Chris Vervain (Dr Christine Lambert)
An artist, mask maker, author and theatre director of several masked productions of Greek drama
In ancient Greece the word for theatrical mask was prosopon, the same as the word for “face”, “one’s look” or “countenance.” (Liddelland Scott). Their term lacked the connotations of the English word “mask” which, in its more general use, is synonymous with “cover” and “conceal.” The derivation of our term is not certain. The source is probably the Arabic “maskhar“ which meant ‘to falsify’ or ‘transform’ into animal, monster, or freak but this in turn may have originated in the Egyptian word msr referring to “leather” or a “second skin.” (Nunley and McCarty 15).
This difference between modern and ancient concepts of the mask may indicate a profound difference in perception of their nature, function and use. With this in mind, I now consider some aspects of masking in performances of Greek drama; both those in our own era and those given in fifth century Athens.
Amongst the various modern productions of masked Greek drama, those of Peter Hall are well known (Oresteia 1981, Oedipus Plays 1996, Bacchai 2002and Lysistrata 1993) and Hall has written and spoken much about his ideas of the genre. Whilst masking his actors in the material artefacts made by his props department he can also speak of the verse of a play as being a mask. Hall’s fondness for this analogy leads him to also refer to the Greek stage as a mask since “the bloodiest actions are kept off the stage.” Hall speaks of these various “masks” as containers and says that in Greek tragedy the “screaming, naked, human face would repel. The face of the mask – with the scream behind it – does not.” By this means audiences are enabled to extend their ability to experience another person’s passions beyond the point where they would normally be repelled (Hall, Exposed by the Mask 24). In Hall’s formulation the mask constitutes a barrier that prevents direct perception of events. This distancing effect is important in our use of the term ‘mask’ as a protective covering. Hall’s concern with the protective as well as the dangerous elements of masking is apparent in his treatment of Aristophanic comedy. He says that the mask in comedy “releases an anarchic energy – alarming, bawdy and frequently childlike,” (Hall, Behind the Mask, pages unnumbered) and that without masks “it would be too obscene – you couldn’t do it” (Brown). Here it is perhaps the performers as well as the audience who are seen as benefiting from the protective qualities of the mask. The protection of performers is also mentioned by Oliver Taplin as a possible reason for masking in the ancient world. It might have imparted “some kind of licence, and also perhaps . . . immunity” when “respectable Athenian citizens” were exposed to the “danger of acting” and playing the roles of groups outside their own social sphere, that is, their inferiors or the gods (Taplin). The covering and protecting qualities of masks can thus be seen as having an important function in the theatre of both the ancient and modern worlds.
Masks vary according to the extent to which they cover the face and sometimes the body of the performer and this is one way of classifying them. Today it is often said that the smallest is the red nose of the clown. Apart from this, there are many ways of partially covering the face, the most common being half-masks which leave the mouth and jaw free. Full-face masks, helmet masks and body-masks denote increasing degrees of cover. None of the masks employed in the original performances of Greek drama have survived but we can arguably get some idea of them by looking at images that have come down to us in a few surviving examples mostly in the form of Athenian vase paintings (Pickard-Cambridge 180ff). These appear to show performers wearing helmet masks that cover the face and head and that together with costume would have constituted a complete disguise. There is nothing analogous to the simple clown mask and although half-masks have been used in some modern productions of the plays (for example Tyrone Guthrie’s Oedipus Rex 1955 and House of Atreus 1967, Jean-Louis Barrault’s L’Orestiezz 1955and the productions of the Greek director Karolos Koun) they do not appear to have featured in the ancient theatre.
Clothing or costume are coverings that are not usually thought of as masks, although in some cases the distinction between mask-body which cover the whole body and costume is not always clear. Many of the roles of fifth century comedy required padded stomach and buttocks and that the actor hunch his shoulders thus “eliminating the divide between body and mask.” Flesh coloured tights to simulate nakedness and a large sewn on phallus also featured in the costume, creating figures who “gratify themselves through talking (large mouth), eating (stomach), sex (phallus) and excreting (buttocks) often in fear.” In contrast the body beautiful of a high status figure in tragedy was “enclosed within long robes.” (Wiles, Greek Theatre Performance 156 124).
Something of a mask-like effect can be achieved with stage makeup, as for example, that employed in Ariane Mnouchkine’s 1991/2 production of Les Atrides. The effectiveness of this is enhanced when the human face is held for a period of time in a particular configuration to give a mask-like effect. To achieve this it is usually necessary for the performer to find what Eugenio Barba terms the “extra-daily use of the body.” That is, the ordinary use of the face is replaced by something different. (Barba andSavarese 7). Some sort of transformation is involved. In Noh theatre some roles are played unmasked by the shite. For these the face and eyes are kept as immobile and expressionless as possible in an attempt to make the face mask-like. (Daiji andTatsuo 111). Again the use of such techniques and stage makeup are modern usages in Greek drama.
In ancient Greek theatre plays were performed at drama festivals in honour of the god Dionysus. The ritual context of these events and the use of masks in other forms of Dionysiac worship have led some to argue for a close affinity between them. There are many images of masks being worn or employed as sacred objects in such non-theatrical rituals. J-P. Vernant and F. Frontisi-Ducroux have in particular drawn attention to mask-like faces of Dionysus that frequently appear on Greek vase paintings in frontal presentation, exhibiting what they describe as a “dominating stare”, and that appear to have served an apotropaic function. These mask images may be flanked by two huge prophylactic eyes, a feature often seen on images of the Gorgon, a mythical being whose petrifying gaze, according to literature, brings terror and death to those who look into her eyes (Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 203).
In Greek thought prosopon not only conflates ‘face’ and ‘mask’ but also, being made up of pros – opon relates to “how we see each other when we stand ‘face to face’ and it defines the relationship created by the resulting mutual glances.” (Yaari 56). Vernant sees Euripides’ Bacchae with its many references to sight and seeing as informed by Dionysiac mystery cult, and argues that a one to one exchange of glances with the god was an essential part of the rituals involved in this. In religious masks such as those depicted on the vases discussed here, he argues that the mask of Dionysus is seen as intensifying the power of the gaze to the extent of possessing the viewer (Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 384 392-6). However he states that “religious masks” were “different from theatrical ones.” Although the masked figures of the drama had “every appearance of real existence” the audience knew that they “were not really there;” the heroes of tragedy belonged to a “bygone age.” “Thus the ‘presence’ embodied by the actor in the theatre was always the sign, or mask, of an absence, in the day-to-day reality of the public.” (Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 189 187).
The function of the tragic mask was, he argues “not a ritual but an aesthetic one.” He also sees it as serving to distinguish the “two elements on the tragic stage,” that is: the “collective figure” of the chorus and the “tragic character” played by the professional actor wearing an “individualized” mask. David Wiles taking issue with this, argues that “the function of the tragic mask is not to seal and fix a character type but to transform a wearer, and to take power over an audience.” (Wiles, Mask and Performance 225 214). He appears to be in agreement with Eric Csapo when the latter writes: “actors in masks are not only possessed by Dionysus; they share the god’s power to take possession.” (Csapo 257).
The otherness of the mask can lead to a questioning of the status quo and by demonstrating the possibility of transformation can be a force for change. One way this might be utilised is in the cause of a radical political theatre. For this reason masks appear alongside other ‘alienation’ devices in the theatre of Bertolt Brecht with the idea that they would encourage audiences to question existing (oppressive) social institutions and ultimately engage in active resistance to overthrow them. Susan Harris Smith argues that “the insistent artificiality of the mask constantly reminds the audience of the artifice of the theatre” denying them “any illusion of reality” or the possibility of identifying with the character. “The object is to deny the spectator a sympathetic or emotional response” but rather to impel one that is “analytical and rational” (Smith 2). Smith is speaking of a perceived advantage of masks to the modern “didactic presentational” dramatist. Claude Calame sees in the fifth century tragic mask something that might be regarded as analogous to this sort of alienation device. He envisages a mask that whilst covering the performer’s face, left ancient Athenian audiences aware of his actual identity as well as his fictive role in the drama. The latter, Calame argues, lent authority to the statements or actions depicted in the play, whilst these could be seen to have a current political relevance due to the recognisable presence of the real life citizen performer. (Calame 109). There is no ancient evidence to support this nor the claim by Brecht that the ancient masks produced an “alienation effect,” an idea dismissed as anachronistic by Stephen Halliwell (206). On the contrary, Plato, referring to the experience of the audience of tragedy, speaks of the way “we enjoy it, give ourselves up to following it, sympathise with the hero, take his suffering seriously” (Republic 605 D-E in Cooper and Hutchinson). This suggests a total absorption in the action and is one of many ancient references attesting to the power of masked Greek tragedy in evoking an emotional response from its original audiences. Again, with a political dimension in mind, Karolos Koun in his masked productions of Greek drama employed half-masks intending that audiences should be aware of the identity of the performers. David Wiles, taking issue with Koun, believes that half-masks are concealing rather than revealing devices; while the original full-faced tragic masks revealed a divine agency behind the action. (Wiles, Greek Theatre Performance 150). Here he appears to be referring to his view that in masking the ancient actor became the figure in the drama rather than merely played his part; that tragedy, through the use of masks, was “a mode of bringing heroes to life” and should be seen in the context of ritualistic ancestor and hero worship (Wiles, Mask and Performance 226 247).
It seems to me that all masks have both revealing and concealing properties. An important part of masked acting is the performers use of their whole body. When masks are donned any inappropriate body language, such as unnecessary gestures, or hunching up to perform a high status figure, is soon revealed. In my own experience of directing mask drama I have found that masks that cover a substantial proportion of the face will conceal the identity of most performers when they are in an actual show (as against a rehearsal or workshop). Half-masks may also completely transform the appearance of actors making them unrecognisable. In a rehearsal or workshop, observers often know personally those performing and are focusing on matters such as technique, rather than being caught up in the narrative or action. Recognising the identity of an individual under the mask is not usually a problem in this context. (An exception to this is where performers are part of a Greek chorus, in which all wear identical costumes and masks). Also, in my rehearsals there is little sense of performers entering into a state of ‘possession’, although the appearance of a mask, in conjunction with the written text, helps stimulate their imagination.
In the original performances of Greek tragedy the protagonist roles were played by just three actors and doubling with two or more playing one character was commonplace. However, it is questionable whether audiences, absorbed by the unfolding story, would have always been aware of this. In my own shows, I have found that modern audiences often fail to notice even when there is a marked contrast in the physicality of two or more performers playing one character. It is a different situation when the actors are ‘stars’ and the audience want to recognise particular individuals, who themselves wish to be recognised. Some performers are recognisable in whatever guise they assume due to some distinctive personal characteristic such as height, build, voice, stance or way of moving. In Peter Hall’s productions, I find Greg Hicks instantly recognisable. His voice, movement and energy are highly individual, even though his height and build are unremarkable. This was certainly true in Hall’s Bacchaiand as he was one of only three actors playing all the non-chorus roles it should perhaps have been possible to recognise the two remaining actors (David Ryall and William Houston) in their mask roles even without a programme, especially as one was older and more established than the other. However, I found that the identity of these two other actors did not impinge on my consciousness.
It is not certain whether or not the ancient audiences would have recognised the masked actors of their own day. It has been suggested that the actors’ voices would always have been identifiable and many commentators seem confident that doubling would have been noticed and appreciated for its ironic or appropriate usage (Pavlovskis, Johnston, Ringer). One example is in the Bacchae with the same actor playing both the ill-fated King Pentheus and also his mother Agaue who, together with the other frenzied Theban women, will dismember him towards the end of the play. However, it seems to me that whilst a reader of the text might have the detachment required to appreciate the significance of this doubling, the Agaue scenes experienced in live performance are so harrowing as to be wholly engrossing for the spectator. It is however conceivable, that the leading actor may have made himself recognisable in performance and information on the role(s) he was to play may have been given at the proagon, before the drama contest, when playwrights and unmasked actors appeared in public and spoke about the plays they were to present. The institution of a prize for the best of the competition’s three principal actors suggests that the audience (or at least the judges) were able to identify the actors concerned, although some distinguishing feature, for example in an item of costume is a possibility. David Wiles argues, for example, that different coloured sleeves may have identified the leading actor in New Comedy performances (Wiles, Masks of Menander 203). By the fourth century BCE there was a well-established ‘star’ system amongst actors and their power was reflected in Aristotle’s complaint that the poet’s (i.e. playwright’s) theatre of the fifth century had been replaced by an actors’ theatre (Aristotle, Rhetoric III).
There are examples in the genre in which the plays appear to draw attention to their status as theatre. This metatheatrically is perhaps most evident in the Bacchae. In this play Dionysus, in whose honour the dramas are performed, appears as a protagonist and proceeds to direct his own play within a play. For this purpose he, the god of disguise and transformation, appears at the start of the play disguised as a mortal.
Helene Foley argues that the mask of Dionysus must be interpreted as a “mask” in the modern sense as it represents more than is “characteristic of the normal tragic masking convention” and is significant because of “the further realities lying behind it.” One of the ways in which Dionysus’ mask becomes “ambiguous” is that it must appear to be mortal to the other characters in the play but must also signify the (disguised) deity to the audience. Dionysus is the god of transgression and the blurring of boundaries, who can “take any shape . . . but is not fully visible to the human eye.” Foley argues that Euripides’ purpose is to demonstrate that the only way the audience can be said to “see” him at all is symbolically, in the form of a theatrical mask. Euripides’ aim here is not to engage in “a self-conscious exploration of his own drama” rather he “interprets human and divine experience for the city”-a matter of some significance. Accepting the god with the right actions and attitude results in blessings: “wine, festival and release from care.” Adopting the external trappings and going through the motions as a matter of expediency is not sufficient as Cadmus learns to his cost. Outright rejection of the god leads to punishment “with madness and a deadly metamorphosis” The fate of Thebes with its women sent raving into the mountain, after the rejection of the god by the royal family, shows that in these matters the well being of the whole community is at stake. Thus mask employed metatheatrically is seen, by Foley, as having had, in its original context, an important educative function in ensuring the god was worshipped appropriately (Foley).
In Peter Hall’s Bacchai it is clear that the idea of metatheatricality was very much in the mind of the translator, Colin Teevan, not only from the script he produced but also from the account of the rehearsal process, when, in response to Hall asking:“Why are we doing this play?” Teevan “realised that the play was about the art of the theatre” (Croall 3). In performance the idea of masks within masks and play with masking and unmasking were constant themes in this interpretation. For example, in the opening scene the unmasked Dionysus put on a bull’s head, only to remove an outer layer soon afterwards to reveal an inner, Priest of Dionysus mask that had been concealed beneath the first. This sense of covering and subsequent uncovering to reveal hidden layers was reflected in the use of lengths of scarlet cloth that enveloped each individual torso of the chorus. The choreography involving these seemed to be playing with the idea of body-mask (that is, a cover that masks the whole, or a substantial part of the body) and the distinction between this and costume. At times they appeared as costumes, however, the continuous wrapping and unwrapping of the chorus bodies imparted a mask-like quality to the material. When wrapped the chorus appeared as demure Asian women, whilst the unwrapping transformed them into lascivious bacchae. As the former, they often held the cloth to conceal most of their mask faces, suggesting the image of Muslim women. There was also, though, a sense in which these were body-masks concealing face masks. Moreover, when the chorus was wrapped in the cloth their forms often suggested sculptural shapes (most notably in a group ‘body-mask sculpture’ just before Agaue’s entrance). In general, the mobile and transforming configurations produced by performers’ interaction with this wrapping were suggestive of the sort of body-mask work that has featured in some performance art of recent years.This material was treated at times like a prop or piece of set, creating, for example, just before the final messenger speech, a red heap in the centre of the stage that covered a performer who made a subsequent dramatic emergence. The use of the red cloths thus played with the idea of masking, posing the question:When is a mask not a mask? and teasingly proposing simplistic answers to mislead the unwary.
For me the most compelling aspect of Euripides’ play is its revelation of the undefinable nature of the god. Through the epiphany of Dionysus “all the cut-and-dried categories and clear oppositions that impart coherence to our vision of the world lose their distinctiveness and merge, fuse, changing from one thing to another” (Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 398).
Dionysus is both male and female: “a male god with a female appearance.” In his cult both young and old alike are to dance. His worship excludes no one. He is both Greek and a barbarian stranger; both wild and civilised. His worship “does not tear one from this world, but by his presence he transfigures it.” He takes many animal forms being described at various points in the play as a bull, a snake, and a lion. “Like wine, Dionysus is double: most terrible yet infinitely sweet” (Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 400). There is also a fair amount of humour to be found in the play: the spectacle of two old men, one more decrepit than the other, attempting to dance; the various antics of the disguised trickster god as he plays games with the deluded Pentheus and then the final appearance of the latter, when almost entirely in the god’s power and dressed as a woman, he fusses about the hang of his robe.
The play, as with Greek tragedy more generally, calls for masks that are versatile. The protagonists of Greek tragedy are arguably archetypal figures and some scholars following John Jones (45) envisage that in the original fifth century performances, the masks for these roles would not have been individually characterised but were instead “socially defined types” distinguished only by age, gender and perhaps class status. (Marshall 190f.) A degree of ‘neutrality’ with respect to character might then be relevant to the design of masks for the genre. What of facial expression? Some commentators perceive a link between the visual aesthetics of fifth century sculpture and painting (what we now describe as the ‘classical style’) and the representations of tragic masks that have come down to us (Halliwell 202, Pickard-Cambridge 180ff). The neutrality of expression and lack of individual characterisation of the faces of classical sculpture has often been observed and the images of tragic masks arguably conform to this aesthetic. C.H. Hallett (80) usefully adds that lack of expression does not make the sculpted classical face appear “less life-like,” rather it “appears to take on a subtly different emotional tenor in different situations . . . it renders the expression . . . multivalent.” It seems to me that this multivalent quality of sculpted faces would also have been an aspect of the tragic masks giving them the ‘life’ necessary for performance. Here a quote from the eminent French teacher of physical theatre Jacques Lecoq, seems apposite. Speaking of the qualities required in a good performance mask, he says it must be one “which changes expression when it moves. If it stays the same when the actor changes posture and situation, it is a dead mask” (cited in Wiles, Masks of Menander 104).
The masks of fifth century tragedy were then, arguably, multivalent and as such were ideally suited to a genre expressive of many different intense emotions. They had a versatility that enabled a more open-ended interpretation of character; one that acknowledges unpredictability and inconsistency as part of human make up and in which there is a wider definition of what is “rational or purposive in human motivation.” Such an interpretation can arguably be found in fifth century perceptions (Gill). Kostas Valakas observes something of this when he recognises that more than one acting style could co-exist within one role. He also speaks of the “stylistic variation of the performance” reflecting a “variable identity of roles” that created an “unstable and dynamic depiction of man, of the world and of truth in poetic performance” and sees this as a principle of Greek performance related to “Heraclitean dialectics and Protagorean relativism” (Valakas 81n.64 88f).
In the Bacchae the mask of Dionysus in his guise as a mortal differs from the others in that it is described as ‘smiling’ or ‘laughing’ (Bacchae ll. 439 1021). However, a smile can be very subtle and such a mask may still appear multivalent and this is what I aimed for in the mask I created for my own productions of the play (in 2010 and 2015). At the very opening of the play my Dionysus appeared holding a bull mask in front of his ‘human’ mask face (in a reference to Hall’s production), but the former was quickly discarded. For the epiphany scene in 2015 I had two male actors and one actress play the part of the god. They all wore black body masks (morph suits) that covered the entire body including hands, feet and face. They stood in a group upstage against a black backcloth, connected by strings of ivy leaves and delivered the speech as one entity. Meanwhile the chorus gathered at centre stage reacted with moans and cries and a shaking movement that became increasingly frenzied, as though they were violently possessed.
For, what can we hope to see when a god that has no fixed form reveals himself as he actually is? Might we, like the inhabitants of Plato’s cave, see him as a shadow on the wall? Or might we only see a shadow on a shadow; only the darkness on the reverse side of the mask?
Works Cited
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[Volume 4, Number 1, 2021]