Buttons (pantomime) for the pantomime at this time. 'Buttons' was at that time a name for a young male servant or pageboy commonly having gilt buttons down the front of his jacket. While the character introduces a note of pathos in his unrequited love for Cinderella it is often played as a comic role. Buttons (pantomime) Buttons is the name of a character in the "Cinderella" pantomime, a male servant of the household who helps Cinderella and loves her, and who is liked and trusted but not loved by her. The character has sometimes been called Pedro. Buttons does not appear in
Pantomime and its practitioners were usually slaves or freedmen. Because of the low status and the disappearance of its "libretti", the Roman pantomime received little modern scholarly attention until the late 20th century, despite its great influence upon Roman culture as perceived in Roman art, in statues of famous dancers, graffiti, objects and literature. After the renaissance of classical culture, Roman pantomime was a decisive influence upon modern European concert dance, helping to transform ballet from a mere entertainment, a display of technical virtuosity, into the dramatic ballet d'action. It became an antecedent which, through writers and ballet-masters of the 17th