I saw Ross Petty’s “pantomime” production of Robin Hood at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre over the holiday, and was reminded of the story’s endless flexibility. Find me a more adaptable myth.

Errol Flynn played a great Hollywood Robin in 1938, busting into the Sheriff of Nottingham’s banquet, a poached stag draped on his shoulders. It was the Depression and the righteous rage of the dispossessed against the rich echoed; yet not a total outlaw since he was loyal to the true king, Richard the Lionheart — and Franklin Roosevelt, friend of the poor and hated by the rich, was in the White House then. A Disney version in 1952 had no such echoes, but that was a murky, confusing time, like the Korean War still unfolding. There was a British TV series in the late 1950s, largely written by blacklisted Hollywood writers sending pseudonymous scripts across the Atlantic. They felt they were doing their small bit as voices for the underclass, in the face of the McCarthyite tide. Their kids would run home from school to watch episodes, unaware their dads had written them. The 1976 Robin and Marian, with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn as the aging pair, caught the sense of waning hope after the 1960s, much as songs like Let it Be or Bridge over Troubled Waters did. Another U.K. series, in the eighties, had a New Age quality, magical and druidic; and a British rendition in the nineties was raw and violent, reflecting the harsh Thatcher years; no more hope à la the thirties, just bottled-up class rage.

The Elgin show was pantomime in the English music-hall sense: broad and jokey. The sheriff urges the audience to boo him; there are in-jokes about the local theatre world. No one is a hero, including Robin. The actors and audience are wise to everybody. It’s not ironic, just knowing and cynical, and out for fun. In that way, it’s true to our era. Most people seem skeptical of what they’re told. A lot of my mail on Iraq is along the lines: Yeah, you’re right, they don’t tell us the truth about why they’re going to attack, but it has to be done anyway.

Strangely, if the Robin tale resonates anywhere today, it is in parts of the Arab and Muslim world via — you may want to brace yourselves — Osama bin Laden. His photo is in many homes and, in some places, Osama is the most popular boys’ name. Think about it: the lean figure in robes who renounces his privileged class, claims to speak for the impoverished masses, lives in a cave, evades powerful pursuers. There’s a touch of the Scarlet Pimpernel: they seek him here, they seek him there. I’m not asking you to like it, but deal with it. You can see why our side prefers to put Saddam Hussein in the bull’s-eye: He’s patently unromanticizable.

And don’t underestimate the breadth of the appeal. The New York Times recently profiled a “modern” Palestinian businesswoman who now supports fundamentalists in Hamas although “I want peace and they don’t want peace. But I trust them more.” More than the alternatives, that is. Merely killing Osama will not end this kind of support; only altering the social conditions that engender it will do that. There were many Robin Hoods.

But there is a legend-like quality to discussion here as well, and not just due to the stress on good versus evil. Listen to Michael Ignatieff describing U.S. options in the Times: “If there is an invasion of Iraq, local elites must be ‘empowered’ to take over as soon as the American imperial forces have restored order and the European humanitarians have rebuilt the roads, schools and houses.” What reality does he base that on? The latest U.S. leaked plan has an “administrator” in charge, with the army occupying the oil fields. He says Afghans also “depend for their ‘freedom’ on U.S. military might.” But the American deal with warlords there left them in control outside of Kabul; and Sima Samar, who was showcased as the first women’s minister and a vice-president, was forced out of cabinet in June when fundamentalists attacked and threatened her for “blasphemy.” Mr. Ignatieff’s account sounds so . . . wistful. It isn’t analysis, commentary or journalism; it’s — storytelling!

There have been Robin Hood elements in U.S. culture but they don’t jibe well. The Pretty Boy Floyds (“Others tell about a stranger who came to beg a meal/And underneath his napkin left a thousand-dollar bill”) and Geronimos end in a hail of FBI or cavalry bullets. King Richard never returns to restore them. As for the Sheriff of Nottingham, perhaps the richest mythic character in the tale, well, there is George W. Bush’s latest tax plan: $364 billion for the richest ten per cent who own eighty-five per cent of stock value. Former Republican Kevin Phillips says it isn’t trickle-down anymore, it’s mist-down. And that’s probably being wistful.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.