Wearing Masks as a Method to Explore Who You Are

Through the mask, the individual has the potential to challenge the understanding of whom they are through their body now being separated from the visual identifier of their face. This challenge can be personal or with the audience.

The definitions of mask demonstrate this, from the Arabic maskhahra: to falsify or transform to the English form of mask to conceal. The human mind focuses clearly on the face of the individual, and thus through the concealment of this core identifier, the mask allows the individual to be separated from their “id” and their movements to be interpreted as separate to the individual.

1. Masks and theatre

It was in the twentieth century that masks became a specific tool for learning, initially starting with actor training. Masks usage with actors and training disassociated the performer from his own personal id, thus both releasing the performer into being the “other” similar to the shaman role.

Through the disassociation, allowing objectivity the performer was also able to gain a deeper understanding of a sense of self.

"But there is another way of giving the face an extra-daily dimension: the mask. When performers put on a mask, it is as if their body has suddenly been decapitated. They give up all movement and expression of facial musculature. The face’s extraordinary richness disappears. There is such a resistance created between the provisional face (kamen in Japanese) and the performer that this conversion of the face into something apparently dead can actually make one think of a decapitation. This is in fact one of the performer’s greatest challenges: to transform a static, immobile, fixed object into a living and suggestive profile." (Keefe & Murray, 2007, p. 136)

"Importantly, when viewed in an open-airs pace, the mask was an effective way of instantly establishing a sense o f theatricality. The wearer of the mask is immediately separated from the spectators, and as the vase paintings show, just the simple act of donning a mask indicates that a performance is about to take place. Lastly, in an open-air space that allowed the external environment to inform the aesthetic experience of watching drama, the mask provides a visual focus for emotional communication, and is able to stimulate a deeply personal response from the spectators. The mask demands to be watched." (Meineck, 2011, p. 121)

2. Greek theatre

Greek theatre originated from a festival in honor of Dionysus; the god of wine, ritual madness and ecstasy. Masks were used in performance to exaggerate and accentuate the characters’ features, as well as to make the actors more visible to the audience. Greek theatre was performed in the open air in large auditoriums with excellent acoustics that allowed all the audience to hear clearly, no matter how far away they were. However, this necessitated the movements to be bold and highly stylised.

Actors performed with full-face masks and with very little in the way of sets or props. One of the key reasons that masks were used was due to the size of the theatres and the distance the actors had to the audience. Mask usage was also applied to allow the three actors to adopt a variety of roles. Originally, it involved only one actor and the chorus, but over time it began to involve three actors and the chorus.

"To find new words for traditional heroic figures was precisely the ritual requirement. It was the mask which gave to the tragic figure its quality as a monument." (Wiles, 2007, p. 252)

3. Meyerhold, Brecht, Copeau, and Lecoq

It was Vsevolod Meyerhold who re-habilitated the mask in modern theatre, both as a performative object, but also a training pedagogy for his actors.

Meyerhold’s awareness of the role of the mask in performance and increasing underlying desire to explore the “grotesque” of the inner person that the mask represents was explored in detail. Quoted as the height of Meyerhold’s achievement, it was a pinnacle that Meyerhold would never achieve again.

Brecht focused less upon the pedagogical potential of masks, than upon the performer and more upon its application as a performance tool to elicit a response from the audience. Brecht’s engagement with masks was as a tool for alienation and through the audience distancing themselves from the action.

Copeau exemplified Meyerhold’s desire to seek out new frames of reference for performance training in the development of actor training in the west. The North American system of actor training often studies the psychological truth to inform the performance. He saw the mask as means of allowing the individual to hide behind their own reality and thus transform beyond their own inhibitions. The mask became a tool for the actor/performer to explore the phycology of the performance. Within this, the mask was seen as having a dual purpose; as a psychological and physical tool for the performer as well as a visual semiotic for the audience. He felt that the mask forced the performer to move beyond the use of the face as an expressive force and rely upon the physical body as a means of communication.

"Copeau became aware of the potential of the mask, both in actor training and ultimately, in performance, during his visit to Craig (Edward Gordon). It made his appearance in his work by accident—whilst rehearsing a scene at the Vieux-Colombier he despaired of an actress who found herself repeatedly blocked during a scene and unable to move—a literal freezing of the blood. Copeau took his handkerchief and covered her face, noting that her body was immediately released as an expressive instrument. It was her face that had been making all the effort. This experiment was immediately put to work in the School, using stockings as well as pieces of cloth." (Hodge, 2010, p. 57)

Lecoq saw the mask as a tool to distance the actor from a false naturalism, allowing them to explore the grotesque or the real. The core was that the performer was to remain conscious of their very nature that they were performing. Similar to the more current ideas of Suzuki and Peter Brook, Lecoq wanted to reengage the actor in an elemental organic nature of who they were rather than an abstract experiential form. One of the first areas of training that Lecoq introduced his students to was the neutral mask, as a methodology and pedagogy in improvisation and “play”.

Conclusion

It is clear that leading and innovative practitioners continually demonstrate that masks not only have a relevance to modern actor training, but also enhance training and can be used for psychological and physical personal development.

Given that the many of influential practitioners of the twentieth century have used the mask for performative and training purposes, it is posited that now it is a prescient time for us to use masks to reposition and apply the mask as a tool and a performative object for a innovative and challenging exploration of who we are.

Masks are a method to allow this to happen.

If you want to learn more read the full article by

David Roy (2016) Masks as a method: Meyerhold to Mnouchkine, Cogent Arts & Humanities, 3:1, 1236436 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2016.1236436