First performed in 1653 with music by Christopher Gibbons, and then revived in 1659 with additional music by Matthew Locke, the masque Cupid and Death makes for curious viewing today. Like semi-opera, another 17th century theatrical genre that flourished exclusively in England, the masque included substantial speeches that were delivered without musical accompaniment. On Saturday night, it seemed as if the music was going to be particularly marginalised, with the first scene involving actors talking over the instrumental dance. However, this fear proved to be groundless, and the music and singing came ever more to the fore as the piece advanced. It was quite a successful first endeavour by the Pearl and Dagger Company, with plenty of positives outweighing some amateurish aspects.
The plot, or rather the loose potpourri of elements of Roman mythology was written by James Shirley for an audience familiar with classical culture. While at an inn, Cupid and Death swap arrows, which leads to young lovers dying, while their decrepit elders renew their amorous activities. In the comic high point, one character is shot by Death, and falls in love with his performing apes. At the end, the god Mercury intervenes, and restores the natural order (although he forbids Death from touching the musicians). Grafted into this story were other mythological characters: there was at one point a ‘dance of the Hectors’, presumably a reference to the Trojan hero, mysteriously now in triplicate.
The aforementioned opening scene involved the actors ‘setting up’ before the show proper, a tried and trusted piece of meta-theatre. Kudos especially to the Host (PJ Williams) who was able to extract impromptu comedy from the late arrivals. Whenever the dialogue turned to Death, Cupid, or other allegorical characters such as Folly and Madness, a comical recorded sound was heard, a good idea that ended up being somewhat overused. Some of the dialogue was amusing, other parts rather tedious (comedy, of course, famously travels less well than tragedy).
A major aspect of the musical portions of each ‘Entry’ (as the divisions in the work were called) were the dances, choreographed by Fiona Garlick. Most of these were performed by specialist dancers, who gambolled around in what seemed to be a historically appropriate style (not something on which I can speak with any authority, alas). Each ‘Entry’ also featured a variety of different sorts of singing: at times, members of the cast sang; at others, members from the non-acting chorus sang either solo or together.