Polychrome (fictional character)

Infobox character
colour = green
name = Polychrome


caption =
first = "The Road to Oz" (1909)
last = arguable
cause =
nickname = Polly
alias =
species = fairy
gender = female
age = ageless
born = unknown, perhaps inapplicable
death = inapplicable
occupation = perhaps inapplicable
title = Daughter of the Rainbow
family = Rainbow (father), unnamed sisters
spouse = none
children = none
relatives = unknown
residence = in the sky
creator = L. Frank Baum

Polychrome is a fairy and the daughter of the Rainbow. She first appears in "The Road to Oz," the fifth of the fourteen Oz books by L. Frank Baum. She also appears in later books in the series.

When Dorothy Gale, the Shaggy Man, and Button-Bright first meet Polychrome in the fifth chapter of "The Road to Oz", she is dancing to keep warm, after accidentally sliding off her father's rainbow and landing on the surface of the Earth. (Her father withdrew his bow without realizing she'd been left behind.) Polychrome is described as:

"A little girl, radiant and beautiful, shapely as a fairy and exquisitely dressed.... She was clad in flowing, fluffy robes of soft material that reminded Dorothy of woven cobwebs, only it was colored in soft tintings of violet, rose, topaz, olive, azure, and white, mingled together most harmoniously in stripes which melted one into the other with soft blendings. Her hair was like spun gold and floated around her in a cloud, no strand being fastened or confined by either pin or ornament or ribbon."

In personality she is sweet and ethereal and generally the stereotype of the good fairy. Polychrome is more a decorative than an active presence in "The Road to Oz," but she makes positive contributions in her subsequent appearances in Baum's fictions. She is very sensitive to cold and, while on Earth, often dances simply to keep warm. In "Tik-Tok of Oz" (1914) she summons the dragon Quox to rescue the captured Ozites from the Nome King. (The Nome King, it may be noted in passing, is dazzled by the beautiful fairy and begs her to remain in his underground realm, which she refuses.) In "The Tin Woodman of Oz" (1918) she rescues the rusted Captain Fyter the Tin Soldier by oiling his joints, just as Dorothy had done for the Tin Woodman in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," and she uses her magic to let the protagonists fit through a rabbit hole. In "Sky Island" (1912) she provides the solution to the central characters' main problem.

Portrayals

Polychrome was played by Dolly Castles in the 1913 stage play, "The Tik-Tok Man of Oz" by Baum, Louis F. Gottschalk, Victor Schertzinger, and Oliver Morosco. In the play, she sings a duet with Ruggedo titled "When in Trouble Come to Papa". [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20060524201522/mywebpages.comcast.net/scottandrewh/tiktokman.htm The Tik-Tok Man of Oz ] ]

Polychrome appears briefly in the coronation sequence of "Return to Oz". Though the role is an extra, Allen Eyles's "The World of Oz" features a production still crediting the role to Cherie Hawkins, who later served for a time on the staff of the theatre department at University of Alaska Anchorage.

References