actual dances began, to come forward through the proscenium arch to the dancing place, which was on the floor of the hall, or on a stage only slightly raised above it, and was regularly laid with green cloth by the official 'mattleyer' of the court.[1] This advance was managed in divers ways. The old device of a movable pageant might be revived, as an element subsidiary to the fixed scene, and the maskers brought in on a chariot (Queens, Oberon), or enthroned on a floating isle (Beauty). They might be let down by a cloud from the upper part of the scene (Hymenaei, Lords' Mask). For the Mask of Blackness Jones made an artificial sea on a wheeled stage, which lifted them forwards in a concave shell. It was quite effective as a spectacle, if they stepped in their bravery down a slope (Hay Mask) or a double stairway (Chapman's Mask, Squires) leading from the scene to the lower level of the dancing place.
The adoption of the concentrated setting was a matter of convenience; it did not mean that the mask could dispense with the variety of interest which the multiplied scenes of the dispersed setting had afforded. Jones's chief problem as a producer was that of securing this variety of interest under new conditions, and if possible with some added sensation of curiosity or surprise. One device was to retain the multiplied scenes, and to juxtapose them, or to superimpose one upon another within the frame of the proscenium. It was easy enough to divide the curtain either vertically or horizontally and to 'draw' the sections separately. Thus in the Hymenaei, which was a double mask, the altar of Hymen and the globe containing the men maskers were first discovered below. Subsequently the 'upper part of the scene' opened, and the women maskers floated out on nimbi. In Lord Hay's Mask there was a 'double veil' of which the lesser part covered a Bower of Flora on the right of the stage, and the greater part covered a House of Night on the left, and a grove and hill crowned by a Tree of Diana in the centre. This method paid homage to the tradition of the dispersed setting; another, which could be used in combination with the first, was capable of more intricate development. The manœuvre of the front curtain might be repeated. The whole, or a fragment, of the inner scene might be shifted, so as to discover a new vision which had at first been concealed. Often this was only a local and particular transformation. Thus it was in the two masks just cited, when the globe behind the altar of Hymen revolved and showed the maskers
- ↑ Chamber Accounts; cf. Reyher, 358.
