THEATRE HAS COME A LONG WAY, BABY!
Before pantos took over, puritanical turkeys and ham actors ruled the boards
The celebration of Christmas in theatres and by strolling players has come a long way from 1418, in the reign of Henry V, when the mayor and aldermen of London proclaimed that on the king’s behalf: ‘No manner of person of whatever degree or condition, whoever he be, during this holy time of Cristemes [SIC], be so hardy as to walk by night, mummying plays, interludes or any other disguisings, with false beards, painted masks, deformed or coloured visages in any way, except in his own dwelling, on pain of imprisonment’.
It wasn’t all gloom however: it was still allowable to display a lantern outside holding a candle for as long as it might burn.
‘Stage plays were representative of lascivious mirth and levity’
There has always been a battle between theatre as enlightenment and as ‘a source of obscenity and slanders’. And while Cromwell’s Puritan Parliament ruled in the 17th Century, the closure of London theatres was proclaimed because stage plays were ‘representative of lascivious mirth and levity’.
In 1642 parliament decreed no Christmas Day break at all: for the puritans it all seemed too much like a revival of Popery, excessive eating and drinking and ‘an opportunity for the ungodly to get involved in sinful activity’.
Those restrictions weren’t inclined to last long however. Even during the Reformation, morality plays survived when some others were condemned as idolatrous. And it was always difficult to enforce rules without public consent.
In later times in London, theatrical performances were forbidden during Lent and other Church activities, but there were rumours that if a theatrical manager tactfully mislaid his wallet with a sufficiently heavy purse in the office of the censor, that he might get a special dispensation to produce his play: being a censor was a lucrative job.
So how did we get from that to the present dubious delights of pantomime dames, and the razzamatazz that make some Christmas productions proclaim that, ‘the show is only suitable for over 16s’?
Even in America, it took a long time for Christmas to become a theatrical outlet. By 1874, The Chicago Daily Tribune was getting restless, writing that residents didn’t have much to do on Christmas Day, so why not spend some time at the theatre, escaping from, ‘the tiresome holiday preparations and the dreary weather. Under these conditions, the theatre is a sort of necessity’.
Theatrical problems stretched back to the early 1800s. In The Battle For Christmas, Stephen Nissenbaum’s book, Christmas Day was often seen as a day of drunken debauchery and even of gang violence and hooligan riots reminiscent of ancient pagan celebrations, sometimes taking place inside theatres themselves. In the 1830s and 40s, New York and Philadelphia police often had to call out reinforcements against crowds of young men wreaking havoc at theatres on Christmas day, at a time when many people were starting to celebrate Christmas as a family day at home.
Pantomime, that weird combination of fun, frolic, nonsense and political comment, has practically taken over the stage at Christmas with whirligigs and sabre lights obligatory for kids. Even under the management of Ernest Blythe, not a natural jester, the Abbey dabbled in pantomime from 1945 to the mid Sixties, with a series of pantomimes in Irish, in which actors like Ray McAnally could let their hair down as Gaeilge.
The first one, in 1945, was Muireann Agus An Prionnsa by Micheál Ó hAodha based on Lady Gregory’s The Golden Apple. It had over 70 performers between actors, singers, etc. Those shows always gave a slightly uncomfortable impression of the Abbey fulfilling its national obligation while touching base with the proletariat.
In recent years the Abbey has given the impression of flailing around a bit in trying to get its Christmas shows right.
We’ve had old-fashioned good humour in Lennox Robinson’s Drama At Inish. Then there was Come From Away (2018), a Canadian import complete with Canadian cast, celebrating the people of Gander, Newfoundland, who suddenly found themselves stuck with 7,000 unexpected arrivals after plane diversions caused by the 9/11 twin towers attacks.
And the 2017 Let The Right One In, veered right off the Christmas map, featuring a centuries-old vampire girl-next-door, set in a snow-covered Swedish forest.
This year the Abbey has settled for a show at the Peacock, Hammam, about the end of the Civil War, and The Quare Fellow, a play about the death penalty performed by women pretending to be men. No ‘deformed or coloured visages’ – just modern drag.