of Inigo Jones, appears to have been regularly designed on the principle of what is sometimes called the 'picture-stage'.[1] It was framed by a proscenium arch, from side to side of which stretched, at first view, a curtain. This arch was of a familiar Renaissance type. On either side were pilasters, or statuesquely modelled figures, or a combination of the two, which bore up a frieze. The decorations were in harmony with the theme of the mask and the frieze might contain a scroll or panel setting forth its title.[2] It cannot perhaps be demonstrated that Jones invariably used a proscenium from the beginning, but at any rate by 1608 (Haddington Mask) 'the arch' appears to have been a recognized element of a setting. The most elaborate description of a proscenium is that written by Jones himself for Tethys' Festival in 1610. On this occasion the proscenium was itself covered by a curtain until the audience were seated. It is possible, however, that it sometimes framed a front curtain. The use of curtains was, of course, no innovation. They had served, when concealment and revelation were required, both in the mobile and in the fixed settings of earlier days. Thus for an Elizabethan mask of 1565, of which the pageant was 'a rock or hill for the ix musses to singe vppone', the Revels Office had provided 'a vayne of sarsnett drawen vpp and downe before them'.[3] The Jacobean curtain itself might form part of the setting. It was painted to represent a wooded 'landtschap' (Blackness), clouds (Hay Mask, Tethys' Festival), night (Beauty), a red cliff (Haddington Mask), a city wall and gate (Flowers). But at an early moment it was removed, to 'discover' a more solidly constructed scene within. Often it is called a 'traverse', and when it is 'drawne' it may either 'slide away', or 'sink down' (Marston's Mask).[4] I have not come across a certain case in which it was drawn up, either directly by a roller, or diagonally by cords towards the corners of the proscenium; but these methods may also have been employed. In some masks the drawing of the curtain 'discovered' the maskers on the scene; in others their entry was deferred and variously contrived. The maskers, and sometimes the presenters, had, before the
- ↑ A far more thorough treatment than is possible for me will be found in the chapter on La Mise en Scène, in Reyher, 332.
- ↑ Designs by Jones for proscenia (of Caroline date) are reproduced by Lawrence (i. 97), The Mounting of the Carolan Masques; on proscenium titles, cf. Lawrence, i. 46.
- ↑ Feuillerat, Eliz. 117; cf. Halle, ii. 87.
- ↑ An ingenious paper on The Story of a Peculiar Stage Curtain in Lawrence, i. 109, suggests an affiliation between this sinking curtain and the Roman aulaeum.
