other half. Children in the audience may even be invited on stage to sing along
with members of the cast.
·
●The animal, played by an actor in
"animal skin" or animal costume. It is often a pantomime horse or
cow, played by two actors in a single costume, one as the head and front legs,
the other as the body and back legs.
·
●The good fairy enters from stage right
(from the audience's point of view this is on the left) and the villain enters
from stage left (right from the point of view of the audience). This convention
goes back to the medieval mystery plays, where the right side of the stage
symbolised Heaven and the left side symbolised Hell.
·
●A slapstick comedy routine may be
performed, often a decorating or baking scene, with humour based on throwing
messy substances. Until the 20th century, British pantomimes often concluded
with a harlequinade, a free-standing entertainment of slapstick, nowadays more
or less incorporated into the main body of the show.
●One or more celebrity guest stars are employed to promote the
local production, a practice
dating back to the late 19th century.
dating back to the late 19th century.
As I’ve mentioned, there was a lot of wishy-washy
stuff going on about would a group of us be going or not, and if so, when.
(Besides wanting to know when for myself, my friend, Michelle, from the hotel,
had expressed an interest in going with me, so I had that contingency to work
around, as well.) Later in the afternoon, Loraine suddenly approached me and
asked what have you worked out - about the pantomime? I said that I had not
gotten tickets yet because I was still trying to reach Michelle. She said, ‘Well
. . . we have just let rooms to three young people who are friends with the
person playing ‘Jack’ in the pantomime and have come down from Torquay to cheer
him on. (I understand there was this whole formal audition thing to find the
leads for Jack and the Princess fashioned after Britain’s original talent
factory, the X Factor – called the Panto Factor, (haha), all done by a company
in the business of doing pantomimes known as Magic Beans Productions. Check out the process, from start to finish: www.magicbeansproductions.com/weymouthpanto/weymouthpantopantofactor.html) And we’re all going – TONIGHT (thinking we
could get us some sort of discount or better seats or something, because of the
kids’ affiliation)!’ Actually none of the seat thing did pan out, but that’s
okay, because the main thing is that WE WENT! (Too short of notice – other plans
– so my friend, Michelle, did not end up going with us after all.)
The thing about going to this kind of thing is you
WANT to be in the largest, craziest group of people you can gather – another
reason we went this particular night. There was the three of our young adult visitors
from Torquay – pretty much all musical-dance-theatre personalities (if you know the
type) – plus Andy (who has a wild sense of humor), then Loraine, me, and three
of her kids. It was a perfect bunch for a mad thing like The Pantomime! A
goodly amount of heckling and booing, applauding, whooping and hollering took
place. It was everything I had imagined – AND more! (Take a look at these
YouTube clips to see for yourself – all worth the look !)
Meet the cast: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEKaAzWrGK0
Lynn
McGranger, soap star, camping it up,
in apt ‘sudsy’ style, over the fact that her supposed ‘friend’ has really let
her down this time (Danny Mills, aka Dame Trott). Pretty uproarious! She’s good . . . and the
music doesn’t hurt either: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNqlQyLq1jE
Photos_
1- room with an extra special view (as opposed to
my room with a view at Myfanwy’s – that one was of the back yard, this one is
of the sea!) - early morning from my bed
2- The Richmoor Hotel from the outside (that's me to the right on the 1st or 2nd floor, depending on which country you believe, and with my 'step out the enormous window' veranda
3- 1890 lithograph
4- 2012 Pantomime at the Weymouth Pavilion
5- the characters: Fairy Fabulous, the King, Fairy
Fleshcreep, and my favorite, Dame Trott, posing in front of the Weymouth Beach
