Renaissance festivals are a wildy popular pastime here in the States. It's not uncommon for TRF to draw well over thirty thousand patrons on a single Saturday, and several faires in other states are nearly as large. Obviously, something about them appeals to large numbers of folks. As the new season draws near, I've been pondering just why they work so well.

First, it seems the popularity of faire is a manifestation of our universal human need to once in a while have a season, a festival, in which many of the constraints of normal living are temporarily set aside, and let bacchanalian merry-making (mis)rule the day.

Spring Break, Mardi Gras, Carnival in Rio, and to a lesser extent, renaissance festivals are all the inheritors of the tradtions of Rome's Saturnalia, and the Dionysia of the Greeks. They give us a socially permissible excuse to act the way we might like to all year-round.

They have a harmlessly earthy ribald flavor that can be found nowhere else, I think. Where else in this lawsuit conscious, priggish world of ours can a man call a woman a "saucy strumpet," and have her like it? Or be mugged by a kissing wench?

Make no mistake, however. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. These festivals are not simply an excuse for reactionary male chavinist pigism. Women, too, enjoy the release from mundane social constraints, both behaving and dressing in ways that would nowhere else.

I can think of few other places where a "normal" self-respecting woman would perform "kilt-checks," which involve verifying that a kilt-wearing man is indeed "going regimental." Without going into too much detail, the properly performed procedure will leave the woman with few questions as to the kiltees, ummm, uh, stature.

Second, at faire, no one pretends that gender doesn't exist, chivalry abounds, manners matter, (if you're that type of character) and the performers and the patrons all willingly work together to bring about a suspension of disbelief, to create the flavor of an earlier time.

It is interactive entertainment of the type you do not see at say, Disneyland, where there is a distinct demarcation between the entertainers and the entertained. Indeed, it is not uncommon for the average person to mistake an elegantly dressed and bejewelled patron for one of the paid cast members. The crowd is part of the show.

There is also to be considered the joy of putting on a costume, and being another character for a while. (Halloween, too, has become more of a popular holiday for adults, for this reason) That was one of the things I enjoyed most as an actor. The fierce concentration required to convincingly become a completely different character necessarily gives birth to a release from the thoughts and cares of the mundane world. When on stage, the self shrinks down to nothing, in order to leave room for the role. I think that this applies, in varying measures, to be certain, to every performer, cast member, and garbed patron at fair.

Finally, even those patrons that do not choose to immerse themselves whole-heartedly into the play that is a renaissance festival enjoy the chance to see and learn history acted out before them - a much more palatable way to learn it. I've entertained hundreds of people, as Hawke Leekeman telling the tale of the leek on my cap, a story that if presented to them in their freshman history class, would have bored them to tears.

The old adage for starting a successful business is to "find a need and fill it." It seem to me that renfairs fill a gap that is missing in any of the other forms of entertainment our contemporary culture offers.

They offer a the patron the chance to join in a shared historical illusion, and to participate in the life of a world where many of the modern social restraints never existed.

Huzzah to that.