| Getting Behind Masks |
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| Written by Ellen Seiden | |
| Jan 04, 2008 |
; "Image") They may hide the face, but masks can reveal a lot about a performance.Alyssa Ravenwood designed masks for Radiant Theatre Company’s production of Scapin. Masks can enhance productions by bringing a physicality to performances that helps lead to heightened drama, humor and audience camaraderie. But in replacing the human face, masked actors need specific training to give genuine and heartfelt performances. Los Angeles mask designer and physical theatre expert Alyssa Ravenwood creates expressive masks and individualized workshops for theatre companies and schools. In her classes, performers learn to enact characters with movements and emotions that embody their masks. “My focus,” Ravenwood says, “is teaching actors practical techniques in order to give the best performance possible.” Ravenwood studied the art of mask, clown, mime, melodrama, performance creation and commedia dell’arte (bawdy Italian street theatre featuring mostly masked stock characters, familiar plots and improvisation; highly popular with 16th- and 17th-century audiences) at the Dell’Arte School of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake, Calif., among other intensive workshops. Crafting centuries of theatrical and artistic tradition into her masks, as an actor and director, Ravenwood also developed effective methods to enliven the characters behind them. “People think that a mask is a way to hide,” says Ravenwood. “But I think masks are a way to reveal those parts of yourself that are hidden by your everyday face.” In my conversation with her, she gave me some pointers for actors and directors on mastering your mask, as well as some mask performance exercises and tips for overcoming some technical difficulties with them. We only have room here to talk about her pointers for actors, but her other tips and exercises can be found online at www.stage-directions.com/tipsformasks/. ; "Image")
1) Know Your Mask As an exercise, Ravenwood directs her students to get a partner and wear each other’s masks. “Go through every angle the mask makes,” directs Ravenwood. “Match the body to the character and to the emotions of the mask. It’s best to see your mask worn by a fellow actor and watch them tilt it and perform in it.” Darleen Totten, theatre arts teacher and troupe director at Alice High School in Alice, Texas, runs a mask-centered drama program, using mask projects tied to performances as icebreakers at the start of each year, and has had success with this exercise. “It’s a lot of hard work for the kids to get used to the masks,” she says, “To enunciate properly behind them, to speak louder, to tell the story with the body without facial expressions so the audience gets it.” Theatrical masks that show different emotions tilted at angles provide “a whole new tool for nonverbal communication with added body motion. It frees kids up. The masks transform who they are.” 2) One Thing At a Time “Understand the technique that one thing happens at a time, and that you must share this with an audience,” says Ravenwood. “There’s action and reaction to everything.” She notes that the expression on a mask cannot be read if the mask is moving, so every important moment of discovery, reaction, emotional change and decision-making must be marked with stillness so that the audience can read it and follow the emotions of the story. The expression of loss, for example, should show on the body, with the mask held still, facing forward to the audience. Christopher Pryor, who performed masked as Leander in Molière’s Scapin at the Radiant Theatre in Portland, Ore., uses the stillness to build rapport with the audience. “I personally enjoy the connection a masked actor has with the audience,” Pryor says. “There is no fourth wall when a mask is involved. An actor in a mask can face the audience and deliver lines directly to them. This creates a wonderful air of mischief and camaraderie between the actors and the audience.” 3) Be Genuine in Your Emotion According to Ravenwood, when playing a heightened style, you must use your method acting techniques more, not less. “Everything is life and death to these characters,” says Ravenwood. “You have to really mean it. If you fake it, it shows. You must feel the emotion, raw and exposed. It’s a mistake to play masks loud, exaggerated or insincere.” Gerard Stropnicky is the ensemble director at the The Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble in Bloomsburg, Penn. BTE hosts an annual Noh (Japanese masks) training project, and he has run into this particular problem. “Using masks is a very powerful spice to add to the recipe,” Stropnicky says. “If you use it where it isn’t needed or wanted, it can overwhelm. When used properly, it can do great stuff.” He likes the physicality that masks demand of a performance and the alternate ways of acting that are required. “Masks add a layer of subtlety because they force it.” 4) Use Your Chest Voice Ravenwood recommends using your chest voice instead of your head voice. If you’re not sure what that means, try to hum and feel the vibrations in your chest, not in your cheeks and forehead. You should try and base your voice there. This avoids echoing in a 1/2 mask, and muffling in a 3/4 mask that hooks onto the upper lip. You will need to enunciate and speak louder. But you’re not divorcing yourself entirely from your face — you should use your mouth and chin as part of the character when wearing a 1/2 mask (as in commedia style masks). The lower lip and teeth become part of the expression you create in a 3/4 mask. Luckily, you don’t generally talk in a full mask. “Mask work is demanding technically, as the actor’s voice must not get lost in the mask,” says Myra Donnelley, an L.A.-based program coordinator for the Mentor Artists Playwrights Project, which independently produced the show Dangerous Stages in Portland, Ore., using masks. “A different set of facial expressions (or contortions really) and physical body gestures are required to animate the emotions.” To help emphasize those facial contortions, spend some time in front of a mirror practicing large expressions — huge Os, frowns, exaggerated grins — and combine those with posture and texture to convey emotional states. Use black eyeliner to emphasize your eyes behind the mask, and match your lipstick to the color of the upper-lip in a 3/4 mask. Ravenwood also directs her students to keep their shoulders away from their ears, tuck in their chin and to not extend their neck. And before you go overboard with the physical contortions, she warns, “You need to be in character for a time, so be comfortable in the body you create.” 5) Never “Show the Elastic” You’ve worked hard to create a character for the audience — don’t break it! Turning full profile or back to the audience will allow them to see the elastic and break the illusion; turning more than one quarter away, the mask disappears entirely. Actors should stand angled toward each other, rather than in full profile, so that it appears they are looking at each other, but the audience can still see the front of the mask. And, of course, avoid touching your mask with your hands during the performance, since it emphasizes the difference between flesh and mask, also breaking the illusion. According to all mask enthusiasts interviewed, the benefits of having performed in mask are body awareness and body freedom. Training in effectively communicating emotion and action with the body gives actors another tool to use besides the voice and face. Getting behind masks becomes an added dimension in visual awe for your theatrical performances. Don't get Stage Directions? Click here to subscribe now!
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