Transformation scene a close with the suggestion of harmony restored. John Rich, earlier in the century, made Harlequin with his slap stick able to transform stage props; and later Joseph Grimaldi as Clown was in charge of transformations. Early pantomime related to and contained the traditional harlequinade by means of a transition in which a group of characters descended from the traditional types from the "commedia del arte" were transformed and "revealed" as being the key characters in the pantomime of the fairy tale that followed. A production in 1781 of "Robinson Crusoe" by Richard Brinsley Sheridan is credited with breaking down
Pierrot the introduction of the "commedia dell'arte" characters into parodic metatheater. (Pierrot is a member of the audience watching the play.) The penetration of Pierrot and his companions of the "commedia" into Spain is documented in a painting by Goya, "Itinerant Actors" (1793). It foreshadows the work of such Spanish successors as Picasso and Fernand Pelez, both of whom also showed strong sympathy with the lives of traveling saltimbancos. When, in 1762, a great fire destroyed the Foire Saint-Germain and the new Comédie-Italienne claimed the fairs’ stage-offerings (now known collectively as the Opéra-Comique) as their own, new enterprises began to attract