I am uncertain where this piece of information came from originally -- I neglected to write down the cite perhaps already transforming it into a scene I myself might write, while metally putting it into the "truth is stranger than fiction" category.
"A troop of Mattacini (masqueraders) came to celebrate a bridegroom's wedding and invited him to join in and participate in the play. At one point he "appears" to be killed and is loaded up in a mock funeral. Only later does the bride and family discover that he was indeed strangled by his rival."
"Let us amuse ourselves today, You will never guess my name, and I won't ask you to try. I am a mad spirit or goblin. I come from the other world, and one of those spirits, Actus or Plautus orders me to tell you that a comedy will be played this evening."
One of the most instructive texts on the Commedia dell' Arte that I read while researching The Innamorati was John Rudlin's classic Commedia dell' Arte: An Actor's Handbook. It is a wonderful combination of history, explanation of the different stock characters and their individual personalities, mask work, and performance technique for Commedia. It has been argued that what made the Commedia so vital in its time was its fluidity, the ability of a troup to shape a performance to any audience. The stock figures (masked and unmasked) had a list of specific characteristcs, a recognized persona. But within that framework, performers could improvise and invent provided they didn't do an injury to the essence of the character.
It is remarkable to think of a troupe pulling together the suggestion of a story, stock bits of action, a verse from a well known song, local politics or gossip, and improvisation in between to make this both a studied and yet a free wheeling performance. The great playwright Carlo Goldoni would in the 18th century pin down the plays by scripting them to within an inch of their lives. He desire was to preserve the Commedia tradition though the result was to effectively kill it. He wanted a more elegant theater, a more predicatable outcome for every performance. And he despised the mask, believing it to be an obstruction to truely skilled acting claiming "the soul under a mask is like a fire under the ashes." Yet, many of the great masked performers speak of the almost frightning and mythic possession by the mask, their work shaped by the power of the mask, rather than their will. And such a surrendering to the mask necessitates a non-egotistical work, "a state of availability of mind and body, or rather mind in body." (And any writer on a really good writing day can attest to something similar in their work experience -- where the writing flows as if the characters are in charge and not the writer.)
Research Notes: Rudlin, Commedia dell'Arte:
"Persona versus Personality: A masked man had no right to bear arms during Carnival season in medieval Italy because he was considered to have divested himself of his own identity by assuming another person, for who actions he was therefore not responsible. Similarly, in commedia dell' arte...personality disappeared to be replaced by type: the personality of the actor is thus overtaken not by an author's scripted character, but by the persona of the mask to be played." (34)
"Each mask represents a moment in everyone's (rather than someone's life). That is not to say that the fixed types of the Commedia are simplistic or reductiveof life: each contains and expresses at least one paradox and its seemingly obvious physicality usually implies a metaphysical quality which may take an actor years tp acquire. " (35)
"The actor who plays in a mask receives the reality of his character from a cardboard object. He is commanded by it and must obey it willy-nilly. No sooner has he put it on than he feels an unknown being spread into his veins of whose existence he had no suspicion. It is not only his facewhich is modified, it is his entire being, the very nature of his reflexesd where feelings are already performing themselves that he was equally incapable of feeling or feigning when bared-faced...even the tone of his voice will be dictated by his mask." (Jacques Copeau, Reflexiion d'un comedien sur le Paradoxe de Diderot.) (36)
"The 'great' Commedia actors tended in fact to 'become' their masks, and their biographies often became inextricably intermingled with the characteristics of the Mask. Antonio Fava teaches that when the mask is raised after performing, it should seem as if the actor's face is still formed by it, wearing its imprint, if no longer it's actual contours." (36)
Dario Fo writes: "Firstly wearing a mask can, in an actor, induce anxiety deriving not so much from the use itself as from the fact that the mask restricts both the visual field and the accoustical-vocal range...That is the first reason. Then there is a second which is mythical, magical almost. A singular sensation afflicts you when you take off the mask--this is at least my reaction--the fear that part of my face has remained stuck to it, or the fear that the face has gone with the mask. When you remove the mask after having had it on for two or three hours, you have the impression of annihilating yourself." (37)
"The other reason for leather (masks) is that it is practical. Italy is a hot country. Playing Commedia is sweaty business. A new leather mask is like a new shoe or glove, only gradually will it take onm the identity of its wearer and become something comfortable rather than alien to wear. Simply, the two skins learn to co-operate rather than conflict." (39)
This is a complicated moment in the novel when several threads come together, all for the purpose of resolving Anna's terrifying possession. Having accepted the maenad's mask, and now in its spell, Anna throws herself into the bloody revels of the maenads following Bacchus. Two men with separate interests in Anna have been searching for her, one to offer love, the other the gift of redemption. And yet a third waits for her, the Tago -- a creature out of Etruscan folklore that represents the spirit of a child. But this is no easy rescue (are they ever?) for the maenads will not surrender their sister without a fight.
In the dimming twilight, Anna stood on the bank of the river and scooped out handfuls of white clay embedded in the dark mud. She threw back the fawn's skin from her shoulders and smeared the wet clay on her arms, her legs, and her throat. Excitement threaded her veins. The night was fast approaching when they would begin the ritual of the hunt.
The ritual began by drinking wine until it overflowed the rims of their mouths and stained their white, clay-covered throats with crimson. The drowsy torpor that assailed the maenads during the day would be replaced with a fever born of the quickening breath of the wine and the sting of Bacchus s biting kiss. Then the drums would sound their slow ponderous beat, the leader would cry out her high-pitched ululations, and the hunt would begin.
Bacchus was generous to them, his divine hand guiding wild prey into their snares. Last night it had been a panther, his black velvet coat sleek as the shadows. The maenads followed the trail of his musky scent along the fringes of the dead oak forest until Bacchus lured him into the sacred olive grove. There they had quickly circled the beast, chanting and rattling their spears. The panther had raked the mask from the lead hunter with his steel-grey claws and torn deep furrows in her face. The screams of the fallen woman had joined in chorus with the panthers defiant squalls.
Anna stopped spreading the white clay on her arms. A strange mixture of emotions warred within her: elation and pleasure at the ecstasy of the hunt and horror at the memory of the mutilated panther and the dying woman, her true face drowned in blood. Her broken mask lay on the grass like the panther s legs and paws and tail when the maenads had torn it to pieces. Anna could still taste the raw flesh on her tongue, still smell the strong metallic odor of blood. With painful deliberation, she lifted a hand toward her masked face. If she could touch the unfamiliar face that curved so intimately over her own, these fearful images would stop.
Suddenly Bacchus was there. He caught her hand in his and placed it against his heart. His hairless chest was smooth, the skin warm and oiled. Through her fingertips, she could feel his heart rapping out an in¬vitation to the hunt. He grinned at her, his midnight eyes capturing the doubt in her eyes and banishing it. She tilted her head back and he bit her lower lip and sucked it hard, drawing blood. The taste of wine and his saliva trickled into her mouth with each thrust of his tongue. A fire erupted in her belly and spread its flames to her thighs and her breasts. He released her and was gone.
The solemn drums quickened their pace and the reed pipes played shrilly, calling the maenads together. The lead hunter raised high her thrysus and shook its dry rattles over the band. They waited restlessly as Bacchus held the bowl of wine above their heads. He gave it first to the leader of the hunt. Head tilted back, she gulped steadily until the wine dribbled down the sides of her chin. She lowered the bowl at last and, with a reluctant sigh, passed it to the next woman, who drank as deeply. And so the bowl passed from hand to hand, from mouth to mouth, and was never emptied.
Anna took the bowl between her white hands and closed her eyes as she inhaled the fragrant wine. Eagerly she tipped the wine down her throat. Like the god's kiss it scorched her lips like a mouthful of flames. Her lungs clamored for air, but still she drank, swallowing rapidly until she felt the wine fill the dark hollow of her belly. She gagged as wine bubbled over her tongue and gushed down the sides of her mouth. And only then did she pull the bowl away from her lips and pass it to the next woman. Read more >>>
In the midst of all this heavy lifting of my research notes, I re-read my own essay "A Chorus of Clowns and Masked Comic Theater" written for Realms of Fantasy on the history of clowns, from antiquity to the Marx Brothers. It's funny, and I have to confess that I enjoyed re-reading it as it provides a pretty wide view of the different forms of improvisational theater. It seems a good moment to add it in here as it describes the masks in action, wild, ribald, pranking, shouting, and generally enjoying themselves to our benefit.
From the essay:
"In the middle of winter, when it is so gray I can't take it any more, I rent as many Marx Brothers movies as I can find. There is something about the zany interaction of these "clowns" creating havoc in a department store, a racetrack, or the stateroom of an ocean liner that brightens the dullness of the day. Then there is that crackling, fast dialogue, most of it famously improvised; and the elaborate musical numbers, ridiculous dances, and absurd moments of slapstick. Perhaps because I know they are four brothers, I sense a kinship in their characters. Although each one of them wears a different costume and "mask," there is a synchronicity in their performance — for while each one constructs his own comedic business, they do not act alone, but form a madcap chorus of clowns.
"Watching them, I sense much older traditions layered beneath the surface of their film performances. It is easy to imagine Groucho with satyr's hooves or Harpo in the round wide–mouth mask of an ancient Fool. Inspired by the antics of the Marx Brothers, I decided to review the roots of clowning in the early Southern European history of theater clowns — not the circus clowns — but those masked characters who rose out of early pagan cults and then developed into secular, irreverent tricksters and mirrors of human behavior...."
"...The chorus of clowns rips apart polite society and in that act exposes our true feelings. In this joyful disorder, we remember primal emotions: we lust, we become envious and jealous, we are starved for affection and fame, and we long for an illusive, trouble–free happiness. We would rather sleep than work; we are clever and undeniably foolish at times. We are complicated, conflicted, and no single character can carry the weight of so many inconsistencies. We need a chorus of clowns to speak for us. Despite their secular natures, the clowns are still mythic to me. Humor is an old response to fear of the unknown and contempt for the familiar. For 3,000 years, somewhere a chorus of clowns has misbehaved, and in their audacity, called down gods, heroes, and legends for a face to face meeting with humanity, offering laughter as a form of reverence."
"The mask is a terrible, mysterious instrument. It has always given me and continues to give me a feeling of fear. With the mask we are on the threshold of a theatrical mystery whose demons reappear with static, immutable faces, which are the very roots of theater." -- Giorgio Strehler. (Un Theatre Pour la Vie, Paris, Fayard. 1980)
Photo credit: lan Ben Zion, Times of Israel. Neolithic Mask Collection Jerusalem.
Keith Johnstone's Impro is a terrific book for actors looking for methods to feel at home and never without words on the stage. Johnstone's emphasis is to understand and utilize improvisation effectively. The book is full of wonderful exercises and activities that do indeed have the ability to unlock spontaneous, creative speech to instigate, develop, and move almost any scene. Johnstone's ideas also have a direct relationship to story telling, as a practice of improvisation also creates a freedom to pull tales out of the air in a kind of organized stream of conscientiousness. And if you are ever stuck as an author I highly recommend having a look at his work and try out some of the exercises.
These notes however, are not about his improvisational games, but Johnstone's ideas on Mask, and especially the tranced state which is induced when working with a powerful Mask. It is interesting because from his observations it seems as though we often are in a soft-state of trance (ask any writer working on a new book who gets in a car to go to the store and winds up in a completely different place. Aish....the only reason we don't crash is because of bi-location -- which allows for part of the brain to do the practical work of driving while another part disappears down the creative rabbit hole.) Jonhstone's focus here is on Mask work for modern theater -- but he does have a section the much older traditions of Mask work that are part of ritual performances -- much earthier, deeply rooted in ancient traditions. The Mask performers become the old Gods through possession and engage in specific tasks to challenge, excoriate, cleanse or heal the community, ensuring its continued success. (Though some of those Masks are terrifying! Like the Grampus.).
Notes: Keith Johnstone, "Masks and Trance." (Impro, Theater Arts Books, Routledge, 1992)
"It's true that an actor can wear a Mask casually, and just pretend to be another person, but as Gaskill and myself were absolutely clear that we were trying to induce trance states. The reason why one automatically talks and writes of Masks with a capital 'M' is that one really feels the genuine Masked actor is inhabited by a spirit. Nonsense perhaps, but that's what the experience is like, and has always been like. To understand Mask it's also necessary to understand the nature of trance itself. " (143-144)
"Masks seem exotic when you first learn about them, but to my mind Mask acting is no stranger than any other kind: no more weird than the fact that an actor can blush when his character is embarrassed, or turn white with fear, or that a cold will stop for the duration of the performance, and then start streaming again as soon as the curtain falls...Actors can be possessed by the characters they play just as they can be possessed by Masks...We find the the Mask strange because we don't understand how irrational our responses to the face are anyway, we don't realize that much of our lives is spent in some sort of trance, i.e. absorbed. " (148)
"The Mask...exhibited without its costume, and without film, or even a photograph of the Mask in use, we respond to it only as an aesthetic object. Many Masks are beautiful or striking, but that's not the point. A Mask is a device for driving personality out of the body and allowing spirit to take possession of it. A very beautiful Mask may be completely dead, while a piece of old sacking with a mouth and eye-holes torn in it may possess tremendous vitality. (149)
"Many actors report "split" states of consciousness, or amnesia; they speak of their body acting automatically. or as being inhabited by the character they are playing. Sybil Thorndike: "When you're an actor you cease to be make and female, you're a person with all the other persons inside you. (Great Acting, BBC Publications, 1967.) Edith Evans: "...I seem to have an awful lot of people inside me. Do you know what I mean? If I understand them I feel terribly like them when I am doing them...It's quite odd you know. You are it, for quite a bit, and then you're not."
"In another kind of culture I think it's clear that such actors could easily talk of being possessed by the character. It's true that while some actors will maintain they always remain 'themselves' when they're acting, but how do they know? Improvisers who maintain that they're in a normal state of consciousness when they improvise often have unexpected gaps in their memories which only emerge when you question them closely....Normally we only know of our trance states by the time jumps. When an improviser feels that two hours have passed in twenty minutes, we're entitled to ask where he was for the missing hour and forty minutes. " (152)
"Most people only recognize "trance" when the subject looks confused--out of touch with the reality around him...I remember an experiment in which deep trance subjects were first asked how many objects there had been in the waiting-room. When they were put into trance and asked again, it was found they had actually observed more than ten times the number of objects than they had consciously remembered." (153)
And this is for fun because one doesn't need to know the language -- only the Mask, the Voice, and the Gestures to pretty well get this performance by Dario Fo of Arlecchino with a personal problem.
Midori Snyder is the author of nine books for children and adults, published in English, French, Dutch, and Italian. She won the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati, a novel inspired by early Roman myth and the Italian "Commedia dell'Arte" tradition....more
Midori Snyder is the author of nine books for children and adults, published in English, French, Dutch, and Italian. She won the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati, a novel inspired by early Roman myth and the Italian "Commedia dell'Arte" tradition....
