Have you ever ever been making faces at your self within the lavatory mirror and out of the blue your face contorts right into a form that you just’ve by no means seen earlier than, and it’s so excessive that you just hardly recognise your self for a number of moments? In the event you haven’t, there’s your homework for this week: see if you happen to can freak your self out by pulling humorous faces. When you’ve got, you’ve already (maybe unknowingly) tapped into the essence of masks for actors.

Masks for actors primarily capabilities as a device for growing characters. Masks used for efficiency can mimic widespread archetypes that encourage a really particular manner of transferring and vocalising or they are often utterly impartial, serving as a basis upon which to construct a wholly new character.

On this article, I’ll speak concerning the historic significance of masks for actors in efficiency, then look extra deeply into particular sorts of masks and their software in a coaching and efficiency atmosphere. Whether or not you’ve had formal coaching or not, masks for actors could be a useful addition to your actor’s toolkit!

A Temporary Historical past

Masks have been round for no less than 9,000 years. They’ve been utilized in many various cultures for quite a lot of causes together with safety, ceremony and efficiency. There’s a large vary of masks used particularly for efficiency from all around the world with characters and functions distinctive to the tradition.

I lately returned from Bali the place I used to be lucky sufficient to live and practice with Balinese artists. I discovered about many conventional artwork kinds, together with Balinese masks. Balinese masks are exceptionally transformative and are typically paired with conventional dance or motion to inform tales or entertain audiences.

You would possibly already be conversant in the theatre masks of Historical Greece, which had been used to remodel actors into any gender, creature or deity they desired. What you might not know is that masks had been additionally a manner of amplifying a performer’s pure voice. The Greeks knew actually knew a factor or two about performing, so it’s no shock that masks has remained a well-liked coaching device for actors all through historical past.

The Evolution of Masks in Performing

If you consider performing, what sort of pictures come to thoughts? May it maybe be a pair of masks? Is one smiling and the opposite one frowning? I knew it. 

These two well-known masks had been invented a really very long time in the past by the Athenians who popularized theatre and mask-use all throughout central Europe. The masks had been initially utilized in performances that celebrated the gods—particularly fan favorite Dionysus, the god of fertility, wine and theatre. Because the masks turned popularised in Europe, their use prolonged to spiritual ceremonies, together with funerals the place skilled actors would put on masks and re-create the deeds of the deceased (which is strictly how I need my funeral to go.)

Masks developed over time and have become extra specialised for efficiency. Japanese Noh theatre took place within the 14th Century and remains to be carried out immediately, utilizing a staggering 450 completely different fashions of masks for varied roles.

Quick ahead to the Renaissance. Everybody from the royals to the commoners had been utilizing masks in a technique or one other. Masquerade emerged round this time and remains to be used immediately as a celebration theme by unimaginative folks. The roots of ballet and clowning come from artforms then generally known as ballet de cour and commedia dell’arte, with masks being integral to each. 

In trendy instances, masks are extra intricate than ever and are in use on the stage and the display screen. Consider all of the movies that use sensible results like Alien, Predator, Friday the 13th and nearly each horror film ever which have actors sitting in chairs for six hours getting a prosthetic face placed on. All of it comes from the roots of masks.

Full and Partial Masks

Broadly talking, there are two sorts of masks in terms of performing for stage or display screen: full and partial masks. Full masks cowl the entire face, creating a really particular type of character, whereas partial masks would possibly reveal the mouth and eyes, permitting a extra open interpretation. 

Full masks coaxes the physique into bizarre, fantastic and extremely exaggerated shapes. It’s very troublesome to talk articulately together with your lips pressed up in opposition to a full masks, which is probably why many conventional practices don’t enable talking (Balinese Masks, Larval Masks, Impartial Masks.) Full masks forces you to speak solely together with your physique.

Partial masks is rather less restrictive, and has fairly a profound impact on the voice in addition to the physique. In lots of partial masks efficiency traditions, you might be normally anticipated to vocalise which is why these masks are sometimes utilized in comedic performances in order that actors can have an audible dialogue with one another or the viewers. These masks can stretch an actor’s voice into unimaginable locations.

Probably the most fascinating factor about each of those mask-types is the transformative potential they’ve. It’s very troublesome to placed on a well-made masks and nonetheless behave precisely such as you usually do.

The Vitality of Masks

Once I was finding out masks in drama college (and extra lately in Bali) I observed some fascinating phenomena that occurred each time I placed on a masks. 

The primary was that I felt safer within the masks. Each actor I do know has some degree of hysteria once they rise up to carry out, and I’m no exception. Whether or not I’m within the wings at a present or sitting on a plastic chair in an audition ready room, my heart-rate goes up and my abdomen floods with butterflies, regardless of what number of instances I do it.

Placing on a masks appears to alleviate this. Not utterly, thoughts you, however positively a major quantity. I don’t have any scientific reasoning for why this occurs, however my private concept is that carrying a masks provides me whole permission to be somebody or one thing else. Abruptly, I’m not myself: so due to this fact I can’t get self-conscious. Bizarre, proper? 

The second factor that occurs is that the masks itself reveals me the way it needs to play.  I don’t must invent or intellectualise something as a result of it’s already there within the form of the masks’s nostril and eyes and the power that it exudes. In Bali, earlier than we wore the masks we had been working with, we’d maintain it up and have a look at it, imagining that it was trying straight again at us. As we stared lovingly into every others’ eyes, my posture and my expression began to shift and I began to think about what the masks would sound like if it had a voice. This all occurred actually rapidly. Earlier than I knew it, I had a totally embodied character to play with.

The Functions of Masks

Maybe the obvious advantages of coaching in several sorts of masks are the bodily ones. Very similar to animal work, they aid you to create shapes and sensations in your physique that you just aren’t sometimes used to. That is massively helpful for any type of performing: stage, display screen, even voiceover. Masks encourages a boldness of expression that few different methodologies can.

The follow additionally introduces you to quite a lot of completely different archetypes, relying on the masks. It could be tempting to dismiss archetypes as uninspired cliches, however I consider they’re a terrific start line for character era. Cliches and archetypes and stereotypes are the best way that we paint broad strokes as actors. You may’t create element with out them.

After a very fulfilling masks class, I approached my tutor and informed her that I felt a lot freer and embodied after I’m carrying a masks. She replied: “All performing is a masks.” It’s recommendation that I’ll maintain and move on to others for the remainder of my life. No matter whether or not or not we’re carrying a bodily masks, we’re all the time somebody or one thing else once we act.

The great thing about this philosophy is that it provides you full permission to be somebody apart from your self. You may placed on a masks if you’re able to play and take it off if you’re completed. It doesn’t want to return with you into your day-to-day life.

Conclusion

Masks has been round for 1000’s of years. It continues to function some of the transformative efficiency practices on the earth. Even if you happen to don’t personal a masks, subsequent time you’re making faces at your self within the mirror, think about that you just’re creating one for your self and see what sort of characters you may give you.

If you discover one that basically shocks you, discover their voice and their posture and remind your self that that is the essence of a follow that has knowledgeable theatre and performing as we all know it immediately. Experiment. Play. Have enjoyable!

See you across the traps!