UNI OF The Art of I DEFINITIONS A PAGEANT is generally assumed to be some sort of a dramatic production on a large scale, differentiated from a play by the large number of participants, by a general looseness of structure and vagueness of underlying idea, and by the absence of plot, as that word is generally understood. It has, however, some fundamental principles, formulated by persons who have distinguished themselves in the art. The American Pageant Association has made an effort in one of its bulletins to discriminate and define as follows: 1. "A pageant is the drama of the history and life of a community. As such, its interest is based upon community character-development. It may be given complete dramatic and realistic presentation, with added symbolic interludes or dances; and it is generally divided into a series of related scenes or episodes instead of acts. "There are two principal types of pageants: (a) The historical pageant, having either a local or national appeal. (b) The pageant based upon developing either historically, realistically, or symbolically, a social, religious, or civic ideal." 66 a Professor George Pierce Baker calls pageantry free dramatic form which teaches, though not abstractly, by stimulating local pride for that in the past which makes the best incentive to future civic endeavor and accomplishment. Already in communities where it has been tried, it has quickened patriotism, strengthened civic pride, and stimulated or revealed latent artistic powers." Elsewhere he says, "A pageant is built on a theme rather than a plot.” Louis Napoleon Parker, the so-called father of modern pageantry, defines the new form of art as "the representation of the history of the town, in dramatic form, from the earliest period to some later point, forming a fitting climax. This is set forth in verse and prose of the most direct sort, and is embellished with choruses, songs, dances, marches, and every legitimate spectacular adjunct. It is acted in some beautiful, historical spot, which is left without any artificial embellishment whatever. It is acted by the citizens of the towns themselves, their wives, their children, and their friends in a spirit of simplicity and reverence, and the audience must bring the same spirit in watching its progress. It is an act of local patriotism, and out of local patriotism grows that wider patriotism which binds the people of one country together. I cannot conceive a pageant except as an incident in a great act of praise and thanksgiving." Five years later Mr. Parker said, "A pageant is part of a festival of thanksgiving to Almighty God for the past glory of a city and for its present prosperity. Such an interpretation removes the whole thing at once to a high plane and out of the atmosphere of the mere spectacular entertainment. The actual pageant should be opened and closed by great commemorative services on the previous and concluding Sundays in all places of worship." Francis Howard Williams, in speaking of a pageant as a form of dramatic literature, says, "Drama is action. The spoken word is not an integral part, but an accessory of drama. Hence only so much dialogue as is necessary to an adequate presentation should be permitted; and in the last analysis, pantomime is the purest form of drama. "The very fact that the modern pageant celebrates the progress of a people upward and onward, demands that the treatment be hopeful, optimistic, joyful. The literature of the pageant must be something wholly apart from either comedy or tragedy. "It is therefore to the melodrama in its true and higher meaning, that we must look for our model on considering the pageant as a form of dramatic literature. A melodrama is a dramatic work wherein music is used to heighten the emotional effects of action and to support declamation. In its higher form it is emotion interpreted rhythmically by means of movement and dramatic poetry, and reinforced by music. Its strongest appeal was originally to the melodic sense, but in the course of evolution it has sought to heighten effect through increasing intensity of color schemes and real istic assaults upon every avenue of approach to the emotional nature of an audience. It runs the gamut of human feeling and finds its goal in the progressive development of events. "The open-air pageant gives perspective without violent foreshortenings, especially of a vertical perspective wherein the eye of the beholder may follow up to the very sky. It affords absolute depth of scene with its accompanying atmospheric variations; it admits of entrances and exits unhampered by any rectangular lines; it necessitates the normal relationship of light and shadow, and while it dissipates the sound of spoken words, it gives to recitative, and even to dialogue, a certain resonance greatly to be desired.” All these foregoing definitions, while inspiring in their idealism and enthusiastic praise of the pageant, are found to be vague when the prospective author and producer goes to them for explicit help in an immediate problem. There are two more definitions still to be given, the first of which may well be taken for an absolute basis by an author who must work along a beaten path before blazing a trail of his own. This may be found in "The Case of American Drama " by Thomas H. Dickinson. He makes the pageant a series of episodes placed in a design, whereof the episodes, like cameos set in a necklace, carry on a series, embedded in an outer setting which connects and makes a complete work of art. He divides the pageant plot, giving a new value to the word, into two parts, the salient plot and the contributory plot. The salient plot contains the actual episodes, "the distillations of the spirit of an heroic event. Usually these are spoken; often acted in dumb show or mass action; sometimes tableaux, sometimes spectacular." "The contributory plot, sometimes called the containing plot, comprises all the action necessary to explain and unite the main plot into a coherent whole." The contributory plot includes prologue, epilogue, Greek chorus, link passages, explanatory or narrative passages, interludes, dances, allegorical representations and symbolic forms. The entire chapter entitled Festivals and Pageantry in Professor Dickinson's book is one of the most stimulating and clear-cut statements of the art of pageantry that have ever been formulated. No one interested in the subject should fail to read it. Percy Mackaye in his various books and articles has many idealistic things to say. The preface to Caliban is highly suggestive, and a sentence or two taken from it, and herein quoted, should be so memorized and practised by the pageant author or producer that it becomes an instinctive ideal constantly making an impress upon the finished work. These are the sentences: "Synchronous with every speech should occur in production effects of pantomime, lighting, music, and movement, with due proportion and emphasis. (The pageant should be) not a structure simply of written words, but a structure really of potential, interrelated pantomime, music, dance, lighting, acting, song both chorus and lyrical, scene values, stage management, and spoken words.” The great value of the foregoing rules lies not only in the general summing up of all the qualities of good |