Shades of the Golden Age…

| Sue Vincent

As a child, I loved the old movies of the swashbuckling variety. Even then, I knew the stories were not real and the history likely to be wildly innaccurate. Romance and adventure did not wait behind every tree. Magic, though, had its own reality.

With a family who told me a closer-to-true version of the histories portrayed on the screen, I learned early the difference between fantasy, fact and fiction. What was produced for entertainment was never supposed to be a history lesson. I learned not to believe in what I saw… except for the duration of the film, when I could lose myself in make-believe.

The over-the-top acting, the swordplay and implausible heroics delighted me, and that has never really changed as I have grown older. A more mature eye sees the flaws with clarity, but I can still choose to ignore them and daydream about flashing steel, wild gallops through the night and the elaborate gowns of a bygone era. But, let’s be honest, the days when I could even dream of being the romantic, blade-wielding heroine are long gone. Or so I thought, until last weekend.

Fair bristling with concealed weaponry, this Elizabethan lady was not happy when her betrothed attempted to discard her in favour of a rarer prize. Mine was really not supposed to be the role of heroine. But, just for a moment, with ‘Lord Essex’ on his knees, and a wicked blade poised over his heart, all my daydreams came true. (Which might be why my younger son asked if I should be ‘looking so cheery’ with a knife aimed at someone’s chest.)

The pictures were taken after the final ‘curtain’ had fallen on our Elizabethan escapade… we do not take photos until the work is done. I think most of us were on a high, either because of the weekend itself… or because we had survived it! By this point, all that was left to do was discard the costumes for the last time, talk, hug and say our farewells.

Many of the photos that were taken are blurred, and that is why I rendered a few in monochrome. I was immediately struck by how they reminded me of the golden era of Hollywood and my love of old movies.

We had come together to explore a story… a fictitious history that drew upon the lives, dreams and beliefs of some of the prominent people of Shakespeare’s day. It was never supposed to be an accurate history… but in truth, it was crafted as somewhere we could lose our ‘selves’ in make-believe.

The everyday self is left behind in play. We are hidden by the mask of our role and so our true self is free to explore the magical and spiritual concepts presented throughout the weekend, concealed, like my daggers, in velvet folds of imagination, friendship and laughter. And that particular alchemy is always in glorious Technicolor.

33 thoughts on “Shades of the Golden Age…”

  9. Thanks for sharing this fabulous piece with us Sue. Wow, I’m blown away by the costumes too. Where on earth did you collect these period clothes from? ❤

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    1. We knew that Elizabethan was a big ask, and costumes are not obligatory ( except for the three of us!)… but every year, everyone does fabulous things with costumes. It is part of the fun. Mine was a very lucky find on ebay…and I ‘stole’ Stuart’s hat, replacing his with one of my own. Some of the costumes came with attendees from the States who had been part of the original Renaissance Faire all their lives and so were truly authentic, others created their own…and everyone, without exception, looked magnificent! xx

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    1. Sacred drama is an ancient idea…and most creative people know that almost meditative feeling when they are working. In this case, by passing the personality and using the role to evoke emotion allows us to get past the normal contraints of the ego.

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  14. Some of my favorite films when I was younger were those with Errol Flynn as a swashbuckling hero. There was something about his exceptionally moral heroes and daring-do that stuck in my mind in stark contrast to most of the heroes of both that and today’s age of cinema.

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