“The woman from the Manhattan Women’s Red Pantomime Troup performed Mazulem the Night Owl In White Castle last night. According to the pantomime’s program, the pantomime was written by no other than “Helen America”. The dramas characters: The clown, Freedman Bureau Bell, a black boy, Levy Stickemall, a merchant offering two “segars” for five cents, A Yankee Peddler, a Lady shoplifter, a roast turkey, and the eponymous “Mazulem”.
The whole cast were played by woman, but you could hardly tell by looking at any of the characters for their costumes and makeup hid this fact and transformed them into the characters they were to perform.
The clown is known as “Jackdaw Jaculation”, was ornate with frills in elaborately spangled satin, boasted an egg-bald shaven pate and the sinister white-face of the Pierrot, touched by color in the outlined lips.
The Pantomime opened in what was supposed to be a hotel dining room with the peripatetic Roast Turkey, apparently played by a dwarf, attacking the diners with a carving knife.
The audience was howling rowdily, though less in response to the substance of the pantomime, whatever that might be, than to the whirling, curiously formless dances of the Communard woman, their bare shines and ankles plainly visible beneath the ragged hems of their flowing garments.”
The Difference Engine, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
No comments:
Post a Comment