Imagine if you will Ron Deathantics or Margerine Traitor-Green going to a children’s show to see a woman dressed as a man romancing another woman, an outrageous drag act and at least one person dressed as a “furry”. Now imagine that the ticket sales from a successfull such show mean the theatre is on a sound financial footing for the rest of the year. Welcome to the world of the British pantomime and why we find Ron and Marge’s hysterical reaction to “Drag Story Time” so, well, hysterical.
I am going to start with travesti performances as these perhaps have the longest history along with “furries” in plays. If you went to the theatre in Shakespeare’s time, all of the female roles would have been played by travesti performers — men dressed as women — for the simple reason women actors were banned. While we are with the Bard, what else is Bottom in A Midsummer’s Night Dream" being given an ass’s head but "furry” play?
There’s a very grey dividing line between travesti and drag. The difference is one of the audience’s “suspension of disbelief" while they are fully aware that cross-dressing is going on. So in travesti, the actor is playing the part of someone of different gender whereas in drag the essence is that the performer is dressed as someone of a different gender, often in a hyper-exaggerated way.
Travesti “character” performances are frequently based on observational comedy. Perhaps the best current example is Brendan O’Carroll’s Dublin street trader “Agnes Brown” in the RTE/BBC show “Mrs Brown’s Boys”. The cast includes Brendan’s wife, sister, daughter, son, daughter-in-law and occasionally grandson. The show is notable for its occasional destruction of the “fourth wall” so the process, including fluffed lines and corpsing. One such included Brendan’s grandson responding to Agnes’s question with “Yes, Grandad”.
These sort of travesti performances have a long history dating back to the music halls in the 19th century but the development of tape recorders hastened the division between observational comedy and the glamorous drag queens we see today. Tapes enabled (shall we say) the less talented to mime to popular songs of the day. Marlene (surely the “Dietrich” is superfluous) or Lisa Minelli as Sally Bowles from “Cabaret” were staples on this circuit as were Shirley Bassey. I would separate these from the other drag acts. Some were outright glam like Danny La Rue but an example of glam dressed observation comics was the late great Mrs Shufflewick played by Rex Jameson. His career started in WWII and he mentored LaRue. Unfortunately there is little of his work recorded. This was taped around a year before his death when his alcoholism has blunted his performance but not his ascerbic wit.
Whereas Mrs Shufflewick started as a cockney charlady (cleaner/cook), La Rue was outright glam
and, more importantly was a pretty good singer in his own right. He separated his act from pure travesti by interjecting comments in his deep male voice.
In the 1970s and 80s “Cissie and Ada” were a regular double act in Les Dawson’s sketch shows on TV. Rather than cockney charwomen, these drew from Dawson’s observations of Lancashire mill workers with frequent resort to exaggerated lip movements which were required to allow lip reading in the extremely noisy environment. In perhaps a nod to Jameson, Ada’s surname was Shufflebotham. The act was also a homage to an earlier travesti film actor in the “Over the Garden Wall” movie.
While I have given a number of examples of male travesti performers, in traditional pantomime, the travesti part is usually the “Principal boy” being played by a woman. Pantos are usually based on traditional children’s tales or stories. So, for example, Peter Pan is often played by a woman. Drag is more related to another main character in all pantos, the “Dame”. This is usually a minor character in terms of the plot but an essential part of the entertainment who probably appears in more scenes than any other.
It may be easier to understand the casting if we look at a traditional panto that for once is (very loosely) based on a historic figure, Richard Whittington. He was a 14th century cloth merchant who was four times the Lord Mayor of London. He was also a benefactor and left a bequests for the benefit of the poor. Like many folk tales, his story has later unhistoric additions. Notably, he was supposed to be almost giving up travelling to London to make his fortune, accompanied by his cat and on Highgate Hill he heard the bells of the churches ringing to say “turn again Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor” (he was elected 3 times and appointed for the 4th term). In the folf tale he takes his cat with him on his travels. The cat rids a foreign potentate of rats, Dick is rewarded and returns home to marry his love, the daughter of the trader he stayed with before his journey.
So in the panto, “Dick” is often played by a woman as travesti part. The dame is usually the trader’s cook, giving plenty of opportunity for slapstick in the kitchen. The role demands a different, often increasingly outrageous, drag costume for each scene. This panto also calls for an actor to play the cat, King or Queen Rat (the baddie) and various children’s parts as “ratlings”. Travesti, drag and people dressed as animals. You can hear the rattle of Ron and Marge’s pearls being clutched now.
The generic cast is usually rounded out by a male character, often a servant, who acts as a friend to the principle girl and provides the straight part in the comedy or slapstick scenes although is often depicted as dim or lazy. The dame often leads the singing of comedy songs or interacts with the audience during scene changes.
To a large extent, the cast types do not vary much between pantos. So in Aladdin, he is one son of the washerwoman dame, Widow Twanky and his brother, Wishy Washy. has the young male comedy lead. Panto performances are usually at Christmas and for a period after and being taken to one is a rite of passage for most British children. The appeal is not just for children, what might be taken a extremely rude double entendres are there for the adults.
I hope it goes without saying on here that no inference about their sexuality can be drawn from someone being a travesti, drag or “furry” performer. Living as someone of the opposite sex may be a requirement of transitioning and obtaining a gender re-assignment therapy but the reverse is not true. Someone may find pleasure or comfort in alternative dressing but they have no intention of transitioning. Some drag performers may be earning to pay for transitioning but outside of performing most adopt rather more conventional dress. To give an idea of how little the British are worrie about drag, Lily Savage was a regular on the main commercial channel’s breakfast show in the 90s (yes the time stamp is a.m.)
Paul O’Grady eventually hung up Lily’s wig and today has a popular show about rescue dogs.
Wiki:
Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society….
When these ignorant “politicians” stick their noses into other people’s bedrooms or underpants, call them what they are.