The Field of the Cloth of Gold

The Field of the Cloth of Gold is the name given to a vast and spectacular performance event that took place in France in 1520.[1] It is also the title used for various performances based on the event.

The original event

"The Field of the Cloth of Gold" (French: "Camp du Drap d'Or") was a site in Balinghem France that hosted a tournament field as part of a summit from 7 to 24 June 1520, between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France. On that occasion each king tried to outshine the other, with dazzling tents and clothes, huge feasts, music, jousting and games. The tents and the costumes displayed so much cloth of gold, an expensive fabric woven with silk and gold thread, that the site of the meeting was named after it.

Representations

Besides paintings, descriptions and other representations of the event, the event famously features as a masque in Shakespeare's King Henry VIII, a play said to have been a collaboration between the ageing Shakespeare and the young John Fletcher, which was first performed under the title All is True at the Globe in 1613. First published in the First Folio of 1623.

Various other representations of that spectacular event have been done over the years, including the 1905 Ringling Brothers spectacle called “The Field of the Cloth of Gold”, for which they claim to have converted their vast main tent into a huge theatre for the presentation of what they refer to as "the gorgeous, brilliant spectacle, the Field of the Cloth of Gold.”[2]

Performance history in South Africa

1884-5: A work referred to as The Field of the Cloth of Gold was performed by the Henry Harper Company in the new Theatre Royal, Cape Town, as part of Henry Harper's first season as lessee and manager of the venue. Called a burlesque by Boonzaier (1928), but listed as a drama and ascribed to Shafto Scott by F.C.L. Bosman (in a footnote), this was probably version of the masque referred to as "The Field of the Cloth of Gold" at the start of in Shakespeare and Fletcher's King Henry VIII.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_the_Cloth_of_Gold

"Tales from a Scenic Artist and Scholar. Part 482 – Ringling Bros. 'The Field of the Cloth of Gold' ", Drypigment.net (Information about historic theaters, scenic art and stage machinery).[3]

D.C. Boonzaier. 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.

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