What do you get when you cross musical theater, vaudeville, slapstick comedy, improv, audience participation, and family entertainment with drag?
The British Holiday Tradition of Pantomime Theater!
And we saw Cinderella at the Gala Theater in Durham!
The British pantomime theater has a long history as a holiday tradition in England. Many of our friends tell stories of going ever since they were kids with their families. It is usually a classic story, like Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast, told with modern jokes, popular music, and dancing. There is no “4th wall”, the audience is part of the show with lots of participation.
There is a required formula for the show including “the Dame”, a major female character played by a man in drag, a girl dressed as a boy, a “messy scene”, in which the actors make some sort of mess on stage (our version was a mini pie fight), and several call and response elements. For example, whenever the villain comes on stage the entire audience boos and hisses, and then, the villain starts insulting the audience. There is always a call and response when a character on stage asks the audience “is there someone behind me?” and the audience answers “no there isn’t!” when of course there is. Sometimes it’s the other way around when the audience yells “he’s right behind you!” but the character doesn’t see them.
We weren’t allowed to take pictures from the show, but here are some pictures taken from the Gala Theater’s Facebook page:
The evil stepmother and the two stepsisters:
The Fairy Godmother:
Buttons, Cinderella’s friend and narrator of the show:
Cinderella and Pipsqueak, the man-sized mouse:
Cinderella and the Prince at the Ball:
It was an amazing time!
This looks like it would be great fun
The boys would have loved it!