In Pantoland-2
American Ghosts and Old World Wonders 作者：安吉拉·卡特 投票推荐 加入书签 留言反馈
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THE BEASTS1 The Goose in Moose is, or so they say, the Hamlet of animal roles, introspective and moody as only a costive bird straining over its egg might be. There is a full gamut of emotion in the Goose role -- loyalty aion to her mother; joy and delight at her own maternity; heartbreak at loss of egg; fear and trembling at the wide variety of gruesome possibilities which might occur if, in the infiercouplings of possible texts which occur all the time in the promiscuity of Pantoland, oory effortlessly segues into aory, so that Moose twins up with Jad the Beanstalk, involving an egg-hungry ogre, or with Robin Hood, incorporating a goose-hungry Sheriff of Nottingham. hat the Goose, like the Dame, is a female role usually, though not always, played by a man. But the Goose does not represent the exaggerated and parodic femininity of ahe Gooses femininity is real. She is all woman. Withe trality of the egg in her life. So the Goose deserves an interpreter with the sophisticated teique ahy fender of the onnagata, the female impersonators of the Japanese Kabuki theatre, who make you weep at the sadness i in the sleeves of a kimono as they quiver with suppressed emotion at a womans lot.
Because of this, and because she is the prime focus of all attention, the Goose in Moose is the premier animal role, even more so than. . .
2 Dick Whittingtons Cat: Dick Whittingtons cat is the Scaramouche of Pantoland, limber, agile, and going on two legs more often than on four to stress his status as intermediary between the world of the animals and our world. If he possesses some of the chthonic ambiguity of all dark messengers between different modes of being, heless he is never less than a perfect valet to his master and hops and skips at Dicks bidding. His is therefore less of a starring role than the Goose, even if his rat-catg activities are tral to the a and it is a difficult to imagine Dick without his cat as Morecambe without Wise.
hat this cat is male almost to a fault, uionably a tom-cat, and personated by a man; some things are sacrosanct, even in Pantoland. A tom-cat is maleness personified, whereas. . .
3 Daisy the Cow is so female it takes two whole men to represent her, one on his own couldnt hack it. The back legs of the pantomime quadrupe<u></u>d are traditionally a thaask, but the front ehe ce to indulge in all manner of antics, flirting, flattering, fluttering those endless eyelashes and, sometimes, if the coordinatioweewo ends is good enough, Daisy does a tap-dance, which makes her massive udder with its many danglis dip and sway in the most salaanner, bringing bae the notion of a basic crudely reproductive female sexuality of which those of us who dont lactate often do not like to be reminded. (They have lactation, geion all the time in mind in Pantoland.)
This rude femaleness requires two men to mimic it, as Ive said; therefore you could call Daisy a Dame, squared.
These three are the principal animal leads in Pantoland, although Mother Hubbard, a free-floating Dame who might turn up in a, always es apanied by her dog but, more often than not, Chuckles gets in o here, and real animals dont t. Pantomime horses crop up anywhere and mimic rats are not fio Dick Whittington but inhabit derellas kit, even drive her coach; there are mid lizards too. Birds. You need robins to cover up the Babes in the Wood. Emus, you get sometimes. Ducks. You .
When Pantoland was young, and I mean really young, before it got stage-struck, iime of the sky wolf, wheility festivals filled up those vat, dark, solstitial days, we used to see no differeween ourselves and the animals. Bruno the Bear and Felix the Cat walked and talked amongst us. We lived with, we loved, we married the animals (Beauty and the Beast). The Goose, the Cat and Daisy the Cow have e to us out of the paradise that little children remember, whehought we could talk to the animals, to remind us how once we khat the animals were just as human as we were, and that made us more human too.
THE PRINCIPAL BOY
What an armful! She is the grahing in Pantoland.
Look at those arms! Look at those thighs! Like tree trunks, but like sexy tree trunks. Her hats are huge and plumed with feathers; her gleaming, exiguous little knicks are made of satin and trimmed with sequins. As Prince Charming, she is a veritable spectacle of pure glamour although, as Jack, her e might start off a touch more pleasant and, as Dick, she o look like a London apprentice for a while before she gets to try on that Lord Mayor schmutter. For Robin Hood, shell wear green; as Aladdin, the East is signified by her turban.
You tell she is supposed to be a man not by her shape, which is a ventional hlass, but by her body language. She marches <big></big>with as martial a stride as it is possible to achieve in stiletto heels and throws out her arms in wide, generous, all-enpassing, patriarchal gestures, as if she owhe earth. Her maleness has an antique charm, even, nowadays, a touch of wistful Edwardiana about it; no Principal Boy worth her salt would want to personate a New Man, after all. Shes goo the bother of turning herself into a Principal Boy to get away from the washing-up, in the first place.
In spite of her spilling physical luxuriance, whisures that, uhe more ambivalent Dame, the Principal Boy is always referred to as a "she", her voice is a deep, dark brown and, when raised in song, could raise the dead. Who, who ever heard her, could ever fet a Principal Boy of the Old School leading the chorus in a rousing military parade aion of, say, "Where are the boys of the Old Brigade?"
e to that, where are the Principal Boys of the Old Brigade? In these anorexic times, there is less ahigh to slap. Girls, nowadays, are big-bosomed, all right, due to implants, but not deep-chested any more. Principal Boys used to share a hollow-voiced, bass-baritone bonhomie with department-store Father Christmases but "Ho! ho! ho!" is heard no more in the land. In these lean times, your average Principal Boy looks more like a Peter Pan, and pre-pubesce isnt what youre aiming for at a fertility festival, although the presence of actual children, i numbers, laughing at that which they should not know about, is indispensable as haviablished the success of preg fertility festivals.
The Principal Boy is a male/female cross, like the Dame, but she is never played for laughs. No. She is played for thrills, for advehe romance. So, after innumerable adventures, she ends up with the Principal Girl in a number where their voices soar and swoon together as in the excruciatingly erotic climactic aria of Monteverdis LInazione di Poppaea, performed as it is in the present day always by two ladies, one playing Nero, one Poppaea, due to male castrati being thin on the ground in spite of the population explosion. And, as Principal Boy and<bdo>?</bdo> Principal Girl duet, their four breasts in two décolletages jostle one another for pre-eminen the eyes of all observers. This is a thrill indeed but will not make babies uhey then dash out and borrow the turkey-baster from the Christmas-dinner kit. There is a kind of sorship i in the pantomime.
But the question of gender remains vague because you have to hang on to the idea that the Principal Boy is all boy and all girl at the same time, a door that opens both ways, just as the Dame is Mother Eve and Old Adam in one parcel; they are both doors that open both ways, they are the Janus faces of the season, they look backwards and forwards, they bury the past, they procreate the future, and, by rights, these two should belong together for they are and are not ambivalent and the Principal Girl (q. does not v. in this work of reference) is nothing more than a pretty prop, even when eponymous as in derella and Snow White.
ankey came out of retirement and, ged on anthropology, dropped down on stage in Pantoland.
"I have e back to earth and I feel randy!"
She/he didnt have to say a word. The decor picked up on her unutterand all the pasteboard everywhere shuddered.
The Dame and the Principal Boy e together by the ese laundry. Aladdin has brought in his washing. They exge some banter about smalls and drawers, eyeing one another up. They know that this time, for the first time since sorship began, the script will ge.
"I feel randy," said ankey.
What is a fertility festival without a ritual copulation?
But it isnt as simple as that. For now, oh! now the hobby-horse is quite fot. The Phallic Mother and the Big-Breasted Boy must take sed pla the porary cast-list to some cricketer who does not even know enough to make an obse gesture with his bat, since, ie tweh tury, the pla is over-populated and four breasts in harmony is what we need more of, rather than babies, so ankey ought to go and have it off with Mother Hubbard and stop b Aladdin, really she/he ought.
Do people still believe in Pantoland?
If you believe in Pantoland, put your palms together and give a big hand to. . .
<u>藏书网</u>If you really believe in Pantoland, put your -- pardon me, vicar --
A fertility festival without a ritual copulation is. . . nothing but a pantomime.
ankey has e back to earth to restore the pantomime to its inal dition.
But, before scarlet drawers and satin knicks could hit the floor, a hook dropped out of the flies and struck ankey between the shoulders. The hook lodged securely in her red satin bustier; shouting and screaming, with a great display of sy shin, she was hauled back up where she had e from, in spite of her rauco<var></var>us protests, and deposited back amongst the dead stars, leaving the Principal Boy at a loss for what to do except to briskly imitate Gee Formby and start to sing "Oh, Mr Wu, Im telling you. . ."
As Umberto Ece said, "An everlasting ival does not work." You t keep it up, you know; nobody ever could. The essence of the ival, the festival, the Feast of Fools, is transie is here today and goomorrow, a release of tension not a restitution of order, a refreshment. . . after which everything go on agaily as if nothing had happened.
Things dont ge because a girl puts on trousers or a chap slips on a frock, you know. Masters were masters again the day after Saturnalia ended; after the holiday from gender, it was back to the old grind. . .
Besides, all that was years ago, of course. That was before television.
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