Pantomime Quotes

“The circus collects the outsiders like a flame tempts moths.”
― Laura Lam, Pantomime

“A magician creates magic and mesmerizes the audience. But it is a pantomime, and the audience knows that it’s a ruse. It’s in the name: a “magic trick”. They play along when the magician tugs his sleeves to show there is nothing hidden within them, or that the top hat is empty of a rabbit, or eggs, or flowers. Beneath the façade there is only sleight of hand, wires and contraptions, misdirection at a key moment.
“But what the audience does not realize is that it’s not always trickery. Or at least, not quite.”
― Laura Lam, Shadowplay

“All children in those small-town, unhurried days had a vast inner life going on in the movies. Children were allowed to go without chaperone in the afternoons. My sense of making fictional comedy undoubtedly first caught its spark from the antic pantomime of the silent screen, and from having a kindred soul to laugh with.”
― Eudora Welty, On Writing

“Champaign, Illinois. The critic in the Champaign-Urbana paper wrote something like: “The Marx Brother who plays `Patsy Brannigan’ is made up and costumed to a fare-thee-well and he takes off on an Irish immigrant most amusingly in pantomime. Unfortunately the effect is spoiled when he speaks.” Then he went on to discuss minor points, like the climax of Home Again being the most thrilling scene ever witnessed in Champaign, etc.
When I read the review I knew Uncle Al had been right. I simply couldn’t outtalk Groucho or Chico, and it was ridiculous of me to try. It was a cruel blow to my pride nevertheless. When I announced to Minnie that I would never speak another word onstage, she knew I had been hurt, and she looked at me with sorrow and sympathy. But she didn’t say, “Forget it-what does he know?” She said nothing.
I went silent. I never uttered another word, onstage or in front of a camera, as a Marx Brother.”
― Harpo Marx, Harpo Speaks!