Why were masks so popular in Shakespeare's plays?

Answer 1

In what plays do people wear masks? In Romeo and Juliet there is a party and some people come wearing masks, including Romeo. In Much Ado About Nothing everyone at the party wears masks. In Love's Labour's Lost, the lovers come to the women wearing masks and disguised as Russians; the women respond by wearing masks and disguising themselves as each other. In Merchant of Venice Lorenzo wears a mask when he helps Jessica escape her home to elope with him. In The Merry Wives of Windsor everyone in the entire cast for some reason disguises himself or herself as some kind of spirit and meet in the woods at midnight, and at least some of them are masked. There are some other disguised people in Titus Andronicus, as well as actors in plays within plays in the Tempest and Hamlet which might involve masks or not. So masks play a part in 5 of 37 plays: that's about 13.5%, not an overwhelming number but not an insignificant one either. The masking in Romeo, Much Ado, and Love's Labour's all are connected to parties, social events where flirting and courting are expected to go on. The idea of a masquerade ball has been around for a long time and still is, although much less popular than formerly. In a society where relations between people is encumbered by social rules, being disguised frees the participants from following those rules and allows them to speak their minds more freely. Also, if the disguise is successful, things can be said anonymously. However, if the disguise is penetrated, then the other person can have fun pretending to be deceived by the disguise (as Beatrice does in Much Ado). Love's Labour's gives the clearest idea of the kind of fun that can be made from disguised lovemaking: In Act 5 Scene 2:

• Boyet:"Their purpose is to parle, to court and to dance,
  and every one his love-feat will advance
  unto his several mistress, which they'll know
  by favours several which they did bestow.
• Princess: And will they so? The gallants shall be task'd
  for ladies, we will every one be mask'd.

Of course, the dramatic possibilities of mistaken identity are heightened when nobody can see anyone's face. That is the point of the midnight revel in Merry Wives, where three people believe they are marrying Anne Page in disguise, but only one actually does. In the case of Lorenzo, he is wearing a mask for the same reason a bank robber does--he is on a public street doing something that he would not like to be identified as doing, at least not right away.