I have respect for authors who manage to write incredibly long, complicated sentences -- but with such consummate skill and daring that I inhale deeply and then read it aloud, trying to see if I can make it to the end in all one exhale. These sentences enter the text to condense a moment into a world of detail and history. More often than not, it serves in its fullness as an expression of the entire novel. And when it arrives (as it always does) early in the book, you experience a novel's emotional content before it fully begins. I am re-reading Barry Unsworth's remarkable novel, Morality Play, set in the English middle ages. It is narrated by a young priest escaping life in the cloisters and stumbling into a troop of actors on their way to perform for a Lord. He asks to join them in desperate circumstances, primarily for protection and the chance to eat. Reluctantly, but out of necessity, for they need an extra man to complete their cast, they accept him. While relieved to have found help with his situation, the young priest Martin privately reflects on his failures as a priest, his dalliances with women, and his shame at having abandoned the Bishop who treated him kindly. And he sums up his life and character in this one sentence, a complex mixture of apology and remorse mingled with pride and unearned arrogance.
"First, there was the shame to cause distress to my Bishop, who had given me the tonsure, who had always treated me like a father, because this was not the first time I had left without permission but the third, and always in the May-time of the year at the stirring of the blood and this time the reason was different, but the stirring was the same, I had been sent to act as secretary to Sir Robert de Brian, a noble knight and generous in his benefactions but not of discerning taste in his letters and in short a very vile poet who set me to transcribing his voluminous verses and as fast as I copied them he would bring others."
And finishes this list of causes with, "All this I endured," which describes by its internal contradictions, a narrator we may like, but should not trust.
Seriously, so worth reading! A fabulous novel that prefigures the early religious, mystical plays and begins to transform them into an early modern sensibility about theater and storytelling.
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)
"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.
Anna's personal journey into the maze has to do with her belief that her anger at lost love incited her miscarriage. Within her own body she "feels" the curse like the twisting of thorns which keeps her in constant pain and makes it impossible for her to create the masks she loves. She believes, as do all pilgrims on entering the maze, that walking through its twists and turns will unravel the curse and leave it behind her. But the maze is not an exercise in forgetting and losing, it is about confrontation with the self -- a terrifying prospect. She has brought the masks with her and they call out to her from the depths of the bag. But even they tremble at what the maze might do to their beloved Anna.
"Oh, my beauties, where did I take the wrong turn?" Anna asked. She was lying on her back staring up at the flutter of silvery leaves. The air was redolent with the scent of green grass and spicy olive wood. The sun was warm on her face, easing the panic she had felt at discovering herself quite alone in the maze.
"Leaving Venice," said a miffed Pantelone from inside the bag.
"Not studying the classics!" Il Dottore objected.
"Not bringing enough to eat," complained Arlecchino.
"Not bringing any wine.'" grumbled the satyr.
"Loving the devil who cursed us," said the nymph, rustling her leaves.
"Not having a dowry for Mirabella," piped the ingenue.
"Letting the drunkard Spaniard take up space in the bag," groused Pulcinella. "Prickless coward! When I get out of here, I'll give you a hundred whacks where it hurts the most!"
"Wart-faced whelp of a worn-out whore, what do you know of courage!" demanded II Capitano. "Anna should have chopped you up for the moths to eat."
Anna rolled her eyes and pinched her fingers together. "Basta! I didn't ask for your opinions about my life. I only asked where I made the wrong turn in the maze and lost Mirabella and the others?"
The masks were silent a moment before they all started to chatter at once.
"At the cedars, you should have—"
"By the fountain of naked nymphs—"
"The bridge, stupid—"
"What about those dead trees—"
"It's clear that the rountunding ambrage, reticulating the reversals—"
Anna put her head in her hands. "At least now I don't feel so badly. Clearly, I'm not the only one to be hopelessly lost."
"Why are we here at all?" asked Pantelone.
Anna lifted her face to the olive trees. "Because I have been cursed by an evil man, of course."
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 >>>
When I was in Italy, I happen to read a murder mystery set in the 16th century -- the same time period I was using to set The Innamorati. I read the first 100 pages which took place over a two day period in the story and not once had the characters eaten anything. I mentioned this to my Italian friend and she answered with shocked horror, "Not even pasta??" It was unthinkable. A reviewer once complained that my novel would have been better if I hadn't bothered writing so much about the food -- or sex -- which I think missed the point of the novel.
Sophia Loren (from Life Magazine) "Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti."
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....
