Theatre of Cruelty- Masks

Journal entry:  Personal research!

Antonin Artaud was born in Marseille, France, and was one of the 2 survivor children out of his 9 siblings. It was very interesting to find out through an interview with my ex Drama teacher Alison Hurst that Antonin that Antonin suffered from Meningitis when he was still very young, and which gave him a very irritable and unstable temperament all though out adulthood. Also, he suffered from neuralgia which caused severe clinical depression. The pain caused b this made him addicted to opiums as pain relievers. 

Theatre of Cruelty being quite an obscure and sadistic in themes as it is straight away made me correlate to the background story of its inventor. I thought about how life should be for someone that had so much to go through, pain, stress, uncertainty and confussement?. was what he would see distorted? how did he perceive reality? Human interactions? life? All these rhetorical questions made me think about the strong correlation between life experiences and ideas.

In reality, Antonin Artaud, I believe had a radical influence on the western stage. In Le Theatre et son double, which is one of his most famous works, he attempts to redefine the nature and the purpose of Drama and play with the reactions of the audiences- experiences to shake their certainty of everyday experience.

From here, I started too look into some of his inspirations for his theatre plays and concepts in my research, and I found one to be very useful and applicable for our work and my personal work as a props person.

Commedia De l’atre masks.

The commedia de l’arte masks, as according to http://www.maskmaker.dk/eng/commediadellarte.htm, was a popular form of theatre developed in Italy as a form of street theatre. In class today, Mrs Himlan had a box full of commedia de l’arte masks, and I couldsnt stop myself from observing one of them. I remember having have used them for my GCSE course, and I likes the detailed expressions of the facial features, as I thought they allowed the character to really explore his/her feelings with the details. For this in my research, I looked at the character of Pedrolino, (As shown below) which is a happy stock character that represents naivety with his prescence. His mask I though was an appropriate idea to represent what I had in mind. His character is distinguished from most of the rest of the masks, as they display a rather miserable expression, which contradicts the “Children of Eternal Happiness” group’s objectives of showing a false perfection.

Cite source: "The Masks of Commedia Dell'Arte." - Introduction by Maskmaker Torben Jetsmark. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. <http://www.maskmaker.dk/eng/commediadellarte.htm>.

After all, Amanda and Jury (and myself as I chose to help) thought of another idea for the masks: Chinese porcelain dolls!

As I mentioned in class, I thought that we needed to show the audience a face that would symbolize perfection, to show how people in the society put on a mask to hide the darkness of their past, their thoughts and their intentions. This mask had to also at the same time make the audience unconfortable, as that is our principal objective in Theatre of Cruelty. Therefore I thought about some of the western societies of beauty which include:
- Being white

-      - Having pale skin

-       -Having blue eyes

-       -Having rosy cheeks

-       -Pink delicate and thin lips

All these traits are what most popular dols look like, as the idea of having a perfect baby is what makes a little girl like the doll.

According to Artaud’s First Manifesto:

“Manikins, enormous masks, objects of strange proportions will appear with the same sanction as verbal images, will enforce the concrete aspect of every image and every expression -- with the corollary that all objects requiring a stereotyped physical representation will be discarded or disguised.”

Thus, mask work will eventually become an integral part of our performance in the sense that it is able to and should replace some of the verbal messages we are trying to convey. While the spectacular Balinese Masks, in terms of aesthetics, inspired Artaud himself, it deviates away from the compartmentalization that the Children of Eternal Happiness aims to achieve. Instead, for the design of our masks, while the principle and purpose of mask work itself was inspired directly by Artaud we were instead inspired by porcelain dolls. Wide, innocent eyes with long lashes, a perfect, porcelain base and red cheeks are all aspects of the theme we are trying to embody: false perfection. On the surface, while the followers of the Children of Eternal Happiness appeared to be embracing the new beginning, it is merely a crutch; a temporary fix for their respective issues – underneath the masks lays the ugliness that is their reality.  

Doll 1- Inspiration doll. - Online source: Googleimages.com\Porcelaine doll

Doll 2- Inspiration for masks- Online source: googleimages.com\Porcelaine doll

As a props person, me and the rest of my group had to think about how our props worked with other elements of the show. In terms of lights, I made a table to show in what scenes the masks would be used, to accompany the style of lighting. Peter Brooks, who staged a lot of Theatre of Cruelty performances used washes, and therefore as seen below, we used many as well.

 

Scene and use of lighting	Mask usage
Scene 1. Mike wanted to achieve an ambience of chillness contrasting the welcoming of the outside props– blue lights	Masks were used as a symbol of perfection, to contrast the ambience of imperfection by the actors siting at the edges of the center pit playing with dolls. Actors in the projections don’t wear it as the light is too dark for them to be seen, and the actors are meant to show at this point their vulnerabilities, which are not a reflection of perfection.
Sene 2.  Welcomy feeling but… Sunken lights (2 circle lights) Spotlight on 4 main characters	The masks are still on at this point as it is the first time we say the commandments. Our faces and voices unify and we give the feeling that we are all being controlled, and there is a sense of power over us since the beginning. For this part, the spot light shinning on the 4 main characters faces is used to introduce the masks, as the actors lift them up and put them on.
Scene 3. Light red wash mixed with white center wash- deepens in intensity, to attack the audience subtly.	In the worshiping scene the masks were on for the dance onstage, however briefly taken of to take the pill. The intensity of the dark red light contrasts the light pink of the masks.
Scene 4 Interrogation- Natural lighting = area lights 2 and 3 to the right Lobotomy part- area light 2 on	Here, as the actors are not onstage, only Lloyd wears his mask, which creates a color contrast between the sparkly silver and the natural lights. Natalia is not wearing her mask as a sign or rebellion.
Scene 5- absence of light with the color blue to make them feel a loss of warmth-	When Lloyds monologue, he take off the masks and the lights change to dark blue and red. I thought these 2 colors represent the loss of warmth, and the fight between good and evil. The other side of the cult is finally revealed to the audience
Scene 6 The SACRIFICE- The lights deepen from a light red to a dark red- complementary projection in the audience  (that is why we have moved to the sunken part of the stage) Blue lights and everyone holding them	Dark light represents the truth in our performance. This dark moment in which we kill Natalia does not require masks as we are trying to show the rotting, evil side of us. At the end when we pick up our masks again, we are representing the light of oneself- how we are holding who we are. Here, the blue lights and the putting on of the masks represent this false normality that we all wanted to achieve by the “Join us”.

Music correlation with Makeup

SOUND IS ANOTHER WAY OF VIEWING.   We have used music as an element of theatre of Cruelty to get to your core, and explore the things that make you uncomfortable about yourself, and it  has equal importance to the written work.
For example, for the sacrifice scene, Tony and Katy have decided to use the song of “Hunted Sky”.The creepiness of the song, again juxtaposes with the use of the Masks, as it associates this image of "The Children of Eternal Happiness" with tremor.