The Fairy's Dilemma - Analysis

Analysis

Gilbert had always been fascinated by pantomime, particularly the harlequinade that concluded every pantomime in the early and mid-Victorian era. When Gilbert was growing up, the harlequinade was an extremely popular part of the Christmas pantomimes that were produced at most of the major theatres in London. Gilbert admired the elegant dancing part of the Harlequin and in 1879 played this character in a pantomime that he co-authored, The Forty Thieves. Many of Gilbert's Bab Ballads, stories and other works, especially in the 1860s, reflect his interest in the harlequinade and his ideas about the moral issues that it presented, particularly in connection with the cruel character of Clown.

After writing and thinking about the harlequinade for half a century, and like some of Gilbert's earlier works, The Fairy's Dilemma "sets pantomime fantasy alongside modern everyday life... a harlequinade parodied and subverted." As The Observer noted in their opening night review of the piece, Gilbert turns inside out, as no other dramatist could do as well, conventional Christmas pantomimes, "with their good fairies and wicked demons supernaturally influencing the destinies of unnatural lovers.... Mr. Gilbert makes the goodness of the Fairy Rosebud as perfunctory as the wickedness of the Demon Alcohol; and it is she who, with a view to her own professional advancement, invents for the Demon the malignant plot". Further, in a parody of the melodramatic conventions of the Victorian era, the bad baronet is not bad, the innocent damsel is not innocent, and the stern judge delights in entertaining his court. When the judge turns into Pantaloon, he exclaims, "it's not as great a change as I should have supposed!" As with Gilbert's typical comedies, the joke "depends for much of its point upon the grave unconsciousness of its interpreters".

According to scholar Andrew Crowther, the play explores two ideas that are an important part of many of Gilbert's stage works, including the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas. "One is that stage romance and fantasy should be brought down to earth with reminders of prosaic reality. The other is that real life should take on some of the romance and fantasy of the stage." Crowther notes that in the play, the "supernatural" fairy and demon speak in a more natural manner than the mortals, who Gilbert calls "unnaturals". The play shows the tension between Gilbert's love of the harlequinade and his disapproval of the morality that it portrays. After a lifetime of fascination with the subject, the play resolves Gilbert's deep interest in the subject. According to Crowther, in many ways, the play was the capstone of Gilbert's career. He would write no more full-length plays and only one further opera (Fallen Fairies).