Toy Theatres - Part III

"Sharing with People Brings Happiness"

In a reserved Danish way the famous Tivoli Gardens has moved with the times: modern midway rides, trendy boutiques, Danish and International pop and rock performers on the outdoor stage and at the Music Hall.  However in many ways it is still the "pleasure garden" imagined by Georg Caresten back in 1843 - flower beds, peacocks, fountains, pathways, kiosks, places of refreshment, nighttime illuminations and the famous Peacock Theatre.  I have written about my fascination with this little gem of a theatre and our recent visit there this past June.  But I thought I'd share a few more photos and a short video that highlights what is on display within the framework of its fantastical Chinoiserie proscenium.

At one time in the not distant past a live orchestra played for two daily performances; the first piece was always a pantomime and the second often a ballet.  Today, no doubt due to modern economics and possibly dwindling interest in the old-fashioned entertainment offered, the music is recorded and a single performance, either a pantomime or ballet, is schedule two or three days a week.  It would be sad if the tradition of Harlequin, Columbine and Pjerrot, which can be traced back as far as Plautus, were to be overtaken by the more raucous entertainments but for the time being, at least, there are still opportunities to catch the tale of two young people who overcome the objections and machinations of the foolish and the old to be united by the magic of love.

As they did with ballet the Danes took styles of pantomime from several sources and melded them into a hybrid that is uniquely Danish.  Drawing on the English traditions of conjuring, mechanical tricks and fairy intervention they then stirred in the slaps, pratfalls and acrobatics of the Italian commedia dell'arte.  Perhaps the character that evolved the most from this mixed-marriage is Pjerrot. In Danish pantomime he is never the white-faced melancholic beloved by Watteau and admirers of Les enfants du paradis; neither is he quite the dupe of Italian commedia nor exactly the sly trickster that was Joseph Grimaldi's clown.  Rather he's simple but clever - an overgrown child, curious and insatiable.  And though he may not be directly responsible for the union of the two lovers - it takes fairy magic for that to happen - he takes great delight in easing the path of true love if perhaps a greater delight in enraging his master Cassander.  And he is the only character with a voice which he saves until the end when he leads the audience in the traditional "Tivoli Hurrahs!"

The other characters too are a strange mix drawing from the commedia dell'arte, opera buffa and English fairy plays. In the original British pantomime the fairy scenes introduced and ended the Harlequinade but in Denmark Harlequin meets his fairy-savior only after Cassander has denied his consent to the romance between his daughter Colombine and the poor, but incredibly handsome and agile, hero.  This Harlequin is a long way away from his grotesque Italian cousin Arlecchino but Cassander is the duped old man of Goldoni and Gozzi; and the hapless suitor is every foolish, vain fop of theatrical tradition. 

Many of the pantomimes being performed go back to the mid-1800s though a few date from the mid-1900s.  Few of the pantomimes from the early years were written down but passed from performer to performer; in 1919 because of waning interest and war time restrictions ballet master Paul Hudd cut the performances down to 30 minutes, a practice that has continued to this day.  Since 2001 an attempt has been made to adapt and record the older works and include them in the rotating repertoire throughout the summer season.  The night we were there one of the older pantomimes was being presented: Pjerrots fataliteter (Pierrot's Misfortunes) was first performed in 1864.  It was adapted by Niels Henrik Volkersen, the famous Pjerrot of the day, from an older work in the repertoire of the Casorti family troupe.

When ballets are performed they are often modern works - Queen Margrethe II designed the sets and costumes for a new version of The Tinder Box in 2007.  Often visiting dance troupes use the Chinese theatre as their venue - though apparently the slope of the stage, which is double that of most raked stages, can be a challenge for dancers unaccustomed to the surface.  Even the members of the Royal Danish Ballet have some difficulty adjusting on the evenings during the season when excerpts from the classical ballets of August Bourneville are presented.  As I mentioned Tivoli seems to evolve with the times and for All Hallow's Eve they presented Kassander Loves Dollars, a hip-hop horror-ballet pantomime featuring all the traditional characters but with a twist.

Pjerrot leads the audience in the "Tivoli Hurrahs":  he's been up to his old tricks, Cassander has been thwarted, Colombine and Harlequin are united, all ends happily and its time for the Peacock curtain to close.

After the October performances the Chinese Theatre closed for the season but along with the rest of Tivoli Gardens puts on its finest for Christmastide and the annual Yule Fair.  The Peacock's colourful tail takes on the palette of winter and remains - perhaps frozen - in place until once again Pjerrot and company return to "share with the people and bring happiness".

Much of the historical information I gathered for this posting came from three sources:

The Pantomime Theater: life behind the peacock curtain in tivoli
Annett Ahrends and Henrik Lyding - translated by Pamela Starbird
Published by Forlaget Vandkunsten
Erik Ostergaard: Pantomime Theater - Theatrical History; Pantomime Plays at Tivoli

03 November -1793: French playwright, journalist and feminist Olympe de Gouges is guillotined.

Toy Theatres - Part II

The Toy Becomes a Reality

On Mid-summer's Eve its a little difficult to get the full effect of the illuminations - including the fiery torches
burning at the corner's of the cupola - that have shown the way to Tivoli since the late 1800s.

When Copenhagen's Tivoli Pleasure Gardens opened in 1843 - as the Tivoli Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens -  it was all very temporary. The license to operate had been granted to Georg Carstensen on the provision that the buildings could be easily removed. The Park was located on the old rampart grounds - the pond now surrounded by restaurants and amusements was once part of the protective moat - and as there had been war within recent memory the grounds had to be able to be cleared in a hurry should there be need.

I couldn't find early prints of Tivoli but had these lithographs
by Alfred Jacobsen from the cutout set he designed of the Pantomime Theatre.
They give an idea of the ambiance of the early days of the Park.

So when the Park first opened a provisional outdoor stage was constructed - like most of the pavilions, in the Turkish style - just to the left of the main entrance to the Park. The first entertainments were what we would call today "variety" programmes - strong men, acrobats, a chorus line, singers and clowns. The following year pantomime was introduced into the program. It was a popular entertainment which had arrived in Denmark from England and Italy almost simultaneously in the late 1700s. The stories of the Price and Casorti families and how they eventually inter-mingled, both professionally and personally, the two traditions are well-known in the world of Danish theatre. Borrowing from both the physical school of the lazzi of the commedia dell'arte and the spectacular effects of the British pantomime they created an art form that was as distinctively Danish as the choreography of their contemporary August Bourneville. Not surprisingly Bourneville's dances appear in many performances at the theatre to this day.

The style of buildings leaned towards the Turkish back in the 1800s,
 today they are more eclectic.  But one thing has not changed: the illumination
of trees, bushes, buildings and gardens.  The only thing difference is that gas
 has been replaced by electricity.

By 1874 there was no question of the grounds being returned to their bellicose origins, the pleasure garden with its gardens, lakes, streams, games, kiosks, fireworks and brilliant illuminations had become one of the major attractions for Danes and visitors alike. The same year that Vilhelm Dahlerup designed the Royal Theatre  Bernhard Olsen, the new Park Director, commissioned him to design an outdoor theatre in the "Chinese" style and so the famous Pantomine theatre with its glorious Peacock curtain came into being. Dahlerup had never been to China but based his design on drawings given him by a Danish engineer who had worked in the Far East.  The Peacock curtain originate when Olsen saw the effect at a Parisian variety house of a fan that folded and then sank into the floor and wanted something similar for his outdoor stage. Who came up with the idea of the peacock tail is unknown and the mechanics (requiring four men to operate and are still used to this day) were the work of an anonymous stage carpenter. As with many theatres at the time the rigging and mechanical system was based on methods used in the Navy and on sailing ships of the period.

Last month when I finally - after more than 40 years - got to see the Chinese Theatre I was immediately struck by how brightly coloured it was. My little model had a more subdued palette but as I could not find any early photographs of the Theatre I'm not sure if it was actually the case or if it was only the signature style of Alfred Jacobsen's lithographs. Looking at other play sets published by the renowned lithographer I think that may well be the case. If the colouring is somewhat different the design has obviously not changed a great deal in the past 130-odd years.

The Chinese Theatre with its famous Peacock curtain in all its colourful glory - not quite
like my little model but just enchanting and as wonderful as I had hoped it would be.

Pleased to be here - ME? NO! Not me!

The building itself is simple brick and wood but as with all things theatrical it clothes its self in the illusion of the marvelous artifice of a Chinese Emperor's Palace - or at least Dahlerup's concept of what such a palace would look like. The bright colours are of symbolic significance in classical Chinese chromatology - the masculine and the feminine. The masculine support columns are red while the bearing vertical structures are the feminine yellow, green and blue.  And again as with all good theatrical illusions it is carried over even into the wings - in this case the sides of the theatre itself.  Nothing is allowed to break the illusion of  an enchanted Palace which has appeared by some magic amongst the, themselves magical,  trees, fountains and gardens in the middle of busy Copenhagen.

Even the sides of the theatre, containing dressing rooms and the mechanics for scene changes,
continue the illusion of a Chinese Palace in the heart of Copenhagen.

Traditionally, as with any Imperial palace, the roof is yellow and sports elaborate dragons to ward off evil spirits who may be lurking to try and spoil the fun. 

And floating above it all are the Chinese characters Yu Min Jie Le - a saying from Meng Zi, a disciple of Confucius, giving us the wise advise that Sharing with Others Brings Joy. Its a fitting motto for this little gem.

Anticipation builds as the Tivoli Pantomime Overture by Hans Christian  Lumbye, Tivoli's resident composer in the early years, begins and the audience waits for the Peacock to unfold its wings.

In the next few days I hope to have a video of bits and pieces of the lovely little pantomime we witnessed on our visit.

22 July - 1983:  Martial law in Poland is officially revoked.

Toy Theatres - Part I

During a conversation with my colleague Lara - she of Sidd the travel gnome - I casually mentioned that during our trip to the Baltic I would finally get to see the Pantomine Theatre at Tivoli in Copenhagen.  And as an aside I mentioned that I had a working model of the theatre that I had made in the early 70s.  "Of course you do," said she without the least trace of irony or surprise.  That's what I love about working with Lara she assumed that if such a thing as a working model of an amusement park theatre in Denmark existed that I would have it.  Now I would expect my old friends Vicki and Charlie to make that assumption without a pause but after only 6 months Lara - rather frighteningly - knows me very (too?) well.

I've always had a fascination with the theatre and things theatrical - I was taken to my first play by my rather bemused mother at 5, my first ballet by my, equally bemused, brother and sister-in-law when I was 6 and my first opera, by my completely bemused father, at the same age.  All I might add at my own request.  And as a child I was in the habit of making my own theatres out of the cardboard that came with shirts from the laundry - lest you think we had money and my father sent his shirts out I should clarify that my uncle saved up the cardboard and brought it to me when he came to stay for the weekend.  Using books from the library and programmes from performances I attended,  I drew - rather badly as I recall - prosceniums, sets (poor Oliver Messel wouldn't have recognized his Sleeping Beauty designs as reinterpreted by yours truly) and characters.  It was creative play that kept me out of everyone's hair and was largely without incident. There was the unfortunately episode when I decided to use real fire for the burning of Saint Joan in my own particular take on her martyrdom but that is another story.

The Reddington - one of Pollock's cut-out book sets of toy theatres based on regional British theatres and often designs from actual productions.  The books gave you everything you needed to present the plays including playbook and (for a few pence extra) wire sliders to move the characters around the stage.

As I got older I put childish things behind me and also discovered that there was a wonderful shop in London called Pollock's.  Pollock's had been making toy theatres since the mid-1800s and leapt to fame when Robert Louis Stephenson wrote admiringly about their stock of plays and theatres available for "one penny plain or two penny coloured".  So on my first trip to London in 1969 I took myself over to 1 Scala Street and visited their wonderful toy museum.  The various dolls, toys and teddys were quite nice but it was those toy theatres that fascinated me.  They had a treasure trove of playhouses that brought to life the very vibrant theatre scene of the 1800s in England and elsewhere.  For a pound or less you could get sets of cut out theatres with scenery and characters in bright primary colours for all manner of wonderful plays and black and white books to colour yourself for deathless dramas like The Miller and his Men (with its spectacular explosion of the mill set) or Mr Kean's Richard III.  Penny plain and two penny coloured filled a good deal of space in my luggage on the return trip.   And yes I cut them out and constructed them; carefully (far more carefully than I did as a child) coloured Mr Kean and the "ghost" set for The Corsican Brothers.   I didn't perform any of the plays - well okay maybe one or two in the privacy of my own room - but they were displayed on various shelves around the apartment I lived in.

Alfred Jacobsen was a Danish printer who published all manner of cut-outs to amuse children including this charming set depicting the entrance to Tivoli featuring the famous Boy Band that played there every day.  But it was his model of the Pantomine Theatre that intrigued me when I saw the sheets at Pollack's Toy Museum.

A year or two later another visit to the shop yielded a reprint of an antique Danish set - toy theatres were popular throughout Europe in the 1800s -  of the Pantomine Theatre in Copenhagen's pleasure garden Tivoli.   It was on a smaller scale than its British counterparts, was meant to be assembled as a working model right down to the unfolding Peacock curtain and the moveable proscenium and came with illustrated instructions in Danish!  No matter I had to have it so I bought the four sheets (Alfred Jacobsen Danske Billeder no. 15, 16, 20 and 45) created by Alfred Jacobsen in his Copenhagen workshop.   Working in the late 1800s Jacobsen was a well-known Danish printer who produced all manner of cut-out sheets for children: World Flags, battle scenes, animals and toy theatres. 

Alfred Jacobsen's sheet #45 for the Pantomine Theatre at Tivoli.  As well as the elements for the famous Peacock Curtain he included scenes of the Park under illumination with its beautiful fairy tale lights.

I didn't get around to actually cutting out and building the theatre until several years later - as I recall I had to send away for the English instructions and go to Lee Valley Tools, a specialty shop, to get the tiny screws, nuts and bolts that were required to get the model working.  A sure hand, a fine cutting blade and a great deal of patience were needed to complete the theatre.  But completed it was and long after the other toy theatres disappeared from my inventory has traveled around the world with me from pillar to post and back again.  And often the question has arisen "why are you keeping that old thing?"   Why indeed?  Perhaps because it reminds me of my childhood passion, perhaps because it reminds me of trips and times past, perhaps because unlike the others I held on to the thought that I might see the real thing one day; but mostly because I enjoy every so often - as silly as it sounds - operating the ropes and having the peacock spread his tail and descend into the stage floor then rise again to close off the little Danish street scene.

While making this short video of the model in action two things became apparent - first that over the years things have become loose and are sagging on my little model and some readjustment is in order; and second that the auto-focus on my camera (as I realized on this trip) needs some sort of adjustment. 

As I had mentioned to Lara we were going to be stopping in Copenhagen and I'd have a chance to see the Chinese Theatre and watch the Peacock curtain in action and maybe even get to see one of the traditional pantomines.  I was in luck on both counts, but more about that in another post.


02 July - 1937: Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight.