Charades

Source: What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games And Pastimes
Category: THINKING, GUESSING, AND ACTING GAMES



"Charades" can be written in advance and carefully rehearsed, but in
this book we are concerned more nearly with those that are arranged a
few minutes (the fewer the better) before they are performed. As a
rule a word of two or three syllables is chosen, the syllables are
first acted, then the whole word, and then the audience guess what it
was. Sometimes the word is brought in, both in its complete form and
in its syllables; and sometimes--and this is perhaps the better
way--it is acted. Thus, if the word were "Treason," one way would be
to make the acts themselves anything that occurred to you, merely
saying "Tree" with some distinctness in the first; "Son" or "Sun" in
the second; and "Treason" in the third. The other and more interesting
way would be to make the first act relate to tree-felling or tree
planting, or, say, a performance by Mr. Tree; the second to a son or
the sun; and the third to some treasonable situation, such as, for
example, the Gunpowder Plot. On account of the time which is occupied
in preparing and acting it is better to choose two-syllabled
words--which, with the whole word, make three scenes--than three- or
four-syllabled ones; although there are certain four-syllabled words
which split naturally into two halves of two syllables each.
"Parsimony," for example, could be performed: Parsee, money,
parsimony. As a general rule the charades that are arranged during the
evening are better performed in dumb show, with plenty of action, than
with any talking at all. Under the circumstances gestures are so much
easier than words and not any less amusing.


Next: Dumb Performances

Previous: The Dancing Dwarf

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