Staging Fairyland: Folklore, Children’s Entertainment, and Nineteenth-Century Pantomime by Jennifer Schacker (review)

In Stith Thompson’s foundational work, The Folktale (University of California Press, [1946] 1977), he states: “It is impossible to make a complete separation of the written and the oral traditions. Often, indeed, their interrelation is so close and so inextricable as to present one of the most baffling problems the folklore scholar encounters” (p. 5). Although Jennifer Schacker does not reference Thompson or his point specifically, in Staging Fairyland, she deftly highlights the difficulty in the notion of a “separation of the written and the oral traditions” by detailing the primacy of fairy tale pantomimes in literary and popular culture during the Victorian era. Although some folklorists have questioned—before the advent of modern technology—whether folk narratives in fact can be said to exist in any authentic form of transmission other than that of orality, Shacker’s analysis of historical and cultural context is compelling and incisive, and her case is well-argued and explicated regarding how pantomime was a “powerful and nearly ubiquitous means of transmission, for adults as well as children” (p. 234). Not only does Schacker describe the nuts and bolts of stagecraft for a pantomime—the use of music and dance and the “harlequinade,” “when the pantomime’s main characters are transformed into anglicized versions of stock characters: Harlequin . . . Columbine, Panta-loon, and Clown” (p. 28)—but she also provides documents that indicate contemporary attitudes from the Victorian era: reviews, posters, paintings, and news articles.

Her comparison of English and French literary fairy tales and performances for fairy tale pantomime builds the case for the blurred boundaries between national identity and the fairy tale genre. For example, Schacker explains how “Little Red Riding Hood” first graced the “pantomime stage in 1803, seventy years after Charles Perrault’s ‘Le petit chaperon rouge’ entered English language print culture,” and that when John Thackray Bunce, a proponent of “English” fairy tales, mentions the tale, he “refers to the plotline derived from the French tale as ‘the English version of the story,’ so thoroughly had it been naturalized and incorporated into British culture and consciousness by this point in time” (p. 188).

It is not only the matter of transmission and cultural identity that Schacker urges literary and folklore scholars to pay attention to; she also emphasizes nuanced connections between the audience’s expectations and the elements of performance. For example, in pantomimes of “Red Riding Hood,” “our red-hooded heroine was usually an orphaned beauty who inevitably had a love interest (often Boy Blue of nursery-rhyme fame)” (p. 190), and the lovers must strive against the obstacles of an older adult. Schacker points out, for instance, that the leading and supporting “boys and girls” in the performance of the “Red Riding Hood” pantomime “kiss, and engage in banter heavy with double entendre, and commentators appear to be well aware of this flirtation” (p. 193).

Cross-dressing is a prominent feature of pantomimes, and Schacker explains how Walter Summers’ pantomime Little Red Riding Hood, performed in 1897, had women playing the role of both Boy Blue and Little Red. In addition, the granny character in “Red Riding Hood” pantomimes was typically played by a man who fulfilled the expected role of the dame who interfered with the lovers; thus, she was more of an obstacle to the protagonists than the wolf, but also a source of great comedic entertainment for the audience: Schacker asserts, “Dames then and now seem to steal every scene in which they appear” (p. 207). To help readers appreciate the performative contexts for these sophisticated layers of innuendo and gendered theatricality, Schacker includes some promotional photographs of dames as well as the leading and supporting protagonists.

One of the highlights of the book is the section dealing with Thomas Croker’s creation and promotion of “Daniel O’Rourke” as a story, pantomime, and contrived raconteur. Schacker questions Richard Dorson’s elevation of “Croker...