We keep talking about "mask characters" for R&J, but I'm not entirely clear on whether or not we're actually diving into mask performance for this show or not. I would guess that we are, given how much we've been talking about masks lately, having an actually Italian actor working with us and the fact that a clown nose is itself a kind of mask. ("The mask that reveals," as Grey once quoted to us.) We may even get a nice dry run on mask performance from working on The Husband in August. That's another one for which I'm uncertain about whether or not we're using masks, but we keep talking about it being a traditional commedia dell'arte show, so . . .
If we are contemplating performing in mask, I think we should consider it very carefully. I'm specifically grateful, in fact, that we have a dry-run opportunity. We should learn a lot from it about how typical American audiences deal with it. We have certain cultural indicators that have told us that masked folks are not all bad -- The Lone Ranger, superheroes, etc. -- but by-and-large we're unaccustomed to them and find them threatening. It's similar to a subject I've been contemplating a bit lately: Clown fear. We fear the grotesque and unknown. God knows why. I've heard a million different explanations, and it's really all pretty moot to contemplate it here. It's just a fact.
I believe it's a fact we can overcome. Particularly watching Andrea's workshop last weekend, and the way everyone there loved performing in mask. It puts you into your body, and releases impulses (which may be part of why the Puritan in us runs screaming from them). It must be possible to transition from the current response of "Oh shit! A mask! Run!" to "Oh neat! A mask! I wonder what s/he'll do...?" This, at any rate, is how I imagine the response was in the time of commedia dell'arte. I suppose it was something similar to walking around the corner and finding someone doing really impressive breakdancing. Everybody loves to watch breakdancing.
What may be too much is to ask the average American to appreciate grotesque appearance. I've done some informal surveys, and though we as performers find them beautiful, a large quantity of folks these days have trouble appreciating traditional commedia masks. That blows, and I'd like to break them of it, but maybe we're forging enough new trails here as it is. Particularly when we're actively involving the audience in the way commedia and clown do. Zuppa has to confront that every show, sans mask, that initial defensiveness to having their fourth wall invaded. Add grotesque masks to the mix, particularly if they're dark leather or, say, riddled with warts, and I do believe you're asking a lot. "Holy shit! A seriously old man! Run!"
I could be (and often am) wrong. See above gratitude for having a potential dry run. Perhaps there's a finesse we can learn to working in mask similar to the sense we have of which audience members to involve in Zuppa antics in general. "Watch out for the four-year-old in the first row; she's a crier." "Thanks. Make sure you get the dude with the mustache at the end of six. He's my Dad, and into it."
But I also have an idea. (What? You, Jeff? It's true, and I will inflict it upon you. Wah-TA:) Just as we've approached commedia dell'arte as a "living tradition" all these years, perhaps the masks can be designed to be in the spirit of the originals, but responsive to our own century. My image of this -- though I also imagine the directions for this idea are limitless -- is of masks that take their features from the traditional masks, but filter them through some of the art and culture we're more accustomed to. Specifically, I wonder about more primary coloring and incorporating shapes at once more exaggerated and more basically geometric. (Anybody here seen Mirrormask? Totally stealing from it, I think.) The masks in my mind borrow a lot from cubism and technology (not technological function, but design). Bluetooth earpieces mask ears. Sunglasses mask eyes. Etc. Etc. The effect shouldn't be overt, but influenced by what we're accustomed to.
Take Arlecchino, for example.
If you use the traditional mask as a jumping-off point, there's already some basic geometry that jumps out at us. Circles for cheeks. Round eyes. Asymmetrical wart on the forehead. Arcing brows and pug nose. Maybe the contemporary mask borrows the colors of his traditionally patched costume, and is literally two circles on the cheeks, with arcing pieces rising out from them. Maybe the wart becomes a ball on a spring, or something more muted, like a barrette. This kind of image for me allows me to relax from the idea that someone is deceiving me, or mocking my appearance, and tells me immediately that their character is a scamp. It even rouses my curiosity. It's way more accessible for me than Picasso, at any rate.
Thoughts?
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