The Masque of the Theatre

If I remember correctly, I believe it was Jill who was interested in exploring masks and their Shakespearean utilization. Upon reading her blog, I came across a quote that struck quite the chord;

"Theater is more than than the mask, it is the expression of the space where the body ends and the mask begins." I took this to mean that theatre is not wholly realistic, nor a costume-ish representation of the real, but an adjoining of the two. This extremely provocative and interesting line brought to mind theatre's connection to the microcosm and macrocosm. The theme that has reverberated throughout the short duration of this Shakespeare class is that life imitates art and art imitates life, the microcosm attempts to reflect the macrocosm, and good theatre is a microcosmic sampling of the macrocosmic whole.  These contemplations subsequently reminded me of a short story that utilizes microcosms, macrocosms, masks, and mimicry; an Edgar Allan Poe tale entitled The Mask of the Red Death.

I've included the full text below in a link, but for those unfamiliar, The Masque of the Red Death features a prince who shares the same name of Shakespeare's title character in The Tempest, Prince Prospero. Everyone around Prospero is dropping dead of a plague known as the Red Death, so he decides to gather up all of his friends, barricade them in his palace, hole up till the plague is over, and let all the peasants die off. Around 600 aristocrats hang out and party in Prospero's palace for a while, until Prospero decides to spice up the party theme and throw a Masquerade ball. This masquerade features seven meaningfully decorated rooms, an ebony clock, and a mysterious masked party guest whose appearance is described as such: "...tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat." I won't reveal the identity of the masked figure for those unknowing readers (although this description, coupled with the title of the short story, may have made it obvious to some).

I read Poe's story in terms of the macro and micro. Prospero, in barricading himself and his friends inside the palace, attempts to shield the microcosm from the macrocosm. The macrocosm, in the form of the masked figure, invades the microcosm, and destroys it. At the conclusion, Prospero's microcosm reflects the macrocosm of the outside world; his guests and him have all died from the Red Death. The masks of the theatre do not protect us from the macrocosm. Instead, they allow it to pass among us unnoticed until its presence becomes too overwhelmingly truthful to ignore. 

Full Text of Poe's The Masque of the Red Death