Performing with Masks

Tuesday 15th September 2015

Today we started our masks assignment with Sharon. 

The first thing we had to do was learn about the key principles of working with masks: 

• Always have your back to the audience when putting on or taking off a mask, as an illusion has to be created to make the audience believe, and this can be ruined by them seeing you put it on and off. 
• Once the mask is on, never touch it or talk. This also makes it appear unrealistic, not to mention that your vocals would be totally muffled by the mask. . 
• You absolutely have to respect the mask, as a performer you serve the mask, and it controls you, you do not control it. 
• You don't give movements and body language to the mask, it gives them to you. You must let what the mask is channel through you and your physicality rather than trying to assign it a particular personality or character. 

Before we started actually using the masks, we did some exercises to practice what it would be like performing in a mask. 

Because your facial expressions can't be seen in a mask, you have to convey your emotions to the audience entirely through the mask and the rest of your body language and physicality.

When you're performing in a mask, it is also important that no matter what you're doing with the rest of your body, your head is facing the audience at all times so the mask can be seen. 

So, what we did to start working on this was line up at the back of the room and walk slowly towards the mirror. We had to keep our faces neutral, our heads facing forward the whole time, and try moving our body around in different ways as we walked, experimenting with how we could use different levels, turn different ways and make different gestures without turning our head away from facing forward. I found it really quite difficult, I think it's going to take a lot of dedication to learn this way of performing. 

Next, we continued to focus on this but in groups. We had to come up with an interesting way of walking from one end of the room to the other keeping in mind the rules of masks, a neutral face and head forward constantly. Didi, Nuray, Jerome and I were had Didi as the focal point of it, and we looked at how her body language and movement changed depending on which one of our characters walked alongside her. I found it so hard to keep a straight face and try to put across what my role was like and how I was feeling just through my body. 

We learnt that because one of our tools as a performer, our facial expressions, cannot be used, we have to enhance other aspects like gesture and movement. It all has to be made even clearer and bolder. 

Next we went up in pairs, and simply had the task of walking across the stage, greeting and briefly interacting with one another in the middle, and then exiting. The whole time our heads had to be facing forward. I can't believe just how tricky it is to do basic functions while trying to keep your head in one position; it takes so much concentration. 

When we got to actually working with the masks, we took turns doing a solo exercise: putting on a mask, walking across the stage with it on, interacting with the audience a little and then exiting. 

It feels so bizarre wearing the mask, knowing that no matter what you do with your face all that's seen is the expression on the mask. Keeping this in mind, you have to adopt the body language which corresponds to the mask. I found wearing the mask for the first time both very odd and fascinating.

I think it is going to take a lot of getting used to working with masks, but I also see it as an amazing opportunity, not only to begin learning about and understanding a whole new part of performance, but also because I think the skills we'll learn through this will assist me greatly in the rest of my acting. 

I often find that I'm awkward about what to do with my body on stage, I find myself unsure of exactly to do physically, and I think focusing so much on movement, gestures and body language is going to help with this, even in the sense that hopefully it can improve my physical confidence in the stage space.

Tuesday 22nd September 2015

Today we looked more at the elements of mask work we learnt last week, this time exploring them in more depth and also discovering more about working with masks.

What we focused on today was age. Because we can't use speech or facial expressions, it limits the ways we have to convey to the audience what age our character is. Because of this, it is so important that we're able to embody every aspect of our role through our body, including the age they're supposed to be.

To begin, we repeated the exercise we did last week of walking towards the mirror in a line. We had to try and walk neutrally, with no facial expression, and we just had to settle into our neutral and how it felt walking and being in the stage space portraying no story or emotion at all.

From this, we moved into walking as different ages. First, we had to walk around the space as if we were a five year old, but Sharon told us not to immediately start acting as we thought they did off the top of our head, but to think about it, focus on the five year old we were being, and let it channel through our walking. I feel like this is a much more effective way of portraying the age, because there are more layers to your performance when you actually put your mind to it and explore it, rather than just doing a basic movement you assumed straight away might be a five year old.

Then we transitioned into walking as a teenager, which, somewhat ironically, I actually found more difficult. As we weren't allowed to mime props, thereby eliminating the possibility of doing the stereotypical "on their phone", and because there are so many different types of teenagers, I struggled to decide quite what to do. However, the exercise entailed actually changing up the personality or emotion of the teenager every so often, so having the chance to try out a few different things helped.

Next we went back to being five year olds, and we did an exercise where we as that five year old had to find our favourite toy and play with it. We looked at how big and exaggerated we could make our movements to make it clear what we were doing. It feels unnatural putting such emphasis on movements and motions you'd normally hardly even see, but the more we did it, the more used to it I became. Continuing the exercise, we paired up and had to play together with our toys. During this exercise what we tried was each of us being the major or minor focus at different points, as the audience need to know where they are supposed to be looking at any given time.

During this, we weren't allowed to talk to one another, and I found it really interesting how we're able to communicate with one another silently in our work, I think it is a great way to develop teamwork and cooperation.

Our next task was to interact in pairs again, but this time as teenagers, not children. We had to prepare a short greeting/scene as teenagers and then perform it for the rest of the group. In the scene our heads had to be facing forward of course, and we had to try and make clear what our characters were. Melody and I worked together on this, and it was quite a challenge to do this whole greeting and use your body completely without turning your head away.

I feel like this masks assignment takes a lot of concentration and it feels like it is really helping me work on focusing on individual aspects of performance, in terms of physicality.

Working together on this is really good, because in our mask work it is important that we can interact both with people on stage and with the audience, and by practising together we can get used to holding the story on stage together as well as engaging with the audience.

An exercise we did on our own was kind of a development on what we did last week where we just chose a mask, walked across and interacted with the audience in it.
Today, we had to do the same, but there was the addition of two boxes of props in centre stage which we could use.

I really enjoyed this, it gave us enough time to get comfortable in a mask and experiment with the body and movements of that mask. It is a very strange experience being on stage in a mask, it almost feels as if you aren't there as much as you are when your face can be seen.
Something I thought was so striking and effective which people did was just being quite still, being confident enough to let the mask do the work. We observed that having that strong, self assured presence on stage really encouraged a stillness in the audience and drew us in as an audience.
Something I tried to focus on while I was in the stage space wearing the mask was exactly this; taking my time, being confident in not doing too much, trying to maintain a good presence. A lot of these exercises we did prior to this one where we actually used the masks helped, as I felt really quite confident and comfortable in the mask this week, already much more so than last week.

The last thing we did today was another group project. We worked in trios, two acting in masks and one directing. I worked with Didi and Nuray, and I was directing. The task we were given was to create a short performance based around five year old children at their first day at school.
We chose two very contrasting masks; one with a sad facial expression and the other with a somewhat mean smile. Our natural instinct here was to look at the theme of bullying, as that could be the relationship these two masks had with one another.
Nuray was the mean, uncontrollable, rude, bully, and Didi was the nervous, shy, quiet, sad kid.
We worked around it being the first day for both children, but them both having such different attitudes and making such different starts. I think that using the young age of five which offers such specific physicality and having a first day as a setting which is so full of possibilities was really great stimulus to work with.
It wasn't only really great experience to create our own performance and gain experience of working with masks though, I find it just as important to pay close attention to everyone else's work. By seeing what seems to work and what doesn't, then feeding back to one another, I'm starting to build up quite a clear idea of what makes a successful performance working with masks.  

Tuesday 29th September 2015 

Today we looked at centres, and more specifically building a character from a centre. 

The day started with a warm up, in which we did our usual exercise of moving around the space in neutral. However, part way through the warm up, we were given a different way in which to walk around the space. We had to imagine our centre was in our head, and that our centre was what was leading us. Next we tried moving our centre to different places around our body, such as our leg, our knees, maybe our arm. We explored how where your centre is placed alters your movement.
Last week we looked at how important it is to make things clear to the audience, especially where they should be looking and where the focus is on stage. We explored this further through centres, putting complete emphasis on the part of our body where the centre was, over exaggerating our movements to make clear where that centre is.

Once we had gotten warmed up and begun to understand the concept of working from a centre, we did an exercise crossing the stage one by one with the rest of the class observing, and we had to choose a centre and make it clear as we crossed the stage.
We discussed what seemed to work to clarify where a centre was, and it all seemed to be about a combination of timing, stillness and over exaggeration. We also found that comedic value really added to the effect on the audience when using a centre.

Next grouped up into threes and were set the task of devising a short piece in which the three of us interacted all using our own centres. Melody, Jerome and I were in a trio.
We improvised a scene on the tube, and thought about how we could make it clear to the audience where each centre was, while also being able to interact with each other realistically. In the scene, I was a pickpocket, and it was based around me taking things from Melody and Jerome without them noticing. I think we were effective in achieving our goal, as the audience seemed to understand where our centres were as well as the narrative. 

Now we were well acquainted with how to use a centre in our performance, we combined it with our mask work. First, we took the faces of different masks and applied a centre to them which fit the face and character we felt that mask had.
Then we moved on to actually using the masks, doing an exercise where we crossed the stage in a mask using a centre, interacting with the audience as we went. We could choose any mask, but what was important was that our chosen centre informed the character and attitude of the mask, and it all came together to portray a clear role.
We all did this exercise twice, the second time trying to really emphasise and focus even more on putting this across. It is quite difficult applying a centre, because even though it helps build your character and add to your performance and physicality, you have to keep in mind all the principles of mask work and using a centre at the same time, and you have to do your best at both things simultaneously, not allowing your focus on one to take away from the other. With a lot of concentration it can create a really full and comprehensive character, particularly in terms of movement.
We worked together also in masks using centres, as we began to enter the stage space while others were already on, crossing paths and interacting with each other as new characters we created using a new mask and a new centre. Again, this added even more to work on, and it was actually really fun to push yourself into working in a mask, with a centre and other performers all at the same time.
Our work with masks is developing at an exciting pace, and all the time we're accumulating more and more we can use in our pieces when we devise our final performances for this unit.

The final thing we did today brought back in the major and minor work we did last week and added that to everything we were already doing.
Mara, Jerome and Romaine took part in an exercise which the rest of us observed, in which they had to use masks, centres, interaction and major and minor performing. Sharon gave them different points at which to change between who should be acting in major and who in minor, and we all watched the way the whole narrative was effected just by who the focus was on. In a sense I find that whoever is acting in major, we as an audience get a chance to sympathise with and see things from their point of view, as they are who our attention is on and therefore we see the scene taking place almost through how they see it and how they feel. It is very interesting what a huge difference using major and minor acting makes, and I also think it really helps to clarify the narrative and prevent the stage from being too busy with action and the scene appearing messy.

Putting together all the different techniques we've been learning over the last few weeks in this lesson was really great, I feel with all these different skills we will have a strong foundation for our performances. 

Tuesday 6th October 2015

Today we were put into the groups for our final performance with masks and we created our pieces. 

I was put into a group with Cache and Jerome, which is fantastic, as we're working together really well and make a good team. 

The first thing we had to do today was come up with ideas for our piece. The stimulus we were given was that it has to be based around school, even if not in a school environment, just related to school somehow. 

Jerome pitched the idea of having a dramatic storyline, one with a serial killer. We really liked this idea, excited at the prospect of such a thrilling basis for a story, and so now we had to think about how we could incorporate this with the school theme. I suggested that it could be set at a school trip to the fairground, as this offered up a great setting for some quite creepy material, which we all agreed on. We considered that one of the students could be murdered, but then decided to take this into a further plot twist; that one of the students was the killer, who had faked their own death. However, after feeding back this idea to the rest of the group and discussing the nature of the masks with Sharon, we came to the conclusion that the masks were too innocent to have such a dark storyline, so, we had to think of a way to use our idea of horror in a more light hearted way, and how to translate a dark storyline into something less heavy. 

Our idea for the killer was that they were a student who was bullied and sought revenge, and we considered how we could put a less dramatic turn on this. We decided to have them as a student who was bullied and decided to play a prank on their bullies, scaring them, to stand up for themselves. 

The perfect setting for a scary prank is a haunted house ride, and since we had already decided to set it at a fairground, this was ideal. 

Diagram of ideas

Now that we had a good foundation for our story, loads of ideas began to flow for costuming, props, lighting, sound, characters and scenes. To the right is a spider diagram of some initial ideas and a timeline of the scenes we came up with. 

Timeline of scenes

Firstly, we wanted to focus on what our characters were like. Cache and Jerome are going to play the bullies, and I'm going to play the girl they pick on. We decided Jerome would work with the mask that has a cocky smirk, Cache with the one that looks kind of dorky with its teeth out, and I will work with the one with the sad, shocked expression.
This is to show that Jerome is the leader out of him and Cache, that Cache follows what he says and is quite susceptible, and of course that I am upset by the way they treat me. 

To make it very clear to the audience who our characters are, we wanted to have quite slow entrances for each of us as an introduction to our characters. Through these entrances we decided to each pick a centre, and to really emphasise that point in our body as a means of conveying our character's overall persona and emotions. My centre for example was my shoulders, and I slouched, wanting to appear nervous and also down in the dumps. 

For our costumes, to follow the school theme visually, we have chosen to wear white shirts, black jeans and ties to portray school uniforms. 

Next we considered the key scenes for our piece to create a clear storyline. We knew we wanted to set up the situation, to have the prank, and then to have a happy ending. 

Jerome came up with the idea of us travelling to the trip by bus, Cache suggested using bus sound effects for this, and together we devised the staging of three chairs and the use of choral movement to show the bus journey. We swayed in unison from side to side and front to back, shaking slightly, to portray the bus moving around and turning corners. 

To make it clear to the audience where we were going, I thought of using some Brechtian style, walking across the stage with banners to explain. So when we arrive at the fairground, I walked across with a banner which reads "School Trip to Fairground". 

We wanted our first scene at the fairground to display the relationship between the characters, so we thought of showing the way Cache and Jerome treat me as I try to join in with them and they shun me. Wanting to use more physical theatre, we thought of going on a roller coaster ride. Cache and Jerome get on it and I try to sit next to them, but they shoo me away and so I have to sit in the back. 

We thought about how to show what ride we were on, and decided to make big gestures to show the audience, first pulling on the safety bar across our chests to hold us in, and then all leaning in the same directions and different points to show we were on a fast ride. 

Wishing to really highlight how mean Cache and Jerome are to my character, I mime throwing up after the ride, and the two of them laugh. 

We wished to show a lot of time passing at the fairground, but had to keep in mind that we only had five minutes, and so Jerome suggested doing a time lapse. We developed this idea by staging it split screen, Cache and Jerome enjoying themselves on one side and me bored and on my own on the other. Cache suggested we did all of our movements sped up as if we were showing it all in fast forward, and I said we should add a clock ticking sound effect over it, all of this enhancing the illusion of time passing while highlighting that my character wasn't allowed to be friends with them. 

Next was in my opinion the most fun part of our performance to devise; the scary prank scene. 

First we had to consider how to create the atmosphere of the haunted house and immerse the audience in it. To show what they were entering, we used another banner saying "Haunted House", but we wanted to do much more than this to set the scene. 

I thought a great way to create the dark, creepy environment was to switch off the lights and have the stage almost completely dark. Cache suggested instead of leaving one light on we could each have a torch, not only to shed

We considered different scary sound effect we could use; creaking floorboards, heavy breathing, screams, but Jerome suggested a piece of music called Kimyou na Yume playing over the scene, as it sounds like fairground music, but with an eerie, creepy twist. We all loved this and decided it was the perfect sound effect for this scene. 

Now we decided and rehearsed how I would scare them in the house. First, I sat on the floor in centre stage, swaying from side to side creepily, and they came to investigate, then I scared them. Next I changed position to stage left, frozen, and when they came to investigate, I scared them again. 

To keep it light hearted and follow the notion of it being a prank, we wanted to make this comical, so we chose to have a jokey chase scene. At this point I run after them across the stage one way, then the other, and then follow them into centre stage and pop up behind them. 

We rehearsed over exaggerating our movements and being quite cartoon-like in this scene to make it humorous.  

We ran through this scene a lot, wanting to make sure the staging and everything was just right so it could deliver the full impact. 

Finally, we created the resolution to the piece. We had to decide how to make it a happy ending was for them to be friends in the end, and we did this by my character buying the other two ice cream and ending the piece in a happy pose, me in between them with their arms around my shoulders to represent that I had been accepted and we had made up.
We just had to join this to the last scene, so after the two ran from the haunted house, I went to see them, they jumped, still afraid, and I comforted them by taking them to get the ice cream. 

I feel we managed to tie it together nicely and achieved successfully a happy ending for all three characters. 

Now we had our entire piece, we ran through it over and over, trying to make sure we followed all the key principles of mask; don't touch the mask, keep your head facing the audience, don't talk in the mask, never put it on or off in front of the audience. 

We also practised interacting with the audience, making our physical embodiment of the characters clear and using our centres, and trying to use the right combination of moments of stillness and over exaggeration to make a captivating and engaging performance. 

Once we had time to create and rehearse our pieces, we performed them to the rest of the group.
We didn't use the masks for this first showing, but in a way I think this was good, because it gave us a chance to make sure we really knew what we were doing and improve our piece before making it more difficult by adding the masks.
I think this first performance of it went really well. The audience were very responsive, they laughed and seemed to find the humour funny, and as far as I could tell they were engaged throughout.
I also enjoyed performing it, and it all came together very nicely, which is really satisfying and gives me great motivation to perfect and perform it for assessment next week.
I also found performing with Cache and Jerome just as good as working with them, I feel we communicate well with one another on stage and make a good company, complimenting and supporting one another's work and coming together to fulfil the potential of the overall performance.

It is already a lot of fun working on this project and I have a really good feeling about it, I'm very excited to perform next week. 

Mask Evaluation Character Masks

Describe your working process… 

i.e. Who came up with the ideas, how did you develop them for performance?

This section of the evaluation is in my logbook. 

What worked?

I think that a lot of the ideas we came up with in the initial creation of our performance worked well, which I'm really pleased with. 

I think our portraying our characters through their entrances and centres worked well, as we received a positive response from the audience which indicated they understood the dynamic between our parts clearly.
I think the humour in our piece also went well, as we used big over exaggerated and almost cartoon-like movements at different moments for comedic effect, such as in the haunted house when I was scaring and chasing Cache and Jerome, and the audience seemed to find this funny.
I would say that our overall interaction with the audience was successful, and I think we managed to build a good connection with them, because they did respond appropriately at different moments and seemed engaged in our performance. We were really happy about this because the work we put into rehearsals making sure we had moments where we involved them worked well in our live performance.
I also think that the sound and lighting effects we used in our piece, such as music, bus sounds, and turning off the lights and using torches added a really good layer to our performance and were successful in creating the desired atmospheres, such as a scary and tense one in the haunted house.

What could have been better?

As in my opinion both our rehearsal process and performance went well, I think that what I would improve on would essentially just be neatening everything up. Through more practice and rehearsal I think we could have made each part of the performance even stronger, literally just making the whole thing a bit tidier. This is because at some points I found it quite challenging to manoeuvre around the stage with the mask on, such as when chasing Cache and Jerome or exiting and entering with banners, because it was quite difficult to see in the mask as it limits your vision.

So I believe moments like these could have been better, and if we were to work on this again that is what I would focus on improving. 

What have you learnt about working with mask?

One of the most important things I have learnt from working with these masks is that they are absolutely not just props or costume, they really are performers in their own right and it is only through working with the mask that you can really build a strong performance.
Moreover I have learnt that you must take character and physicality from the mask, rather than applying it to the mask. In order to be convincing and to really create the illusion of bringing a mask to life, you have to let it be itself and adopt that character of the mask.
I've also learnt a lot about the many ways you can really use your physicality to its full potential in mask work, and that movement, body language and posture truly can be just as effective and expressive as words.
I have also learnt the importance of stillness and slowness when working with masks, and that sometimes less is more when connecting with the audience, because the mask itself portrays a lot and can be a demanding presence on stage even if you are very still.

Name the basic techniques?

• Always having your back to the audience when putting on or taking off a mask, so as not to shatter the illusion. 
• Never speaking or making sound once you have the mask on. 
• Not touching the mask once it is on, as this is another thing which breaks the illusion. 
• Allowing the mask to give you movement and character, really letting its personality flow through you and letting it control you, not the other way around. 
• Always keeping your head to the audience.
• Having clear entrances and exits. 
• Making your physicality strong and clear to fully portray your character and emotions without the need for words. 
• Interacting and connecting with the audience whenever possible, making sure they are always engaged in the performance and fully believing in the masks. 
• Using centres in your body to enhance your physicality and convey certain characters or emotions. 
• Working cooperatively with other performers on stage and together making a strong piece by all following the rules of mask while interacting with one another too. 
• Using major and minor, making it clear where the audience should be looking and who or what the focus is on at different points. 

Finally …How will this work help you as an actor?

This work has been so focused and intensive that I think it has really helped build discipline for me as an actor. It has taught me a lot about getting into the zone to perform, and I think in any kind of performance work I do this will be immeasurably helpful, as I will hopefully be able to think back to finding my neutral and getting in the right mindset to create work and perform. 

It has been so heavy on physicality that it has really done me a world of good in being concise and confident with my body language and movement. As an actor I have always found it quite difficult to be confident physically on stage, but this mask work has helped me a lot with being able to feel sure of myself physically even when not moving or gesturing. I've also learnt a lot from it about exactly how to use my body as a performance tool successfully, which I will be able to apply to all future work as a performer. 

The absolute concentration and commitment required to working with a mask, remembering all of the rules and techniques while also completely applying yourself to a role as well as working with the other actors cooperatively, connecting with the audience and serving the narrative of your piece is very challenging and having so much to think about at one point and learning how to find the balance has given me important skills in being able to divide my focus across several aspects of performance at once. 

Altogether I think that my both my confidence and skill as an actor has been improved a lot through this mask work, and I intend to carry through everything I have learnt from it into any future acting work I do.