The Comic Ballet

Ki-Ki-Ko-Ko-Oh-Ki-Key was performed in a mixed bill at the Britannia Theatre for three weeks from Whit Monday, 29 May 1871.Footnote ⁹ Playbill reference to the “comic ballet & monkey pranks” provides the clue to the piece's title, which mimics the sound of a simian. It was performed by “the Lauri family with Mc Cormack” with five roles: “Sam Slick, a Rich Planter—Mr G. W. Gale[;] Maud, the Planter's Daughter—Miss Fanny Lauri[;] Francois, The Planter's Son of H. M. Navy—Mr Matheson Jones[;] Jip, the Mischievous Monkey—Mr Edward Lauri[;] and Indian Chief, the Terror of the Mountain—Mr B. Mc Cormack.”Footnote ¹⁰ Reviews of the performance describe “half-an-hour's uproarious merriment”Footnote ¹¹ and note it is “cleverly acted,”Footnote ¹² but give no clue to the action. To undercover this, it is necessary to trace the performance history of the Lauri family and the origin of the piece.

Les Enfants Lauri—originally comprising three juveniles performing gymnastic feats and contributing to the fun of the pantomime harlequinade—appeared at Sadler's Wells in 1843.Footnote ¹³ Despite the billing suggesting a French heritage, the boys were the oldest children of the Lowe family from London. Their father, John William Lowe, initially worked as an engraver and enameler, but after petitioning for bankruptcy in 1843 is recorded as a “Theatrical” or “Theatrical agent” in subsequent censuses.Footnote ¹⁴ By 1845 his children were performing as “the Lauri family” and had a short engagement at the Britannia Saloon in 1846 “in their Poses Plastiques.”Footnote ¹⁵ The exact makeup of the group fluctuated, and in 1861 consisted of six brothers: John, Charles, Henry, Frederick, Edward, and Septimus, and two sisters—Jenny and Fanny. (John's wife Louisa appeared with them as “Madame Lauri.”) Advertised as a “Pantomime and Ballet Company,”Footnote ¹⁶ they performed in provincial and London theatres and at other places of entertainment such as London's Cremorne Gardens, the Surrey Music Hall, and Liverpool's Zoological Gardens. Typically, they featured in the harlequinade—for example, at the Theatre Royal, Liverpool's Christmas pantomime, Harlequin and Little Goody Two Shoes; or, The Liverpool Lass and Dicky Sam in 1856–7, in which John was Harlequin, Jenny Columbine, Frederick Clown, and Charles Pantaloon—or presented their own comic ballets, such as The Adventures of Lord Dundreary, capitalizing on the success of E. A. Sothern's role as the mustachioed buffoon in Tom Taylor's Our American Cousin. Comic ballets were typically one-act entertainments performed without dialogue.

Ki-Ki-Ko-Ko-Oh-Ki-Key (hereafter shortened to Ki-Ki, rather than “O! Crikey!” as it was abbreviated by spectators in the gods at the Britannia),Footnote ¹⁷ was first introduced at the Alhambra Music Hall, Dundee in September 1866. Written and arranged by Edward and Henry Lauri, it was billed as “The New Sensation Indian Comic Ballet.”Footnote ¹⁸ The piece was enthusiastically received and toured widely, including to London's Holborn Amphitheatre in 1867, and to New York, Boston, and Chicago as part of the family's North American tour of 1869–74.Footnote ¹⁹ Edward returned to the United Kingdom early and soon teamed up with Ben(jamin) McCormack, who was an established provincial pantomime Clown, most recently responsible for the Christmas pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow.Footnote ²⁰ When Ki-Ki appeared at the Britannia it was under the joint control of Edward Lauri and McCormack. But what did the entertainment entail? A review in the London City Press suggests its generic framework: “It contains all the exciting situations of a thrilling Indian drama, the elements of a gorgeous ballet, and most of the boisterous fun of a Christmas pantomime.”Footnote ²¹ Here, then, are Davis's “processes of reiteration, revision, citation and incorporation” in action.Footnote ²² The Birmingham Journal is more forthcoming about the content (Warning: racist terminology is included here and hereafter):

It is clear that the interest of the piece centers on the physicality of the performance and a sense of jeopardy. References to “disappearing down wells, through foliage, and upon the house-top” evidence the repeated use of stage traps, a topic to which I return later. The rapidity of the action across the stage is suggested in an earlier review: “Pig-sties, cocoa-nut trees, clothes-lines, and chimney-pots are in turn the scenes of the fight.”Footnote ²⁴ The scene's casual violence is reminiscent of the harlequinade, and the monkey's flight from the chief can be seen as a surrogate Harlequin evading the dogged pursuit of Clown and Pantaloon, though this is complicated by the ballet's racial politics.

The characters conform to mid-nineteenth-century racial stereotypes and did not attract comment at the time. When played at the Britannia Theatre Ki-Ki appeared on the same bill as a condensed one-act version of Obi; or, Three-Fingered Jack. This popular tale depicts the violent story of a vengeful escaped Black slave and demonstrates British societal fear of the Black race.Footnote ²⁵ In the Lauris’ ballet the only function of the Black slave, played in blackface, is to demonstrate the bloodthirstiness of the Native American chief. In contrast the presentation of the inhumane behavior of the “Indian” character fits the paradigm described by Zakiyyah Iman Jackson in Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World. She argues that in Western society “antiblackness has sought to justify its defacing logics and arithmetic by suggesting that black people are most representative of the abject animalistic dimensions of humanity, or the beast.’Footnote ²⁶ Ironically, it is the actual beast, the monkey, who becomes the savior of the whites, putting an end to the challenge of the other races.

More information about the ballet comes from a court case at Hull in 1868, when the lessee of the Queen's Theatre accused the Alhambra Music Hall of illegally staging plays. This was part of the ongoing dispute between theatres and music halls over the nature of productions, the arguments for which had been extensively addressed in the 1866 Parliamentary Select Committee on Theatrical Licensing.Footnote ²⁷ At issue was whether Ki-Ki was a dramatic play, which would have been prohibited in the music hall. Various witnesses testified at the police court. All verified the audience's amusement, but they provided conflicting understanding of performance terminology, especially in relation to the ballet d'action, a form of dance developed in the eighteenth century. Characterized by Edward Nye as “danced drama rather than dramatic dance,” its primary function was to deliver a narrative through mimed gesture and movement.Footnote ²⁸ One witness concluded:

Yet a journalist from the local Hull Independent argued:

Speaking for the defense, Edward Lauri denied there was any plot, claiming:

The charge against the management was upheld on the grounds that the legal distinction between types of venue must be guarded. Two years later Lauri again defended his livelihood, writing to the Era to protest about theatre managers trying to stop comic ballets at the music halls. Acknowledging that in his latest ballet, Puss Puss, he and McCormack “speak a few words on the topics of the day,” he justifies this on the grounds that it is “the same as Nigger performers and duettists.”Footnote ³² He argues it is an unreasonable restriction of trade since comic ballet companies cannot survive just on Christmas engagements in the theatres. The association with the illegitimate that such cases highlight is one reason why this type of entertainment has received relatively little attention. Additionally, because there was no scripted dialogue, the pieces did not need to be licensed when played in theatres; hence the lack of documentation in the Lord Chamberlain's manuscript collection and the difficulty of reimagining the ballet. The same is true of many pantomime harlequinades, evidence for which survives in reviews only.

Ki-Ki is germane to my argument as it proves how the pantomimic skills established in Grimaldi's time continue across the decades through the comic ballets performed in both theatres and music halls, and eventually migrate into early film.Footnote ³³ Significantly, as John O'Brien identifies, “Pantomime exploited all the material resources that playhouses had to offer in order to create a kind of fantastic world where the usual rules of cause-and-effect did not apply.”Footnote ³⁴ Mayer's description of the role of Harlequin (the transformed male lover of the pantomime opening) elucidates this illusory quality:

The feats of the monkey in Ki-Ki clearly follow the same format.

Trap Work

A fully functioning, large theatre such as the Britannia would have a stage incorporating a variety of traps, each of which enabled performers and/or objects to appear or disappear through the floor or walls. The contrivances generally included relatively simple covered openings in the stage floor, such as the grave trap, most commonly used in the graveyard scene in Hamlet, through which the performer would fall onto a padded surface below. More complex arrangements relied on stagehands operating pulleys and counterweights to facilitate use of the vampire (or dive) trap, the star trap, and the slow rise and sink traps.Footnote ³⁶ The vampire trap differs from the grave trap as it has two hinged panels running lengthwise. When the performer lies on these, his weight causes them to pivot downward and his body to roll beneath the stage floor. The panels return to their previous position, creating a flat surface. Other devices were built into seemingly impermeable vertical surfaces, including falling flaps, pivot traps, and the diaphragm trap (used to hold the performer's body so that it seems trapped in the scenery). Mayer explains the working of the falling flap:

In time the simple canvas flap was “superseded by framed fabric or light wood flaps fitted with spring hinges which allowed an acrobat or act to pass through in either direction, then instantly return to their original position.”Footnote ³⁸ Pivot traps could be pivoted horizontally or vertically. Horizontal pivots (also known as the turnover table) flipped the performer over and out of sight when he leapt onto it. Vertical pivots operated as a revolving door, allowing two performers to appear and disappear consecutively. Not all of these types of trap and flap would be available in music halls and smaller establishments, so performances were tailored to the facilities. Hence, in 1865 the Lauris’ Dundreary entertainment was advertised as playable in music halls “with or without Scenery,” indicating the adaptability of the family's productions.Footnote ³⁹

Specialist trap performers advertised their skills in terms of the number of executions in the fastest time and the height of the jump achieved when propelled through a star trap. Hence in 1873 the feats of George Conquest (1837–1901), the well-known manager of the Grecian Theatre in London and an exceptional exponent of acrobatic pantomime skills, were trumpeted when he and his son were starring in Nix, The Demon Dwarf; or, Harlequin the Seven Charmed Bullets; or, The Fiend, the Fairy, and Will o’ the Wisp:

These stunts occurred in the scene after Nix, the dwarf (played by Conquest), is shot with the magic bullets, transforming him into a fiend, who, according to a review,

The cumulative effect of the stunts and their rapid execution dazzles the audience. Similarly, in 1884 Charles Lauri Junior (1860–1902) would boast of performing forty-five traps in three minutes during the demon scene of La Poule aux Oeufs d'Or.Footnote ⁴²

Evidently working with mechanical traps depended on precision on the part of the performers and also the backstage (or more accurately, under stage) team of carpenters and workers, but carried huge risk. Accidents and injuries were frequent. George Wieland (1810–47), a pantomimist of an earlier generation, suffered a serious injury to his kneecap at the Royal English Opera in 1838 when a stage carpenter erroneously left open a trap through which Wieland had just ascended above stage level.Footnote ⁴³ A. E. Wilson alleges that stagehands would reliably catch performers when they leapt through flaps only if they had been given “beer money.”Footnote ⁴⁴ During the run of the pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Bolton in 1880 Harlequin, Clown, and another character were severely injured when a rope associated with the vampire trap broke, causing them to fall 18–20 ft. into the “well” beneath.Footnote ⁴⁵ The more acrobatic the performer the more jeopardy, as is evident from George Conquest's correspondence with Percy Fitzgerald:

Conquest alleged the incident in New York was the result of “foul play” and the fracture of his leg so severe that he was advised to have the limb amputated (he wisely refused).Footnote ⁴⁷

The star trap was especially dangerous, with the flanged, triangular pieces of wood making up the star shape that opened as the performer's head struck it from underneath presenting a potential cutting or piercing hazard.Footnote ⁴⁸ In 1929 Wallace Lupino, another pantomime specialist, sustained a broken leg and finger using such a device. He identifies other dangers when using the star trap:

Monkey Business

The use of traps is just one of the ways in which Ki-Ki reproduces elements of pantomime tradition in the form of a stand-alone comic ballet. The fact that this continuation is transmitted via a performing family should come as no surprise. As Bratton shows, genealogy was central to the profession, the “inherited magic” and, often repertoire, passing between generations as dynamic theatrical apprenticeships.Footnote ⁵⁰ Joseph Roach argues that “[p]erformance genealogies” (though not necessarily through bloodlines) “draw on the idea of expressive movements as mnemonic reserves, including patterned movements made and remembered by bodies.”Footnote ⁵¹ The Lauris exemplify such transmission of past performance via corporeal knowledge.

There is a second lineage evident in this particular case. The Hull court testimonies sought to distance Lauri's entertainment from Jack Robinson and His Monkey, one of several monkey dramas popularized in the 1820s, including Jocko (1825), in which the primate rescues a drowning child.Footnote ⁵² The tradition continued across the nineteenth century.Footnote ⁵³ Bernard Ince claims that the appearance of monkey roles in pantomimes peaked in the 1880s.Footnote ⁵⁴ Of particular note in the final decades of the century were the simian performances of George Conquest and Charles Lauri Junior, Edward Lauri's cousin, who made his name as a pantomimist and animal impersonator.Footnote ⁵⁵ In October 1891 at the Alhambra he introduced a new comic ballet, entitled The Sioux. Set in the American West, it features a settler, his son, young daughter, Black slave, and a monkey named Chadi, played by Lauri (Fig. 1).Footnote ⁵⁶ The homestead is attacked by Sioux Indians, who perform a war dance. The day is saved by the ever-resourceful animal, who entertains with amusing antics yet outwits and overcomes the attackers, in the process sustaining a fatal injury. Just as in Ki-Ki, the monkey thus follows in the tradition of Jacko and conforms to what Ince describes as “the ‘good monkey,’ who although a liminal creature is nevertheless the antithesis of the mutant savage Other prone to violence.”Footnote ⁵⁷

Figure 1.

Scene from The Sioux (though not named as such) with Charles Lauri Junior as Chadi the monkey, as printed in the Strand Magazine (10.60 [1895]: 785), from a photo by Alfred Ellis. Author's collection.

The Sioux relied upon the performer's agility (Lauri's rope-climbing is especially praised) and a range of stage mechanics, as attested by the Era's critic: “There is much leaping through windows, and many strange disappearances through trick boxes and sacks.”Footnote ⁵⁸

Although some of the plot details of The Sioux differ, the thirty-minute ballet is remarkably similar to Ki-Ki. This description in the Sporting Life's review could easily refer to the earlier piece: “The Sioux chief and the nigger chase the monkey over barrels, dust-bins, pigeon-cotes, and beehives, but never succeed in catching him.”Footnote ⁵⁹ Yet Lauri never acknowledges the legacy, even though he must have been familiar with it.Footnote ⁶⁰ Indeed, Edward “Ted” Lauri (aka “The Little Lump of Fun”) and his son were performing Ki-Ki at the South London music hall in June 1891, a few months before The Sioux was first staged.Footnote ⁶¹ In an interview with Harry How in the Strand Magazine Charles Lauri refers to his love of animals and study at the zoo, but omits mention of his family or their theatrical tradition.Footnote ⁶²

The Sioux built upon various elements of performance in Lauri's work in Paris during the previous decade. With his father, Charles, he performed in the Lauri-Lauris company producing pantomime anglaise, initially at the Folies Bergère in 1883 before lengthy engagements at the Théâtre du Châtelet and the Eden Theatre and a tour through France, Belgium, and Holland, returning to England in December 1884.Footnote ⁶³ In Trucs et Décors, an invaluable book explaining the mechanics of the stage, Georges Moynet explains that French féerie (the nearest equivalent to British pantomime) does not use traps as liberally as pantomime because of the different skill sets of the performers from across the Channel. He argues the French are vocal experts, specializing in opera and comedy, and have scant training in risky tricks.Footnote ⁶⁴ Novelty thus explains the popularity of the Lauri-Lauris’ act in Europe, like that of the acrobatic Hanlon-Lees in Le Voyage en Suisse, which preceded their visit to Paris.Footnote ⁶⁵ The extent to which the Lauri-Lauris’ performance depended upon trap work is evident from the fact that they boasted that in a fortnight from 22 September 1884 they executed 2,475 traps in La Poule aux Oeufs d'Or (subsequently performed in England as The Hen with the Golden Eggs).Footnote ⁶⁶ Illustrations in a French periodical (Fig. 2) in September 1883 depicting the monkey chase at the Théâtre du Châtelet provide visual evidence for the use of wall and floor flaps and traps.

Figure 2.

The Lauri-Lauris in the monkey chase in Peau d'Ane. Drawings by Henry Gerbault, engraved by Jules Michelet, La Vie Moderne, 15 September 1883. Author's collection.

As part of the entertainment in Peau d'Ane at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Lauri Junior caused gasps of excitement by fearlessly running around the tiers of the auditorium, as described in Le Monde Illustré (Fig. 3):

Figure 3.

Charles Lauri Junior in Peau d'Ane. Detail of drawing by Adrien Marie, Le Monde Illustré, 4 August 1883. Author's collection.

Although the Parisian spectators reacted to his action as a novelty, it was not the first time it had been performed. Monsieur Gouffe, “The Man-Monkey,” had entertained with a similar act of daring in the 1820s, and Lauri previously accomplished an identical feat in 1882–3 in the Drury Lane pantomime.Footnote ⁶⁸ A drawing in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News in February 1883 shows “Charles Lauri Jun. among the ‘foundlings’ (Grand Circle)” performing what Punch describes as the “acrobatic hit of the piece.”Footnote ⁶⁹ Acting as a poodle in Sindbad, he

Such antics demonstrate the recycling or ghosting of material in different venues and showcase Lauri's courage and acrobatic balance. Despite the fact that the feats have been well drilled, this type of theatrical repetition is powerful because, as Tzachi Zamir argues, it is “process-oriented.” The audience witness “the action of living afresh the enacted sequence of events.”Footnote ⁷¹ For each new generation, the excitement is rekindled because of the perceived risk.

Another element of performance that can be traced across the disparate performances relates to dismemberment. In the traditional harlequinade the Clown committed various acts of bodily violence. Since, as Andrew Halliday affirmed in 1863, “Pantomime has the power of giving a comic aspect to everything,”Footnote ⁷² the usual moral framework is not applied to Clown's actions:

As part of the fun of the harlequinade, heads, in particular, are often separated from the owners’ bodies. The decapitating of the Black character by the “Indian” in Ki-Ki is notably different, being associated with terror of the bloodthirsty Other, but the monkey's loss of his tail is treated lightly. Again, there is an interesting development in the Lauri-Lauris’ Parisian entertainments. A letter printed in Le Temps describes the writer's reaction to their appearance in Peau d'Ane:

The spectator had first praised Lauri's performance as being “plus singe qu'un singe lui-même” (more monkeylike than a monkey), but the realism clearly had limits. Other critics reacted more favorably.Footnote ⁷⁵ The Paris correspondent for the Era, for example, comments on the ingeniousness of the monkey chase, noting with approval that “after being chopped into mincemeat, he springs three or four yards into the air, more alive and lively than ever.”Footnote ⁷⁶

A similar, though less macabre, incident appears in Lauri's contribution to the 1891–2 Christmas pantomime at Drury Lane, Humpty Dumpty; or, Harlequin the Yellow Dwarf and the Fair One with the Locks, this time involving a policeman. (As a representative of law and order, the police officer was a staple butt of Clown's malice in the harlequinade.)Footnote ⁷⁷ The entertainment featured a double harlequinade, the first set in a railway station and starring Harry Payne as a traditional, “Good Old Style” pantomime Clown; in the second, entitled “The High Level; or, London by Night,” Lauri fils led members of his company as “Fin de Siècle Clown.” Some reviews suggest the piece was a renaming of On the Roofs, which the Lauri-Lauris had played in Paris, then brought to London and advertised in the Era Almanack for 1889 (Fig. 4).Footnote ⁷⁸ Unlike in Payne's harlequinade, all the action was carried out without dialogue. As part of the act, the policeman is seemingly blown up with dynamite, after which Lauri and his accomplice collect his body parts and reassemble him, which ends with the reanimated officer apprehending them. A contemporary illustration reveals that the box of dynamite on which the policeman stands is a trick box or trap (Fig. 5). How the switch back from dummy to live performer is achieved is less obvious.

Figure 4.

Advertisement for Charles Lauri Junior's pantomime company, Era Almanack 1889. Author's collection.

Figure 5.

Drury Lane harlequinade featuring Charles Lauri. Drawings by Phil May, engraved by C. Hentschel, Illustrated London News, 2 January 1892. Author's collection.

For all these acts timing and precision were essential, both for the effectiveness of the scene and the safety of the performers. Working in a family group had the advantage, when executing potentially dangerous tricks, that the members were familiar with each other's routines and alert to any variation or potential problem. An interesting light is thrown on the professional relationship of the then–father and son Lauri team by an article in Le Maitre Français as translated in an extended advertisement in the Era in 1884. The 24-year-old son is described as “the real star of the company,” with his father “only playing second fiddle.”Footnote ⁷⁹ After a lengthy and not altogether flattering description of his physique (slight body, big hands, ugly face, and prominent teeth), attention turns to the young man's extraordinary abilities. He is said to have had little gymnasium training, but instead simply decides whether he can do a feat after hearing the manager or author suggest it. The writer asserts: “Yesterday he had rehearsed only twice the stupendous jumps which he accomplished.”Footnote ⁸⁰ While such statements may enhance the prestige of the performer, they underplay the value of the apprenticeship model operated by families such as the Lauris, in which skills and techniques are absorbed over time even if not explicitly taught. Although Charles Lauri Junior died in 1903, the family's theatrical associations continued through his widow, Francesca Zanfretta (who had been part of the Lauri-Lauris company); his cousin Edward Lauri (son of Edward “Ted” Lauri, who was responsible for Ki-Ki), whose theatrical work extended to Australia and New Zealand; and through some of the new generation.Footnote ⁸¹ The inheritance was not unusual among troupes specializing in pantomime skills. Another famous family, the Lupinos, were still working in this area at the end of the nineteenth century, and it is via the skill of one of them that we can witness the kind of trap work discussed above as captured on celluloid. This adoption for a new medium should not be surprising: as Jeffrey Richards notes, “the knockabout routines of the harlequinade [. . . with] their essentially wordless action [were] ideally suited to the needs of silent cinema.”Footnote ⁸²

Traps on Film

(Henry) Lupino Lane (1892–1959), known by the nickname “Nipper,” also began his stage career as a child and followed several generations of performers known particularly for their association with the Britannia Theatre's pantomime. Their engagements occasionally intersected with that of the Lauris. For example, in the 1891–2 Drury Lane Humpty Dumpty, in which Charles Lauri Junior played the Fin de Siècle Clown (see above), George Lupino (uncle to Lupino Lane) featured as Twirley Whirley. He was well known for his trap work and acrobatic skills.Footnote ⁸³ His nephew carried on the tradition—against the advice of both his father and uncle.Footnote ⁸⁴ In a 1957 interview for the BBC radio program Desert Island Discs, Lupino Lane explained why trap work had become a lost art due to the configuration of modern stages. He also confirmed he held the record for executing the most traps, being sixty-three traps in six minutes, completed at the London Hippodrome.Footnote ⁸⁵ In fact, this underestimates his achievement, since the program and review for Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp at the Hippodrome in 1920 claim it was seventy-four traps in six minutes in the scene entitled “The Great Wall of Pekin.”Footnote ⁸⁶ In addition to his stage work, Lane also enjoyed a successful career in British and Hollywood comic films. In 1929 he directed and starred in a silent, two-reel black and white film entitled Joyland, which was released by Education Film Exchanges. Newspaper accounts of the bills offered at the cinema gave favorable, though brief, mention, probably because of the volume of films being released at the time.Footnote ⁸⁷ It was distributed in the same year that Lane starred in his first all-talking comedy, Buying a Gun. Joyland enables us to witness some of the skill involved in working with traps.Footnote ⁸⁸

Joyland tells the story of an apprentice (Lane) in a toy shop owned by an officious boss (played by his brother, Wallace Lupino). The film begins with a series of slapstick scenes between the employer and his hapless worker, and then with a female customer and her mischievous son. The boss demands Lane clean up the mess after closing time. At this point, Lane falls asleep and has a dream in which a witch casts a spell transporting him into a full-size living version of the shop's toy castle (labeled “TOY-LAND”). There he encounters dolls, a model soldier, a medieval knight on horseback, and other toys. The section of interest to this paper comes from the second reel, lasts a little over four minutes, and features a classic chase scene, familiar from pantomime, which I describe in detail in order to highlight the use of traps. Because of the roots of the routine in theatrical entertainment, I use the terminology stage left and stage right rather than as the locations appear onscreen.

After two encounters with a couple of frightening jack-in-a-box figures (reminiscent of the traditional “big heads” used in pantomime), Lane is positioned in front of an interior courtyard in the castle with battlement walls behind him. Four lions appear from openings on the first level of the central battlement walls, point at Lane, and jump down to the ground. As they do so, Lane disappears through a vampire trap in the floor (clearly visible at one point), then up through a star trap (the tongues of which are briefly seen). His leap is not particularly high, and he lands on the floor beside the lions. As they move toward him he somersaults over one and lands on the floor above the vampire trap, rolls backward, and runs away. He jumps onto the first level of the battlements stage right and disappears through a hidden hinged opening in the wall, exits through an adjacent one before disappearing through a third, all while pursued by lions. As they follow he enters via a side opening, then exits through the back wall. There then follows a chase with lions and Lane disappearing and reappearing through various openings. One of these requires Lane to jump through a side wall. At each point when it looks as if he might be caught, he slips through yet another flap. It is noticeable that while the lions use the larger lower openings, initially the higher leap flaps are accessed by Lane only. He then takes a slide down to the stage, somersaulting at the end and arriving at the same time as two of his pursuers. He escapes through a second vampire trap on the forestage. The lions dive onto the same space but are foiled as the trap has already closed. Meanwhile Lane appears through a second star trap. After landing from his jump, he leaps through a flap in the back wall at head height. Both lions follow him. As the feet of the second disappears, Lane enters directly beneath him, somersaulting out. A dog appears by a flap in the wall. Lane exits through yet another flap, the dog takes one beneath, and, seemingly almost immediately, Lane somersaults out of the same one the dog has just used. As the dog pursues him, the same sequence is repeated in the opposite wall. This time the movement concludes with Lane using a diaphragm trap (where what appears to be a solid wall contains an elongated vertical slit that closes around the performer), through which he then sticks out his head only. The dog fails to spot him and leaves—then returns and leaves again. On its next return, Lane comes out of his hideout and kicks the dog in the rear. It leaps up as he leaves via the same diaphragm. Once the dog exits, Lane reappears and gingerly looks for his pursuers. The dog, meanwhile, enters behind him. Comic business follows as the dog shadows Lane while Lane is looking for him. Finally, Lane turns, sees him, tries but fails to exit through a flap, and recoils to the floor. Man and dog stagger around (the latter now standing on two feet). During this scene the outline of a flap in the gateway at the back of the set is clearly visible. The four lions enter from the upper level, but are not quick enough to catch Lane or the dog, who exit via opposite sides. The next shot sees Lane jumping onto the higher-level stage right and through the upper flap. Two of the lions enter through the openings below him and mistakenly grasp each other. They shake fists in desperation. As they stand facing away from each other, Lane appears via the lower entrance and kicks one on the backside before quickly exiting. The lion, believing the culprit to be his partner, kicks him. Lane reappears, kicks the second lion and exits through the same flap. The second lion kicks the first lion in retaliation. This time as Lane enters through the flap he is seized by the two lions. One knocks him out. They lift him onto a lower ledge, but as they congratulate themselves he sinks through a vampire trap, then out through a flap on the side below. He rolls away as they jump down, somersaults through a different flap, and tries to exit through a third. His legs, however, appear to become stuck. A new frame then shows Lane's head looking through the diaphragm opening at the legs (substituted by another player in this tighter shot). Lane knocks the legs through and fully enters the stage. Two of the lions recapture him and stand him against the back wall, stage left of the gateway, which turns out to be another pivot flap (Lane refers to this type of arrangement as a “turnover table”) through which he exits.Footnote ⁸⁹ The lions run off in search of Lane as he tumbles through the flap in the central gateway. At this point the dog appears from the flap stage right and tries to chase Lane up the slide. Five times as the dog nears the top, Lane hits him with with his hat, causing the dog to slide back down. After a failed fifth attempt the dog gives up. The chase then resumes with the lions, again through three flaps on the upper level, but now on the left side. Two of the lions end up being knocked down the slide. The action then moves to the middle section, where a revolving pivot (termed a “turnaround door” by Lane) provides amusement as Lane and the lions use it in turn, until after twelve revolutions one of the lions becomes dizzy. As the lions stagger back through the side openings, Lane appears once more in the center, followed by all four lions to his left and right (through four separate openings). Lane jumps down through a trap immediately above the castle gateway, the lions exit through the four openings, and Lane tumbles down through the flap in the gateway, finishing with another somersault. Other figures enter the scene, including a king, queen, the jack-in-a-boxes, lions, a model soldier, a witch, and dolls. They surround Lane, who is knocked to the floor. He runs out of the front of the shot. Cut to a new view of a wall with a painted backdrop of the castle behind. Lane climbs the wall, and a knight appears at the top waving his sword. The next shot depicts Lane falling through the air as if dropping from the wall—achieved by lowering him on ropes and/or by rolling the backcloth behind him. As he reaches the floor the image dissolves into him back in the toy shop, with the witch standing next to him. He looks up, registers the toy castle, and puts the doll back on the ledge. He stretches, yawns, sees the witch, and recoils before knocking her to the floor. By camera trickery she then is shown to be the boss, who gets up and remonstrates with his assistant. The scene fades away as Lane sinks to the ground. A title card proclaims, “The End.”

Analysis of this chase scene reveals the set has four distinct areas (Fig. 6): the forestage, on which there are two vampire traps and two star traps; upstage right, played on three levels with six flaps (three of which at a height that necessitates a leap to access) and a vampire trap; up center, on two levels with fifteen entrances/flaps (including six leap traps) plus one pivot trap, one turnaround door, and one vampire trap; and upstage left, on two levels with four entrances/flaps (one requiring a leap) and a slide. Complex choreography is needed to ensure that performers enter and leave at the correct moment, especially since substantial portions of the action appear to be filmed in one take. Only a performer skilled in this type of kinesthetic performance could achieve this.

Figure 6.

Author's sketch showing position of flaps (f), diaphragm trap (d), slide (s), star traps (st), vampire traps (v), and turnaround or pivot door/table (t) as used in Lupino Lane's Joyland.

Joyland is not, of course, the only silent film to make use of traps. In The High Sign (1921) Buster Keaton's character is ordered by a criminal gang to kill a man—a gang that does not realize he has also been employed by the intended victim to protect him.Footnote ⁹⁰ The domestic house in which the murder is to take place is fitted with floor traps, a turnaround door, several wall flaps, a pivot trap, and a diaphragm trap. It is interesting that the devices (with the exception of the diaphragm) are visually explained before their first use. Hence a workman is shown fixing a rug over a trap in the bedroom floor before an intertitle announces: “Now I've got a secret getaway in every room.” Similarly, the homeowner demonstrates the pivot trap and the floor trap in the living room to Keaton's character. We might speculate that the American movie audience would be unfamiliar with British pantomime and its traditions and so were being educated about the technology. Instead of the element of surprise at the presence of yet another flap in Joyland, spectators of The High Sign are offered the excitement of anticipation before the chase begins.

Returning to Lupino Lane's film, what is significant is that it provides evidence of the direct line back to the harlequinade of the early nineteenth century, carried on through new generations of the great pantomime families such as the Lupinos and the Lauris. Members of the former were unusual in still working with traps onstage as late as the 1930s. Harold Moxon, appearing in Aladdin at Theatre Royal, Leeds in 1938, claimed “he, Lupino Lane, Wallace Lupino and Barry Lupino are the only four Englishmen working to-day who could put on a proper trap act.”Footnote ⁹¹ He does not foresee any younger replacements. In due course health and safety requirements would make many of the tricks unfeasible in commercial premises.

The performance history examined in this article does not trace a simple linear progression, yet early cinema is, to use Carlson's terminology, “ghosted” by elements of the pantomime harlequinade and the dumb ballets. Just as the musical motifs that recur in a composition are recognizable as previously heard, the visual gags and complicated trap work demonstrated in these cinematic chase scenes seem new because of the novelty of the surrounding context. Culture is transmitted via the body, as mastery of the physical skills needed to perform the routines is primarily passed down through generations of theatrical families such as the Lauris and Lupinos. To enjoy the comedy of Lane's and Keaton's silent films cinema audiences need not have been conscious of the traditions from which the chase entertainments derived; for the cultural and theatre historian, however, they bring to mind Grimaldi's famous catchphrase of “Here We Are Again!”