Excerpt From The Innamorati: Anna and the Masks

Very early in the novel I sought to establish a fantastic relationship between Anna Forsetti and the Commedia masks she creates. The masks speak to her, they are very alive and responsive to her mood. For Anna there is an interconnection between the womb which creates a life within it and a mask like an exterior shell that transforms the actor wearing it. Within and without. Anna's inability to work at the beginning of the novel is complicated but centers on the anguished belief that her vital self has become a knot of thorns. 

 Anna opened the door to her studio, letting the afternoon sun chase into the room before her. She waited on the threshold. The studio was cool and dry, the dust swirling up from the unswept floor in the slanted sunlight. Her awls and gougers were scattered over the workbench as if thrown. A mold lay upturned like a beetle on its back and in its depths was the tattered paper remains of a mask.

Nervously, Anna fingered the strings of her cap and stepped into the room beneath the masks hanging from the rafters. She inhaled the earthy fragrance of clay and wood shavings, the pungent fumes of old liniments and paints and closed her eyes, dizzily. This was where she belonged — heart, soul, and belly. Anna pressed her hands over her middle. A low pain woke with a gentle throb.

"Please," she whispered. "Not now. I must work. I need to work."

The coils of cursed thorns writhed slowly within her. Anna dropped her hands and moved with determination toward the windows. As she threw open the first shutter with a loud bang, sunlight filled the hollowed backs of three Gorgon masks hanging over the lintel. The twisting snakes over their brows hissed to life, their green scales brightened by the touch of day. They opened their heavily lidded eyes and the sun shot gold tongues through their parted lips.

"Anna, you are here," they whispered.

"Good day my beauties." Anna saluted them.

The eyes of the Gorgons followed Anna as she crossed the room to the other window. She threw back the second shutter and the sun woke the sleeping faces of a satyr and his nymph, hanging side by side. The satyr was painted a silky black. His hair and brows were flecked with gold and two gold horns coiled around his temples. He grinned at Anna, a tongue pressed between his sharp teeth while, beside him, his nymph woke more slowly. Her drowsy face was wreathed with dried flowers and leaves. Anna reached up and touched the faint blush on the mask's cheek. The nymph sighed and the leaves shivered in the new breezes.

All of the masks were waiting like old friends and Anna moved around the room, greeting each one. How could she be afraid to be here? she wondered, a finger smoothing the puffed leather cheeks of a fool's mask, the long nose of II Capitano, the lace trimmed forehead of the ingenue."   Read More >>>

 

Research Notes, Johnstone, Impro : Masks and Trance I, Trance States in Masks II, Rudlin Commedia Masks III

Excerpts from The Innamorati: Anna and the Masks , Anna Surrenders, Anna's Return