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| Kay Williams, Barry Corbin. |
MASQUERADE [Drama/Biographical/Political/Romance]
A: Gertrude Gayle; D: Don Toner; S/L: James T. Singelis; C: Domingo A.
Rodriguez; P: The Masquerade Company; T: Theatre Four (OB); 11/28/71 (1)
Originally produced at the Theatre Center of Mississippi, in
Jackson, this historical romance about the love of Queen Elizabeth I (Kay
Williams) and the Earl of Oxford (C. David Colson), set between 1580 and 1603, arrived
at a time when New York was besieged with plays, new and old, about the 16th-century
monarch. Clive Barnes would have preferred this “ridiculous” example to have
remained down South: “Civil wars have been started with hardly more
provocation.”
In Masquerade,
playwright Gayle made controversial revisionist points, such as that Edward de
Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays. I know, I know,
many serious scholars accept this view, including one I personally know and
respect for her other academic accomplishments. Regardless, the play was considered
entirely negligible. It was so hard to sit through that Michael Feingold did
the ethically unpardonable thing of leaving at intermission with another critic
“to get plastered.” Presumably, others followed suit, since the show closed
that same night.