MIME AND PANTOMIME
Latin
MIMUS and PANTOMIMUS, Greek MIMOS and PANTOMIMOS, in the strict sense,
a Greek and Roman dramatic entertainment representing scenes from life,
often in a ridiculous manner. By extension, the mime and pantomime has
come to be in modern times the art of portraying a character or a story
solely by means of body movement (as by realistic and symbolic gestures).
Analogous forms of traditional non-Western theatre are sometimes also characterized
as mime or pantomime.
Early
Western forms.
The
Greco-Roman mime was a farce that stressed mimetic action but which included
song and spoken dialogue. The preliterary form can only be guessed at,
and even the surviving fragments of the playlets of Epicharmus, a 5th-century-BC
writer of comedies, yield only the scanty information that his mimes were
concerned with scenes of daily life or with mythological travesty. Other
Greek writers of mimes were Sophron (fl. c. 430 BC) and Herodas (3rd century
BC).
The
existence of a native Italian form of mime may safely be postulated. The
first to give literary form to the Roman mime was the knight Decimus Laberius
(c. 105-43 BC), who was eclipsed by the former slave Publilius Syrus. The
presentation of mimes was a traditional feature of the annual Floralia
festival, which, being licentious in spirit, opened the popular stage to
naked mime actresses.
Though
only fragments exist, it is clear that the usual mime plot, while free
to indulge in biting topical allusion, centred principally on scenes of
adultery and other vice. Evidence exists that acts of adultery were actually
performed on the mime stage during the Roman Empire. Execution scenes with
convicted criminals in place of actors are on record. When condemning the
Roman theatre, the early Christian writers attacked primarily the mimes
in this state of degeneracy. Stock characters and situations of the classical
mime found their way into the comic drama of Plautus and reappeared greatly
modified in the commedia dell'arte, a Renaissance extempore entertainment
with roots in the Roman theatrical tradition.
The
Roman pantomime differed from mime in two ways: its themes were usually
loftier, and, unlike the mime actor, the pantomimus wore various masks,
which identified his characters but deprived him of speech and of the use
of facial expressions. Thus his art was primarily one of posture and gesture,
in which hand movements were particularly expressive and important.
The
pantomimus, dressed like a tragic actor in a cloak and long tunic, usually
performed solo, accompanied by an orchestra that included cymbals and other
rhythm instruments, flutes, pipes, and trumpets. The libretto of the piece
was sung or recited by a chorus and was usually adapted from a well-known
tragedy. Both the music and the librettos of the pantomimes were considered
to be of little artistic value. The talent and skill of the pantomimus
himself were of supreme importance, and the greatest performers enjoyed
the favour of wealthy patricians and even emperors, such as Nero and Domitian.
Oriental
dance-dramas.
In
Asia the art of mimetic drama was developed long before it achieved definite
form in the Western world. In India the union of music, song, and dance
with character portrayals took place several centuries BC. Out of such
native drama, with added dialogue, grew the bharata natya (bharata-natya).
One of the classical Hindu dance-dramas, it is meticulously described in
the Natya-shastra, the great treatise of Sanskrit dramaturgy composed before
the 3rd century AD. The two-hour performances feature a solo dancer backed
by musicians and a singer; the dancer neither leaves the stage nor changes
costumes. Sections of dance alternate with sections of conventionalized
gesturing. Mimetic scenes derived from the mythology of Vishnu are still
sometimes enacted by the Bengali jatras, folk pageants combining words
and conventionalized mime, and the rasas, folk dance-dramas. In the 20th
century, authentic classical dancing of India was introduced to the West
by Uday Shankar to the accompaniment of Indian music played on native instruments.
In
the theatre of China and Japan, mime acquired a role unknown in the West,
becoming an integral part of the major dramatic genres. In Chinese drama
the conventions of gesture and movement, as well as the symbolism of the
stage properties, are immense in scope and mystifying to those unfamiliar
with the traditional forms.
English
pantomime.
The
English pantomime originated in the popular harlequinade afterpieces of
early 18th-century dramatic productions. Similar to the French Arlequin
comic dances, these spectacles, employing commedia dell'arte characters
accompanied by music and dance, initially were performed without words,
although some added speech later.
Under
the Victorians the subjects of pantomime shifted to fairy tales, with interludes
of juggling and acrobatics, providing more wholesome entertainment for
children. After the mid-19th century, performances of pantomime became
limited to an extended Christmas season. It became traditional for a young
actress to take the part of the hero, or principal boy, and a comic actor
to portray an old woman, or dame, for comic relief. Popular pantomimes
in the 20th century include Cinderella, The Babes in the Wood, Aladdin,
Robinson Crusoe, Mother Goose, Blue Beard, and Goody Two-Shoes.
Modern
mime.
Modern
Western mime developed into a purely silent art whereby meanings are conveyed
solely through gesture, movement, and expression. Its influence was felt
strongly in ballet, where the formal posturing of classic style modulated
into the descriptive silence of modern dramatic dance movement. In the
United States, silent film mimes such as Charlie Chaplin and Ben Turpin,
television entertainers such as Sid Caesar, and circus clowns such as Emmett
Kelly were masters in the ancient tradition. The high art of modern mime,
however, was reached in France, where its practice was ennobled philosophically
by Étienne Decroux, Jean-Louis Barrault, and Marcel Marceau. Marceau
defined mime as "the art of expressing feelings by attitudes and not a
means of expressing words through gestures."
Copyright
1994-1998 Encyclopaedia Britannica
Academic
Year 00-01
07/02/2001
©a.r.e.a.
Dr. Vicente Forés López
©Ana
Aroa Alba Cuesta
Universitat
de València Press