INTRODUCTION

Every theatre practitioner must have some sort of theory about the work s/he does. Such theories are often indefinite and are most of the time not explicitly formulated, let alone systematized. There is a good reason for that: words are not the appropriate vehicle to communicate the essence of such an intimate and existential craft as acting. Yet for someone who got an interest in this craft or wants to understand what he has experienced in an intensive workshop, it can be a good help if s/he can read some theoretical considerations of a practitioner.

What follows is a text in which a theatre artist speaks about his craft. The reader should expect neither a systematic description of how to play with a mask, nor an elaborate, ‘scientific’ article on the practice of mask acting. Carlos García Estévez’ text can be seen as a collection of mini chapters — one might even call them meditations — instigated by a series of questions that the author asked himself. And perhaps this loose form is best fitted for the topic, thoroughly practical as it is. The theatrical mask may be an immensely interesting subject for cultural studies, philosophy, psychology and other theoretical disciplines, but to really understand how the mask functions in the relationship between the actor and the spectator, one should at a certain point exchange the ‘interesting’ for the ‘existential’ way of dealing with the concept ‘mask’ — or to put it bluntly: one should seek out a good pedagogue and at least for the duration of a workshop live the life of an apprentice mask performer. 

It might be good to briefly introduce Carlos García Estévez’ approach to Commedia dell’Arte in general and its masks in particular. Thus, the reader will have some sort of framework for the diverse topics that will be raised afterwards. 

When dealing with Commedia dell’Arte, the most important question for García Estévez is: how can this type of theatre be a living form of art today? Commedia dell’Arte in our days will have only museological significance if it merely recreates those famous characters whose idiosyncrasies were recognizable and amusing to audiences in the 16th and 17th century. To find the significance of this art form for contemporary spectators, one should remain far from the cliché’s about these characters and look for their essences: inner drives rather than typical habits, patterns of movement rather than typical gestures. In his work to revive the Commedia dell’Arte, García Estévez’ approach is not merely dramaturgical (i.e. questions like which stories to tell, what social problems to deal with) but even more focused on the craft of acting: how to bring characters on stage that address us directly, how to create lively figures that reflect our own existence. 

The half masks used in Commedia dell’Arte force the actor to refrain from the techniques (or tricks) that might have great success in naturalistic theatre. There is no place for meaningful looks or elaborated psychological processes behind a mask: it demands clarity, decisiveness and immediacy. However, this doesn’t mean that the acting should become entirely a matter of form. This is perhaps the biggest difficulty: someone playing the masks is easily inclined to focus fully on the exterior form while loosing the inner life of the character. Subsequently, what could be deeply moving or hilarious, becomes a rather embarrassing performance, or at its best a display of empty virtuosity. Here lies a fascinating feature of mask acting: it should be both ‘formally elaborate’ and ‘internally animated’ to convince any audience. 

Carlos García Estévez has a particular way of dealing with the formal aspects of Commedia dell’Arte, in which the mask is of elementary importance. One could say that Carlos ‘draws’ the figure and gestures of a character from the mask. This process begins by looking through its simple expressive features (snub nose, pronounced eyebrows, curled moustache, etc) and discovering its structural or ‘spatial’ qualities. These qualities are not only the lines and planes out of which the mask consists but also those which it ‘projects’ outwards, in several directions. This way, the mask becomes a great source of information for the actor who is going to play with it. To give a simple example: a mask that contains many strong, straight, outgoing lines will demand from the actor a way of moving and speaking that is equally strict and forceful. Even the temporal qualities, like the rhythm of a character’s movements might be learned by the careful study of a mask.

With this approach, an actor will have to learn another technique for every mask, though of course certain fundamental techniques can be used across masks. If the performer lacks the appropriate technical precision, the mask simply won’t come to live. Sometimes people wonder whether the high ‘formality’ of this type of acting isn’t limiting the actor’s expressive possibilities. But this would be the same as asking whether a person is limiting his musical capacities when he decides to commit himself to a particular instrument. The commonplace expression that the actor’s body and voice are his instrument, is in fact not precise enough. It is more accurate to say that an actor’s body is merely the bare material out of which s/he still has to build a particular instrument (or a few particular instruments). For the process of building this instrument (i.e. mastering a certain acting style or even a particular character) many hours of specific training are required. The actor should be an artisan as much as a creative artist. Thus viewed, it is not surprising that some actors who are very successful in naturalistic plays, struggle immensely when trying to do Commedia dell’Arte, however hard they try: it is a matter of different instruments for which, at least to a certain extent, different talents are required. One thing should be stressed here: for García Estévez the great technical demands should never obliterate the playfulness of the performer. During the training he keeps stimulating and teasing his actors to keep the work light and joyful, however hard it is. Even the most technical little exercise can be grasped as an opportunity to play, to be creative.

With its emphasis on concepts like lines, planes, forces and directions, Carlos García Estévez’s approach is rather abstract. In his current theatre laboratory Manifesto Poetico this abstract approach has been even extended to research into the theatrical space as such. This does not mean, however, that a theatre which results from such research is vague and conceptual. It is García Estévez’ view that abstraction helps us to get to the essence of everything we perceive. The actor abstracts from the ‘imprecision’ of daily behavior to purify and clarify his actions. Thus the result is very concrete: a performance that is well defined, recognizable, essential.

What, according to Manifesto Poetico, do the masks from la Commedia dell’Arte represent?

The masks of the Commedia dell'Arte represent the tempers, customs, classes, professions, passions and vices of the common people. They represent a universal human Commedia.

Those masks and characters, at a certain point in the history of Commedia dell’Arte, became so popular that something changed on them and something got lost. A popular spirit probably got lost as soon as those characters started to be a kind of fashion and they became more a cliché, an idea; loosing their original engine and passions. In the twentieth century some people (most notably Jacques Lecoq) tried to regain the original intensity by working with masks and avoiding the stereotyped movements that had become attached to them.

If the characters from the Commedia dell’Arte loose their universal sense they will be emptied of their essential content, they will become individualized. The characters will become silly, commercialized, divided from each other: the Commedia will be weakened. It will abandon its real path and it will loose its purpose. It will stop speaking from the point of view of the common people and become sterile, unfruitful.

What would be the main starting point for the study of a contemporary mask?

Before I look at the mask itself, my starting point is the study of the foundations of movement: the space, rhythm and forces. It is fundamental to discover the space where the engine of the character and its forces (can circulate) with the correct directions and its concrete rhythm. I see this study as something abstract that we could bring to life through what I understand of mask mimodynamic (*).

This abstract study allows me to create a journey that goes from the abstraction of that mask to the concreteness of the mask. Obviously I don’t stay simply on that abstract layer but I also explore the concrete study of the mask. I find myself looking at the mask in two different ways: a naturalistic mask which shows the archetype and a mimodynamic mask that personifies its forces.

(*) Mimodynamic: Jacques Lecoq describes mimodynamic very precisely and exactly. When you are finding the Mimodynamic you are not miming the form but miming its dynamic and that means miming the invisible part of it.

In the word dynamic we can find three elements: rhythm, space and forces. These elements can be appreciated when we analyze the conflict that (exults) between the movements push and pull. So, there is a collision between two opposite forces, contrary and complementary that exists (as we know) in nature (of the (things)). When there is a movement in one side, there is another that happens in front. If this doesn’t happen there will be disequilibrium, a rupture. 

When we talk about discovering the space. What do we mean by this?

We could imagine that a mask is composed like an architectural space. We analyze the mask so as to bring its space to life through links that are not measurable but nonetheless rhythmic links.

We can implement in our research a circuit, a structure of feelings and of emotions. This circuit and / or structure can be inscribed/designed on the space. (And this is something that (in a similar way) we explore at the L.E.M. (Laboratory of Movement Study) at the Ecole Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris.

We can say that in an architecture space, we can see feelings or passions.

They have their concrete place on the space. For example, if we ask someone on the street: where would you place your self if you were very afraid, at the center or at the periphery of the space? He would answer- at the periphery.

Why should we study the Commedia dell’Arte masks from this abstract point of view ratter than from what we know as the Traditional?

The Commedia dell’Arte masks reveal a historic charge and I think in the present time it is often not known or understood. This misunderstanding encourages the artist to reproduce human types that are not representating today’s people for today’s audiences.

It is very common to see actors trying to reproduce a theatre of the past, a theatre of yesterday, which I appreciate, but I want to look forward to a theatre that resonates more truthfully today. I think that the dell’Arte actor should be committed to make a theatre of today that can talk about tomorrow.

With this commitment it is important to be aware of the past and concreteness of the Popular Tradition, the fundamental element for the continuation of the Commedia dell’Arte. I don’t think, however, that it is fundamental to observe the Traditional Commedia from its clichés and stereotypes of human typologies, “Arlecchino used to do like this, Pantalone was like that…” but I do think that it is fundamental to look at the Tradition from its essence and concretely from its permanencies. What were the engines that made those characters move in that time in history? How do passions like love, envy, jealousy and fear make people move? It is obvious that human passions are a constant over history and they are and they were the engines of our existence.

On the other hand, the way we communicate and we express today is totally different from how we did 500 years ago. It is clear that certain things have to be reconceived for the times accepting the permanencies and essences that we can still see today from the Popular Tradition. And from there we could start to look for a continuity of the Commedia dell’Arte. In the process of working in the research I strive to access to this continuity. I ask the question: “ How can the Commedia dell’Arte exist today?” 

What would be a first step to do for this research?

A part of the study of movement is the study of the masks from the Commedia dell’Arte. But not the masks that we find in books and museums. My research is based on the masks that were re-invented and adapted for the modern stage by Amleto Sartori in the late 40’s and the masks that have been composed following similar influences. With the arrival of those new contemporary masks the actor must start to rethink Commedia dell’Arte for today. The contemporary masks are different from the ancient masks and therefore demand that the actor find a different way to carry the mask. This new way of knowing, wearing, playing the mask is often not being contemplated in the profession. 

How would we have an actor approach a contemporary mask? Or as an actor how to approach a contemporary mask?

I observe the masks of the Commedia dell’Arte imagining that I don’t know anything of their past, background and without trying to interpret what kind of characters they could be. I would simply observe them as if they are sculptures and architectonic forms. I like to look for what is hiding behind those forms; their abstraction and from that point of view, try to understand them as expressive forms that propose behaviors on the space. 

Also, I like to research the mask from their outer space and their inner space. From the outer space I can identify a naturalistic mask and at the inner space I can identified a mimo dynamic mask (non naturalistic mask).

 (*) Mimo dynamic mask: It is the inner structure of the naturalistic mask and it governs the behavior of the form. It has composition and in its structure a system of forces that put the form out of balance. 

What is the difference between one and the other?

The naturalistic mask shows the basic human types and the non-naturalistic mask (mimo dynamic mask) personifies the forces and the inner structure of those human types.

In our laboratory of research Manifesto Poetico we are interested mainly in the mimo dynamic mask. We are searching for the abstraction of the mask as a starting point for the training of the actor and for creation of archetypical contemporary characters.  

What would be a brief description for each of these ways of seeing the mask? The naturalistic mask and the non- naturalistic mask? 

The naturalistic mask describes everything that the audience can identify at a glance, as something concrete, physical. It is what contains the character. It is a container.  

The mimo dynamic mask represents everything that the audience can’t identify at a glance. It is the abstraction of the form, its sensorial aspects and its character content. To see the mask in its imaginative territory and to see all the qualities that make it human are not measurable at a glance. It is the content of the character. 

These two aspects (physical and sensorial) are also used for the composition of the mask. (See technique of mask-sculptur Donato Sartori. Il sentimento e il suo contrario. )

About the mimo dynamic mask, how can we measure those aspects that we can’t see by simply viewing, looking at the mask?

The mask, like an ecosystem, is composed of many interrelated different parts. Like an architectural form, those parts are in a constant harmony and in a perfect balance between each other. This harmony appears because there is simplicity. The mask is well structured and in correct proportion. Here we are purely talking about geometry. 

Who (how) do I measure the things that you don’t see? I enjoy the investigations and in my research I don’t really know how to measure what I cannot see but I can give them a measure. This measure has to be inside of the parameters of equilibrium that are defined by the law of gravity. This geometrical point of view is for me the first tool to discovering the space, the structure and matter that lies behind the form. 

We can say that movement of the human being departs from the center of the body, lets say the pelvis, which is also the center of gravity. We then search for the center of the mask and from there initiate the movement of the mask. We can also measure any physical space and find its center.

In my work with the masks I always find myself with this three constant points. The center of the body, the center of the mask and the center of the dramatic space. To me they are three fixed points. 

I find this interesting because these three fixed points are also present in nature. It is enough to know the location of those points and understand them in order to be able to change them and create with them like painters, filmmakers, magicians, architects, etc.

Then, how the actor would be at the service of the mask?

Like any structure, the mask has also a center of gravity that keeps it in balance. For me, a mask that works on the stage is the one that being suspended on the space is staying in balance. It projects itself on the space through its conflict of forces that are pushing and pulling it. Within this conflict of forces the mask has to reestablish the balance by itself. 

It is fundamental for the study of the mask that the actor knows how to identify the center of the mask and its system of forces that are departing from that center.

From the center of the mask we can see a combination of lines projected on the space. The system of forces of each mask propose a different way of getting out of balance and a different way of behaving on the space. This essential behavior of movement is, for me, the seed, core of the character. With this knowledge we can begin to create a contemporary character. 

What is the importance of the masks of the Commedia dell’Arte in the physicality of a contemporary theatre and a contemporary actor?

Fascinating also is researching the work of the actor and of course the work of the masked performer as a three-dimensional. Here the actor projects himself and creates an impact on the space. The mask gives us this possibility in a very concrete way.

For example if we look at the mask from a rhythmically point of view we discover that the mask forces the actor to simultaneously apply three different aspects of rhythm. The actor must enter on the rhythm proposed by the form, the rhythm of its musicality and the rhythm of its meter and find a way of talking (which can’t be at all an ordinary way of talking but in the world of the mask). 

Only by observing the mask can we see the high level work necessary for the actor?

Well yes, at the laboratory Manifesto Poetico we aim to grasp the scope of the mask not only by looking at it, but also by looking beyond it. In order to master the mask as a character, it is very important that the artist knows how to uncover the surface of the form and investigate the machinery of it.

Once done, we understand the high level of skill required for this art form.

Unfortunately, often the quality of the mask is very underestimated and the importance of a well-designed mask is very much misunderstood. It should be obvious that we can’t reach a high level of play with masks that are not good: not expressive or well made. A professional musician cannot produce virtuosity with the kind of violin that is sold in souvenir shop in Vienna.

I can only know how far and what a high level I can reach if I have a good mask and I know all the qualities that are hidden in the form.

So yes, there is a high level training necessary for the actor to make it play well. Playing the mask is an art in itself. Being an actor doesn’t mean that you can play with a mask. Mask training is another chapter.

Both the mask and the player must be of the highest level.

When, at the laboratory, we talk about three-dimensional work, do we also talk about a three dimensional actor?

I talk about an actor who offers to an audience a three dimensional experience and not a two dimensional, flat experience. I am talking about an experience made in an empty space, the actor and a mask. No scenography, technological elements, costumes, etc. For this, the audience has a fundamental role because they must remember the imaginary state of their childhood where they could create everything possible with just their imagination.

The only thing that the mask does is to activate that universe. I think this is the door to that access, a way of seeing the theatre. It is fundamental for a theatre of tomorrow.

The masks of Commedia dell’Arte are an archetypical reference that is recognizable in a universal way and therefore they are an apt gateway for the audience to enter this three dimensional universe. This archetypical reference has permanency for our time. 

The actor can, in an empty space, propose and make us believe we are in a concrete location. One that is already constructed architectonically with concrete directions, depth and perspective. The mask helps the audience enter this theatrical dimension able to show the reality of things in a way that we couldn’t or didn’t see before. Something as poetry does with verses and images. 

I like to think that the mask performer is like an architect of the imagination. The mask in that case would be like a fixed point on the space where the imagination of the audience can be projected. The mask would be as a vanishing point where the audience can project their imagination to the infinite. 

Lecoq used to talk about the different aspects of analyzing movement. He was talking about mechanic, dynamic, dramatic and poetic aspects. Very often we can see propositions that reach a dramatic aspect but reaching a poetic language is always very difficult. We must show the audience those things that we don’t see but they do exist. The things that we don’t yet know about our existence and what make us dream. I think the mask is there to accomplish this function and remind us of where we come from in a way that goes beyond (the) reason. 

When we talk about inner space, we talk about inner structure. From the point of view of our research, where in space would we place the sensorial and imaginary aspects that we were talking about before? Would we also place them within the inner space?

For a long time I thought that the mask had to be projected towards the space and the audience. I always understood it this way. When I started to research deeper about space I realized that it is the audience who projects themselves into the mask, and it is the actor who receives this impact from the audience; he then takes it and he sends it back, already transformed.

The form (that is, the mask) receives information from the audience; it uses its sensorial and imaginative universe to transform it within its poetic universe and then performs it.

For me, one of the purposes of the mask is to be a kind of mirror for the audience, a sort of filter. The extraordinarily difficult thing for the actor to do is to articulate this inner space in a very sharp way in order for the expression to be sent back to the audience – a transformed, suggestive, provoking and poetic expression. That means that, for me, the mask tells the story depending on the audience’s state of being, ambience, atmosphere and characteristics.

Sometimes what the actor receives from the audience is not concrete: a kind of energy, the way they breathe, their reactions to what they see, gestures, etc.

In my view, this dialogue between the inner and the outer space (push – pull) that exists between the mask and the audience is a passionate game, and it is only possible to play it if the actor possesses the madness, the playful spirit and the seriousness of a child playing. We can find the same spirit in Popular Tradition: a festive and celebratory spirit. The spirit of the Collective.