The Trouble with Totos

With winter rapidly approaching we prepare once more for that annual celebration of joy and goodwill of sexual stereotypes and cross dressing… yes the Panto season is upon us. What has this to do with man’s best friend I hear you say? Well not a lot, unless, like us, you choose to put on a pantomime that features an animal, specifically of the canine variety, in a pivotal role. Now I don’t want to revive the argument of whether the stage is or is not the right place for our four-legged friends to strut their stuff: others can have that debate. Instead I simply wish to draw attention to some of the issues that may arise should your local community decide (in a moment of total abstraction) to stage a seasonal performance which necessitates the appearance of a dog.

Last summer our local drama-group committee debated over a couple of pints before coming up with the decision to stage a production of … the Wizard of Oz. Not everyone’s idea of a traditional of pantomime but a popular choice none the less. It is a seasonal favourite on the box and a few pantomime versions of the story do exist. The 1947 film is what everyone knows and everyone expects; and thereby lay our first problem. The pantomime version of the story is nothing like the film. The story line follows the same… yellow brick road and most of the main characters are still in there but there is a problem. What makes the film a perennial success and what people remember the most is the music. Unfortunately it is virtually impossible to use any of this familiar music in an amateur production-legally! MGM still have all the musical rights sewn up.

 Pantomime calls for certain traditional elements. A fantasy setting, thwarted young love, a quest, a comedy dame, a villain and good triumphing over evil. Some of the elements are there in “Oz” but others are distinctly absent. But what you have is a bonus in the starring role of Dorothy’s lovable doggie companion, Toto.

 The casting of the human stars was tricky enough with seemingly half the village female population competing for the role of Dorothy. We made a slight error in not stipulating a ‘preferred age range’ and we had one or two rather ‘Baby Jane’ types turning up for the auditions. Yet human auditions are a piece of cake compared to the pitfalls that dog auditions present any casting team.

First you assume most people come to an audition understanding why they are there, what they can and can’t do and wanting to perform. However, dogs are different. Unless they have trod the boards before most have no personal ambition to pursue and no audition technique. We weren’t sure how to conduct a dog audition so naturally we tried to conduct it the same way as we had for other cast members. Big mistake! None of the dogs in our village seemed to know how to perform. Walking in a straight line was a challenge most accomplished but sitting on command proved beyond the majority of our candidates. Some found the social nature of the audition experience just too much. A couple of them refused to stand up, let alone go onstage unless carried on by their owners. Others proved quite vocal, performing repetitive, monotonous monologues (that in no way resembled what was written in the script) the instant they espied the auditioning panel sat out front. Some were simply the wrong shape or size –perhaps a politically incorrect thing to say even in the dog world but in essence we needed a dog that could be carried and fitted comfortably into our wicker basket. One turned up that frankly would be pushed to fit into a basket hung beneath a hot air balloon. A boxer called Rudi, seemed very eager to perform but we should have spotted the clue in the name. He had a certain… habit that the panel felt could prove…show-stopping in the wrong sense of the word and quite unacceptable in front of any family audience.

 It is worth pointing out that some dog owners are like stage mothers. They are there for one reason only- to see all opposition vanquished and their own little angel achieve centre stage. We were lucky to encounter only one archetype of this phenomenon who, with her Pekinese, Cherub (it had to be a Pekinese of course!) directed proceedings whilst her “precious one” performed. And that was just the problem; Cherub didn’t perform. In fact she didn’t seem to do anything except pass wind when approached by any cast member. She would start with a low rumbling sound which would eventually emerge along with a short, high-pitched bark.

However, two candidates did stand out. They both had the usual perquisite number of limbs (they could walk under their own volition in a more or less straight line) and seemed to get on with strangers without needing to ‘nibble a sample’ first. One, Shelley, was a bright-eyed, black and white Jack Russell. She belonged to a cast member who had clearly spent some time coaching her for her stage debut. Shelley was young (just over 2 years old) keen and like her owner, very enthusiastic. Enthusiasm was unfortunately her downfall. She would run up excitedly everytime another character came on stage, following them around, wagging her tail and licking any dangling hand within reach-and the dog would do pretty much the same. No honestly Shelley was lovely but she was more a… Lady Gaga when we were really looking for a Little Nell.  And that’s what we got. Our second hopeful was a shiatsu called Nell. She was a little older than Shelley, four years old, again black with a white belt, but a little more demure. She was calm onstage and friendly with her fellow performers. She didn’t seem to need to ingratiate herself every time someone showed any interest in her. She was pretty cool and obliging each time our leading lady tried to pick her up after coaxing her with a rubber chew. In fact the only one person she didn’t hit it off was the panto dame.



Toto strikes back



Now Brian, a self-confessed cat owner, never mistreated Nell. It was just every time Brian bent down to attempt any close communication Nell would turn tail and run offstage. Whether it was something about Brian’s face that Nell didn’t like or the over-large bosom or the purple and yellow frills on his costume we were never quite sure; but Nell was having none of it.  Even the cackling witch with her warts and straggly hair didn’t draw such a negative reaction. Brian found the situation difficult to cope with and several times bemoaned the fact that despite being late with her entrances and having to be carried onstage a couple of times Nell always manage to get more applause than he did and she had never bothered to learn her lines. Nell, as Toto, was only in three scenes as during the rest of the performance her part was taken on by a girl in costume. She was significantly better at the singing and dancing than Nell but why she was dressed as a Dalmatian I was never too sure. It did cause a bit of confusion for at least one young member of the audience who was puzzled when the human Toto appeared in the walk-down a few seconds before Dorothy and Nell took their bows. We all heard her shout out, “Why are there two Totos, Mum?”



The Panto Walkdown



The walk-down at the end of the show often presents a challenge to directors getting all the cast onstage in order before the music ends. One walk-down was made more memorable than the rest when Nell chose to leave a small deposit onstage about a foot in from of the backdrop and just too far out of reach for the stage hands to get to. Fortunately the cast managed to negotiate the little pile so it was left to our Dame to nip on with the marigolds, dust pan and brush to do the clean up . Not too disastrous as it happened and it gave Brian probably the best line of the night “Look at that the dog does a whoopsie and still gets a laugh, if I did that I’d get the sack.”