Historical Quotes
Jean Georges Noverre, Paris. 1807
The Spectator and the Performance.
At the performance of a written piece, the sensibility of each spectator is jolted in direct proportion to his disposition, greater or lesser, to be moved. For this reason, from the least sensitive spectator to the most sensitive, there is a world of nuances, a shade of perception specific to each spectator. Because of this, something seems quite obvious to me: it is that the expression of the dialogue used by the author must be either above or below the level of the sensibilities of the majority of the spectators. The cold man, little prone to emotion, must almost always find it exaggerated and even gigantic; while the emotional spectator who is easily excited must often find it weak and slow. From this I conclude that the expressions of the poet are rarely at once with the sensibility of the spectator, unless one supposes that the charm of diction puts all the spectators at the same level---a proposition I find hard to accept.
Pantomime does not seem to me to have this inconvenience. It indicates the situation and the sentiments of each character only by steps, gestures, movements, and by the expression of the physiognomy; and it leaves each spectator with the task of adding his own dialogue, which is all the more just because it is always in terms of the emotion received.
Jean Georges Noverre, Lettres sur les Arts Imitatuers (Paris, 1807)
From the "The Mime Book". pp. 6, by Claude KipnisHarper Colophon Books / Harper & Row, Publishers/New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London
Lucian, Of Pantomime (second century A.D.)
A question of competence.
Pantomimes cannot all be artists; thee are plenty of ignorant performers who bungle their work terribly. Some cannot adapt themselves to their work; they are literally "out of tune"' rhythm says one thing, their feet another. Others are free from this fault, but jumble up their chronology. I remember the case of a man who was giving the birth of Zeus, and Cronus eating his own children: seduced by the similarity of subject, he ran off into the tale of Atreus and Thyestes. In another case, Semele was just being struck by the lightning, when she was transformed into Creusa, who was not even born at that time. Still, it seems to me that we have no right to visit the sins of the artist upon the art: let us recognize him for the blunderer that he is, and do justice to the accuracy and skill of competent performers.
The fact is, the pantomime must be completely armed at every point. his work must be one harmonious whole, perfect in balance and proportion, self-consistent, proof against and most minute criticism; there must be no flaws, everything must be of the best: brilliant conception, profound learning, above all, human sympathy. When every one of the spectators identifies himself with the scene enacted, when each sees in the pantomime as in a mirror the reflection of his own conduct and feelings, then , and not till then, is his success complete. But let him reach that point, and the enthusiasm of the spectacle is no less than a fulfillment of the oracular injunction "Know Thyself"' men depart from it with increased knowledge; they have learned something that is to be sought after, something that should be eschewed.
But in Pantomime, as in rhetoric, there can be (to use a popular phrase) too much of a good thing; a man may exceed the proper bounds of imitation; what should be great may become monstrous, softness may be exaggerated into effeminacy, and the courage of a man into the ferocity of a beast.
Lucian, Of Pantomime (second century A.D.)
From the "The Mime Book". pp.150-51 by Claude KipnisHarper Colophon Books / Harper & Row, Publishers/New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London
A Curriculum for a Mime (London, 1728)
To arrive at a Perfection in this Art ...a Man must borrow Assistance from all the other sciences (viz.) Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, and particularly from Philosophy, both Natural and Moral: he maust also be acquanted with Rhetoric, as far as it relates to Manners and Passions; nor ought this Art to be a Stranger to Painting and Sculpture...
Our Pantomime therefore ought to be well versed in history and Fable: His Knowledge should begin from the Chaos or Birth of the World; let him particularly learn the Division of Heaven and all the Celestial Fables: He should be well acquainted with the whole Attic Fable and the Records of Athens; next let him learn what is to be found worth his Observation in Corinth, and all the Stories in the Records of Nemea. He may also gather abundance of Examples from Lacedemon, Elis, Arcadia, and Crete... He must be also well read in all the Metamorphosis, and must be admitted into the most secret Mysteries of the Egyptians: Our Pantomime also must not be unacquainted with the various Fictions of the Poetical Hell: And to sum up all in one Word, he must be ignorant of nothing which is to be fund in Homer and Hesiod, and other eminent Poets, especially those who have wrote Tragedy, and must understand them perfectly and fully, and be ready to produce them into Action on Occasion.
John Weaver, A History of Mimes and Pantomimes (London, 1728)
From the "The Mime Book". pp. 138 by Claude KipnisHarper Colophon Books / Harper & Row, Publishers/New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London
