Performance
The stage was set as an altar for a Roman wedding; behind the altar, between gold-painted statues of Hercules and Atlas, a great sphere was suspended from the ceiling on wire so fine it was invisible to the audience. The side of the sphere facing the viewers was painted as a globe of the Earth, in blue and silver. Hymen, the Roman god of marriage, was represented by a figure in saffron robes, with yellow hose and a circlet of roses and marjoram on his head; he was accompanied by a white-clad bride and groom. The sphere rotated, revealing a hollow lower half occupied by eight men. The sphere descended, and the eight men, armed with swords, surrounded the wedding couple. But Reason, dressed in a blue gown spangled with stars and mathematic symbols and carrying a lamp, emerged from the top half of the sphere to intervene and halt the disruption. A cloud-painted curtain above this scene was raised to reveal Juno seated on a golden throne, flanked by peacocks and by comets and meteors. Eight female masquers descended from the heavens to join the eight males.
The male masquers, costumed in "carnation cloth of silver, with variously colored mantles," represented the "Humours and Affections;" the female dancers, "in white cloth of silver, with carnation and blue undergarments," represented the "Powers of Juno." The eight couples, the men with their swords sheathed, then danced again for the obvious symbolism. The dancers at one point formed the initials of the bride and groom.
The following day saw the performance of the second portion of the entertainment, the Barriers, a stylized ritual combat. Jonson's composed speeches for figures representing Truth and Opinion (garbed in blue and white and wearing palm-leaf crowns) were recited; then sixteen pairs knights contested with swords and pikes. Peace and amity were restored by an angel emerging from a blaze of light.
The masque has been described, somewhat romantically, as a work of "fragile, transient loveliness," featuring "noble dancers in their crimson satin and white, with herons' feathers waving and jewels flashing, as they made their graceful movements in the torchlight."
Read more about this topic: Hymenaei
Famous quotes containing the word performance:
“Kind are her answers,
But her performance keeps no day;
Breaks time, as dancers,
From their own music when they stray.”
—Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
“They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Nobody can misunderstand a boy like his own mother.... Mothers at present can bring children into the world, but this performance is apt to mark the end of their capacities. They can’t even attend to the elementary animal requirements of their offspring. It is quite surprising how many children survive in spite of their mothers.”
—Norman Douglas (1868–1952)