Page Eighre

 

 

 

 

 

° THE COLLEGE NEWS
~ - : Ld
- Brilliance ae, | Photograp hic Masque is Enriched a mimic-show with fiction was but aldance. it grew out of the group of ,
In Costumes o I 936 gine short step. With Inigo Jones and Ben | pegple which is doing it and is the ex-
f Acknowledgments By Contrasting Mood Johnson-the masque became the most

Continued from Page ea:

chickens set upon a bell.” The cour-
tiers, each of whom had a particular
color, are costumed from pictures of
noblemen in the court at the same
period. :
Maid Marian Has New Dress
ge Maid Marian appears this year in a
' *» bouffant dress, more Elizabethan in
interpretation. than formerly, so that.
. it fits her part as the village May
Queen as well as the mediaeval maid
of Sherwood forest. The rest af the
costumes are drawn from Howard
Pyle’s authentically illustrated Robin
Hood of Richard I’s time, ca. 1200.
‘Prince John’s velvet costume is more
elaborate than the .Merrymen’s be-
because it is a princely conception of
a yeoman’s attire. King Richard, in-
stead of wearing black and gold and
the English coat-of-arms, appears this
year in a scarlet tunic with his per-
sonal coat-of-arms—three lions look-
ing backward. Heraldic records prove
this to be correct. His mail is made
of milliner’s stuff which an assistant
of Jo Mielziner’s remembered having
seen several years ago in a milliner’s
shop on Thirty-seventh Street.
Costumes for One Dollar

Costumes for Gammer Gurton’s
Needle, costing only one dollar apiece,
are modelled from pictures of country
folk of the Elizabethan period. Monk’s
cloth, resembling homespun, has been
used, although Hodge needed hardly
a yard of anything.

Numerous rumors were current be-
fore it was learned that Adam and
Eve in The Creation were tobe
jointed lay figures from Durer and
that the tone of the play would be that
of an old fresco on wood. Therefore
the Creator’s beard and gown are
dusky gold. To distinguish the first
man and woman from each other, Eve
has a wig of jute (because jute looks
more like flax than flax) and Adam
has a black beard. According to early
English tradition the serpent is cos-
tumed with a woman’s head and arms,
the better to tempt the young couple.

Thefgossips and Noah’s family in
ee e ADeluge are mediaeval peasant
costumes which would not be. much

changed even in Elizabethan times.
Deus, more realistic than the Creator,
is a magnified version of Noah.
} Careful Mixture of Styles
Because a band of strolling players
would have performed A Midsummer
Night’s Dream at an Elizabethan May
Day, the costumes are not entirely
Greek as they were formerly. Instead,
they are a subtle intermixture of
Greek and Elizabethan, as the players
would have conceived them. Oberon’s
costume is based on a sketch by Inigo
Jones, the famous Elizabethan de-
signer. Titania and her fairies wear
fragile flower dresses, because their
position in the pageant before Maid
Marian demands that their costumes
accord with her type of dress.
Renaissance Italian designs, famil-
iar to the Elizabethans, have been
used for the romantic characters in
The Old«‘Wives’ Tale. Huanebango’s
gaudy attire is patterned after a
swashbuckling’ captain of the Comedia
del Arte. Eumenides’ silver armor is
that of the typical romantic knight of
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Delia, the lovely lady, is dressed as
a young Italian maiden. The lower
class characters wear homespuns.
St. George Styles Medieval
The new costumes for St. George
and the Dragon are in the mediaeval
period of its long evolution. Blunder-
bore, the Dragon, the Turkish cham-
pion and Captain Slasher, presented
an opportunity for the creative imagi-
_ nations of nineteenth century May
_Day costumers as well as to sixteenth
“century designers. Miss Dickey, the
Dragon in her sewn-on-singly scales,
4 , is larger than period pictures of puny
f iting

  
 
   
    
  
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
    

iy oem slain by heroic knights.

Of necessity Miss Petts has designed
* the costumes for the Masque of
Flowers to give ease and vitality to
the dancing. They endeavor to blend
- Inigo Jones and Italian’ Renaissance
designs. Patterns for the 1932
masque are the basis of the dancing
costumes, but all of them are authen-
tically brighter and strike the modern
« eye for color, which has changed since
1932. Cock suggests Inigo Jones’
sketches, while Primavera suggests
‘Italian Renaissance.
Elizabethan gypsies . accumulated

"cf

et one tn
—

their travels elaborate clothes |

 

The photographs used in the
Pictorial Section were secured
from the following sources:
Thirty-two pictures were taken
by. Philip Atlee Livingst
printer of the College News; *
by Euretta Simons, ’36; the pic=>
ture of Mrs. Chadwick-Collins
by Miss Grace R. Kitselman;
the scene from Gammer Gurton
from the Philadelphia Inquirer
and the photo of the May Queen

. from Edward Sueley:: Philadel-
phia.

 

 

 

appearance. The Indian costumes
have:been remade to give a less Ameri-
canized and more Elizabethan aspect
than before. On May Days, chimney
sweeps decked themselves out in tinsel
and finery given them by their bet-
ters. Having discarded their sooty
rags they appear at Bryn Mawr in
aspecially made Argentine cloth with
slashed sleeves through which ribbons
can be seen.
Country Dancers
Country dancers on May Day
changed. their brown homespuns for
festive clothes if they could afford
them. Otherwise they adorned them-
selves with trinkets and ribbons. The
Morris Men, who were the best village
jiggers, wore the same costumes from
year to year. These include the tra-
ditional bells, billowed upper hose and
slashed sleeves of the period. Their
eccentric style of cross-gartering was
lizabethan fad which was eventu-
ally relegated to Morris dancers only.
The Sword dancers’ costumes represent
the fishermen’s of Scarborough, Eng-
land.

Miscellaneous characters roaming :

on the Greene are dressed from au-
thentic pictures and descriptions of
specific types. The exciting new
Black Dog of Newgate emerged from
a book on the Elizabethan underworld.
Research allows the Nine Worthies to
have colored gowns instead of black
and brown ones. The apothecary is a
combination Italo-Elizabethan type.
Miss Grayson and her assistants
have accomplished a mammoth and de-
tailed task with brilliant results.
They have costumed realistically and
according to characters who would
be participating in the May Day
Fete of Elizabeth’s reign. Mrs. von
Erffa, ’26, is Miss Grayson’s chief as-
sistant at Bryn Mawr. Betty Bryan,
38, head of the undergraduate Cos-
tume Committee, has done research
and designing for many of the Greene
costumes. Polly Schwable, ’88, is the
chief archivist and recorder of ac-
counts for future May Days. If it
were not for Miss Terrien’s knowledge
of books and her research ability, the
costumes could never have been so
authentic as they are this year.

 

Nine Worthies Popular Feature

After their first appearance in
Paris in 1430, the Nine-Worthies emi-
grated to England, where they took
part in pageants with increasing fre-
quency. Sometimes they were painted
figures, sometimes living, and the
usual nine were biblical, historical
and romantic: Hector, Alexander,
Caesar, Joshua, David, Judas Macca-
baeus, Charlemagne, Arthur and God-
frey of “Billon.” In some of the Eng-
lish pageants, British figures of
Lords’ men or Aldermen, as well as
kings and queens, were substituted for
the original nine.

 

 

 

a csamennnanmenesiniaimnaniaainiil
AL AT ATT LLL EASTERN

Representing five leading manufac-
turers of tennis racquets.

Retail from $2.50 to $18.50
College Price $1.50 to $11.75

Expert racquet restringing $1.25
to $6.00 College Price

SLAVIN’S SPORTING GOODS
39 East Lancaster Avenue -
Ardmore, Pa. Phone Ardmore 607

OC
SSS
siaiiaiat
THE
SHIPLEY SCHOOL
BRYN MAWR, PENNSYLVANIA

Preparatory to
Bryn Mawr College

ALICE G. HOWLAND
ELEANOR O. BROWNELL

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elizabethan Tradition Blends
With Modern Expression
For Effect

EACH DANCE ORIGINAL

 

 

The Masque of Flowers as produced
ay in the Cloisters is a careful

‘blend of Elizabethan tradition and

modern expression, and the subtle ef-

| fect of the whole is achieved by ‘strik-

ing contrast in mood, costume and
movement. Masques have been pre-
sented at Bryn Mawr May Days since
the completion of the Library in 1906,
but not until 1932 and the coming of
Miss Petts and Miss Cooper did dane-
ing assume the finished predominance
which it now holds in the Masque.
After Miss Cooper left two years ago,

iss Petts continued to develop her

wn truly original mode of the dance,

molded on the general outlines of the
Duncan school.

Many masques were perused before
the decision was cast a second consecu-
tive time in favor of the Masque of
Flowers. Although the Masque of
Queens and The Woman in the Moon
have both been successfully produced

here, neither text offers an opportunity |
exit and group |

for the entrance,
dances which the present text pro-
vides. Few other masques can be

adapted with equal ease to the de-
mands of the Cloister setting and the
modern dance.

The masque form ‘began crudely
with the mummings in procession of
mediaeval guests in masquerade of

‘adhered to this principle.

 

exotic state and pomp. From this to

brilliant of court spectacles The
Masque of Flowers was first given by
the Gentlemen of Gray’s Inn (one of
the corps of lawyers who patronized
the Stuart theatre). Bacon is reputed
to have spent 2,000,000 pounds in one
production of it. The first decor in
1614 is described by contemporaries as
“a garden of a glorious and strange
beauty.” The characters are through-
out popular figures of mediaeval
legend and romance.

This year the canvas of the dance
has been made richer and fuller than
ever before and each dance, as well
as each musical composition with its
characteristic leit motif, is entirely
original. It is Miss Petts’ principle

in teaching the dance that the move-}

ment and the music: should grow out
of one another into a single harmony.

In training the Cloister dancers for
May Day, Miss Petts -has rigorously
She... did
not make up the Chimney Sweeps’

150 acres

 

 

THE MADEIRA SCHOOL

Greenway, Fairfax County, Virginia

A resident and country day school for girls on the Potomac River

near Washington, D. C.

LUCY MADEIRA WING, Headmistress

pression of a beginning group of.

dancers. Likewise, Primavera’s dance
couldn’t possibly have been done by
anyone but Primavera herself, since
it is composed of her inspirations and
her energies.

‘This principle has produced highly

effective results in the contrast and

varying mood of movement and music.,
While seeking always to suggest the
Elizabethan, Miss Petts, Mr. Schu-
marn and the dancers have succeeded
admirably in satisfying a modern
audience’s demand for .color, har-
mony and technique.

 

Conjurors Invoked God or Devil

Elizabethan conjurors were usually
either exorcists or magicians. ° The
exorcist might have to invoke the di-
vine authority either Over persons
possessed by the devil, or over persons
plagued by external evil spirits. The
magician usually was one who called
demons to serve him, in return for
which “he yielded them his soul.

10 fireproof buildings

 

 

 

 

THE cRAZE FoR Culoties

... proves that it’s smart to be
divided on the skirt wi iatacan

In FRANCE it's la culotte, in Bermuda it's the culotte,, and now in Penn-
sylvania we cheer for those wonderful divided skirts. There’s absolutely
nothing better for bicycling! But that’s only the half of it. For strenuous sports
like tennis you'll find that a culotte gives you plenty of freedom, and yet it's
easy on the hipline. For lounging around and general summer loafing,
get into a trim divided skirt ensemble — something really knockout in linen,
shantung, pique, or cotton jersey. $2.95 to $10.95. :

SECOND ‘FLOOR

| Strawbridge & Clothier’s
‘| MAIN LENE STORE .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

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