As part of his 1605 commission to produce an entertainment for the Twelfth Night celebration, Ben Jonson, working in close collaboration with noted architect Inigo Jones as the scenic designer, produced the Masque of Blackness. King James I attended the performance, in which the players included Queen Anne of Denmark and a number of her ladies-in-waiting essentially appearing in blackface at the queen's request. Jonson himself took on the role of an African, also at the queen's request. So successful was The Masque of Blackness that Jonson and Jones would produce the performance another dozen times, establishing the duo as the leading masque makers of their day. Jonson himself would create more than thirty productions over the ensuing decades.
The Masque of Blackness likely succeeded as a result of the collaborative elements: the spectacle featured a host of special effects including a “sea machine,” as well as a giant shell in which the masquers appeared along with assorted sea monsters. The absurdity of the narrative takes a back seat to its overriding theme of the superiority and perfection of King James, whose power is presented as so vast he can even change black skin to white. This power of the king's helped emphasize another central theme of the performance: the superiority of white European civilization over others, especially those England hoped to colonize.
The Masque of Blackness is a short play with a long history of controversy. Commissioned by Anne of Denmark, the consort to King James I of England, it is a fantasy play using characters from Greek mythology. The author incorporates pieces of shameless flattery to endear himself to the nation's ruler. This play directly and unapologetically condemns Africans as unattractive and naturally inferior to the great white men of England. Although written in England in 1605, where white men did believe themselves superior to Africans, the blatant and disrespectful nature of Jonson's treatment of the Ethiopians elicited strong criticism from his contemporaries. It was also controversial because women played roles usually reserved for men, as well as because the actors used black body paint, rather than masks, to simulate the darker skin tone of the Africans.
This play is a masque, a particular classification of dramatic works popular in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The masque was a form of play performed for the entertainment of the courts, usually including singing, dancing, musical instruments, dialogue, and stage effects. Being written expressly for court performance, flattery of the type seen in The Masque of Blackness was not uncommon. The "masquers," those who were on stage but had no speaking or singing parts, were often people of prominence and often royalty themselves (Anne of Denmark, in this case, played one of Niger's twelve daughters).
