Drama Essay...

Compare and contrast your performance of Cinderella with that of a contemporary pantomime.

The word ‘pantomime’ means a form of entertainment which is usually performed around Christmas time. Nowadays, most cities and towns across the United Kingdom have a form of pantomime during the festive season. The origins of British Pantomime, ‘panto’ as it’s commonly referred to, date back to the middle ages, the time of the traditions of the Italian ‘commedia dell’ arte. The Italian night scenes and British Music hall have produced an art form which has constantly adapted to go on up to and beyond the present day. Traditionally, panto’s have been aimed at young children but now it has become such a huge success, older children and adults have joined in with shouts of ‘oh yes it is’ and ‘its behind you’.

Our performance has strayed from what is traditionally known as a pantomime. It does not have much audience participation or characters’ talking directly to the audience and it has a more thought-out and serious storyline however it does have a happy ending, as panto’s based on fairytales often do.

Pantomimes are usually based on fairytales such as Cinderella and Aladdin. Our performance of Cinderella is set a year after the marriage the fairytale and so is not based on part of the fairytale written down as such and so we have prepared it ourselves but it still has enough in it to be recognised as Cinderella and can therefore still be classed as pantomime.

There has traditionally been an element of novelty in pantomimes, and there still is. We have kept this element and incorporated it into our performance successfully. We have done this by having the fairy godmother clap sarcastically and eat the biscuits Button’s brings with him, which are meant to be for Belle.

Pantomimes should traditionally begin with a strong storyline, and they have done since they first began. We have not kept this element for our performance, as a more mysterious opening scene was better suited. We decided it was better to have Cinderella walking around agitated to intrigue the audience and get there attention.

It is fairly traditional to have good and evil in pantomimes with good triumphing. We have this bit in a rather vague and uninterruptible form.

The element of song and dance has been a key element of pantomime. We do not have this however it is a little difficult to include at our stage of work.

In pantomimes, there is usually a pantomime dame. We have not kept to this tradition however we have a character similar to a pantomime dame, the fairy godmother, but only in personality. (the fairy godmother is played by a female, traditionally the pantomime dame is played by a male.

Another key element is the principle boy, commonly known as the breeches role. We do not have this in the form it is known, but we do have two male characters played by girls.

In our performance the target audience is people of a similar age to ourselves, however traditional panto’s are aimed at a whole range of ages.

It seems somewhat in appropriate to refer to pantomimes as traditional because they have not changed very much since they first began and they still have a strong effect and remain a thriving business. For many years to come, instead of sitting down in front of the television to watch Eastenders, children will be sat in a darkened auditorium shouting ‘Oh no it’s not’.