Sherwood High School student Sadie Short plays Dorothy in the Portland Panto Players production of The Wizard of Oz, Dec. 12, 2024.
Kristian Foden-Vencil / OPB
Some forms of live theater can be intimidating, with audience members encouraged to avoid coughing, talking or accidentally leaving their cell phone ringers on.
Pantomimes are the exact opposite. At a recent performance of the Portland Panto Players “Wizard of Oz,” the crowd was encouraged to shout at the actors.
“So for example, if I was to say: ‘Oh yes I did,’ you’d say: ‘Oh no you didn’t,” producer Jane Clark told the Mission Theater crowd at the start of this year’s show. She was dressed, at the time, as a flying monkey.
“If somebody was to say ‘umpah, umpah …”
The audience knew exactly what to shout back: “Stick it up your jumper!”
British pantomimes are a peculiar form of theatre involving slapstick, audience participation and double entendres. They usually revolve around a fairy tale or nursery rhyme and are often produced at Christmas with a lot of corny songs and grease paint.
This year’s Portland Panto Players show was put together by Clark, who originates from the Liverpool area, and her husband, Art Kohn, a retired psychology professor from Portland State University.
Eric Nepom plays Auntie Em in the Portland Panto Players production of The Wizard of Oz, which is heavy on audience participation, Dec. 12, 2024.
Kristian Foden-Vencil / OPB
“They’re everywhere in England. Everybody’s doing a panto,” he said. “And we got to watching it and said: ‘Gosh, I wonder whether the Portland audiences might enjoy this kind of entertainment?’”
That was back in 2018. Kohn loves the fact that instead of performing for an audience, panto actors perform with an audience. The closest American equivalent, he said, is “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
“The audience knows it’s a formulaic performance,” he said. “The audience learns traditional call backs to the cast. The cast says something and the audience knows exactly what to say back.”
This version of the Wizard of Oz is irreverent and meant for both adults and children, though some of the jokes get risqué. The Tin Man, played by Ken Reigle, gets to sing about his “ding-a-ling.”
“When I was a little bitty boy, the tinsmith gave me a cute little toy,” he sang, to big laughs. “Silver bells hanging on a string. He told me it was my ding-a-ling. Oh my ding-a-ling! My ding-a-ling ….”
The audience picked the tune right up: “I want you to play with my ding-a ling.”
Kohn and Clark have a rule for jokes. If a joke can be heard in two ways – clean to children and perhaps a little dirty to adults – it stays in.
A big number in the Portland Panto Players' holiday show of The Wizard of Oz, Dec. 12, 2024.
Kristian Foden-Vencil / OPB
“One of the things we tell people is to loosen your sphincter,” Kohn said. “Because we try to offend everyone equally. We want everyone to be able to come to our shows and just relax and laugh.”
The Portland Panto Players have moved to bigger venues each year and sold out. But Kohn said that this year they’re going back to their roots.
“Last year we performed at a large theater, a 500-seat house. Lots of lights, lots of curtains, it was beautiful. And our audiences respected the house and were well behaved,” he said. “And it wasn’t nearly as much fun.”
This year, they’re performing at the 300-seat Mission Theater in northwest Portland. It’s a little rougher around the edges compared to their last venue, but seems to give audiences more freedom to act out. And in exchange for seating fewer people, the troupe is running more nights.
The 11 shows are almost sold out but run until Dec. 22.
