The Pantomime Dame wipes off his make-up
in an exaggerated style
and smiles broadly, but with a hint of exhaustion
disguised by heady amusement
in his sparkling brown eyes, at the saxophonist
who has played him in on stage and in time for forty nights,
excluding the supposed festive delight filled days,
on the run.
The saxophonist for his part only has eyes for the principal boy
who has been the hero
for many a confused child, who asks their mother,
but never their father,
that how come the boy looks the princess
who was in last year’s play.
The mother smiles, remembering of how she met her husband
as he donned a wig and ripped a seam or two
on garish purple tights as he played the fool
in a sixth form production of King Lear,
and just says to her questioning, quizzical child,
“Hush now, it’s just magic.”
The two halves of the cow have fallen each night,
as they fight it out back stage over control
of the udders, who gets to do the appropriate moo
a secondary concern, but in the morning,
when the wardrobe mistress bangs their heads together
for making one teat longer than the rest
as they pull back and forth
back, back and forth,
for the rest of the day and until five minutes
before curtain up
they curse the burly woman and plot between them
to sticks pins in an effigy doll.
The Director, wound up over missed cues and
the well paid balding, vanity driven
star who clashed badly with an usher
who didn’t recognise him from his time in many a sit-com
and who didn’t realise that the attendant had no time
to sit and flick between random channels
night after night
because he was in the theatre making ends meet,
sighed and thought long and hard
of whether it was too late to cash in her savings
and runaway to the circus or was she
doomed to forever to love every word that passed
out of the actor’s mouths.
The end of the run and no more places please,
the empty shout of “More” would now be unheeded
as would the unsold new ice-cream, a flavour so bizarre
that if it had come out of the cow on stage,
the Director would have happily shot it,
as well as whoever was working the wonky backside.
The Principal Boy, actually really a boy who has fooled
all in search for the perfect part, would never change
out of character, even if it meant undressing in a cupboard
full of slowly dying ice-cream and spare udders
that the wardrobe mistress kept
for good measure just in case the cow
finally disgraced itself and the name calling
and just off microphone rantings turned
into full scale conflict.
For forty nights and twice on Saturdays,
not counting the evening when the show was cancelled
as someone called out the Scottish Play by name
and the aging thespian playing the cad, the one to boo
and who secretly resented children because they
abused his position as a former legend of a now deceased era,
steadfastly refused to go on until the curse was broken;
That night, the two halves of the cow were seen
drinking double that amount in the pub next door,
every fifteen minutes until harmony reigned
and the clanking of the badly spray painted bell,
went on long into the ale driven and amorous night,
for thirty-nine nights the applause had been heard all over town.
The Pantomime Dame, now for at least another
nine months known as Cyril, despite the ribbing he was used
to after twenty years in flowery smocks
and blue wigs that had been donated
from the old people’s home in a side street whose
guests had outstayed their welcome,
breathed in the January air and saw a small child holding out
for a signature as his parents looked proudly on.
“You were ace mister”, he cries excitedly
and the old trooper smiles once more and signs his name
with more than the usual flourish.
“It must be great to be on the stage and have fun every night?”
and before he could utter a response fitting for the final night
and as the final vestige of life was switched off from inside the building,
the boy hugged him tightly and said,
“You are the best cow in the world, I love you.”
Ian D. Hall 2015