New Directions in Ancient Pantomime (review)

For at least five centuries from its introduction in Augustan Rome, pantomime was the preeminent performance genre of the Roman empire. Long languishing in obscurity and misunderstanding, a flurry of publications in 2007–2008 has brought pantomime into the mainstream. Following three other books,¹ Hall and Wyles's collection challenges readers to reassess dance in a variety of contexts, drawing together both senior names and new scholars in the field. This is a great volume, made richer by the very useful collection of testimonia presented in the original and in translation in an appendix (378–419). The excerpts include passages from the expected (Lucian's On Dancing) to the unknown (to me, at least: Jacob of Sarugh's Homilies on the Spectacles of the Theatre, in a revised translation from the Syriac), with passages from the Greek Anthology, Plutarch, Juvenal, Apuleius, etc., collected.

There is range of performance practices from antiquity given the name pantomime. Yet there was one essential feature: "The solo pantomime, the mime of everything, took all the roles in a story and represented the words of the libretto by his movements" (Jory, on 168). Multiple roles, of different genders, and a dancer whose silence is enforced by the distinctive close-mouthed masks, are central to an understanding of pantomime. Seven central chapters concern themselves directly with the issue of the performed text (155–282). In the empire, pantomime becomes the elite performance genre for Greek mythology (thereby replacing tragedy), and though no certain libretti exist, several discussions consider the relationship of the genre to familiar texts, including Virgil, Ovid, and Seneca (including Hall's English translation of Bernhard Zimmermann's 1990 article, "Seneca und der Pantomimus"). Zanobi's examination of Seneca's dramaturgy argues that the plays were composed "with pantomime in mind" (252), a conclusion that has important implications for dramatic structure. Hall herself considers whether the Barcelona Alcestis (P. Barc. 158–161), a Latin hexameter poem, might not be a pantomime libretto, possibly from the fourth century, making reference to modern danced performances of the text in 1999 and 2003.

Following Hall's survey introduction, the book's first five chapters explore "The Pantomime Dancer and His World" (41–153), coming to terms with balletic artistry that made extraordinary physical demands but remained essentially "minimalist" (so Webb, on 47). Wyles's chapter argues forcefully for the mimetic effects possible with the dancer's costume, with particular emphasis on the polysemic silk scarf or pallium. These features, along with the masks, create an easily identifiable iconography evident on sarcophagi, as Huskinson describes, building on earlier archaeological studies by Jory and Roueché. The fluid range of the pantomime dancer was one of the reasons that gender and sex issues are never far from the discussion, even in antiquity where accusations of effeminacy were common. In a robust and subtle examination of some Latin inscriptions, Starks considers whether some pantomime dancers, even before the Byzantine period, were women.

The remaining four chapters consider "The Idea of the Pantomime Dancer" (283–377), with discussions of the broad cultural place held by pantomime in the empire, of Lucian's dialogue On Dancing, of Apuleius' use of pantomime at the end of Metamorphoses 10, and of Lucian's reception in early modern Europe and the development of ballet (by Hall). The protean qualities of the dancer extended to the Dance itself. Pantomime could embody the artistic aspirations of an emperor as well as the earthy carnality of the ordinary citizen. The language of pantomime often blurs with that of a completely different but also under-examined performance genre, mime, and many contributors struggle with the overlaps in the sources as one genre seems to flow into the other. By bringing together these helpful discussions, this volume has positioned itself as an important starting point for further work on pantomime. For there is more to be done: New Directions points in new directions. Hall and Wyles provide a strong...