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...to subvert social rules, to laugh at ourselves and to emerge renewed.

In this special section Performing Arts looks at masqueraders from coast to coast, beginning with the ancient custom of mummering, still practiced in Newfoundland.

ONCE UPON A CHRISTMASTIDE, A SMALL GROUP OF THE ATRICAL FRIENDS GATHERED AROUND A DOMESTIC HEARTH IN THE GEORGETOWN NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ST. John's for a reading of Dr. Faustus. As Marlowe's account of the doomed magus's downward spiral moved towards its relentless conclusion, there came a mighty knocking at the gate. Is this Faustus or the Scottish Play?

"Room, room, gallants, room." And in come the mummers, faces muffled and painted, outlandishly costumed in multicolored skirts, frock coats, long-johns, turned jackets, stuffed pants. Identity and gender obscured, the maskers stride in -- Father Christmas shouldering his club, King George with wooden sword, Turkish Knight brandishing scimitar, mountebank Doctor with little black bag, and skittish hobby-horse Old Ball, darting around, sniffing out badness from under his blanket, snapping wooden jaws lined with nails for teeth.

Welcome or welcome not, the mummers occupy parlour or kitchen, rearranging furniture, seizing pokers or pans as impromptu props, frightening the timid, challenging the bold,...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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