Masks and Trance

1

George Devine

George Devine gave a Mask class to the Royal Court writers' group in 1958. He arrived with a box full of dusty Masks that had last been used some years before at the Old Vic Theatre School. I didn't like the look of them: they reminded me of surgical prostheses, and I didn't like what he was saying either. Already I was feeling threatened. George talked to us for about forty minutes, and then gave us a demonstration. He retired to the far end of the long, shadowy room, put a Mask on, looked in a mirror, and turned to face us---or rather 'it', 'the Mask', turned to face us. We saw a 'toad-god' who laughed and laughed as if we were funny and despicable. I don't know how long the 'scene' lasted, it was timeless. Then George removed the Mask and suggested that we try.

Next day he was despondent. He thought the class had been a failure and that this had been his fault. He said that none of the Masks had been 'inhabited', by which he meant that none of us had been possessed by the Masks. I tried to explain how amazed we'd been, but he insisted that the class had been a poor one, and that I was wrong to be so enthusiastic.

William Gaskill borrowed the Masks, and began to give Mask classes along the lines laid down by George. He collected some old clothes, and some props, and developed the theory that the actor should shock himself with the Mask's reflection. The time at the mirror was to be kept short, and the student was to be pushed into acting on whatever impulse came to him. George's ideas related to Oriental theatre (Noguchi had designed his King Lear) but we had seen the toad-god, and thought more in terms of voodoo than the Noh Theatre. Gaskill persuaded me to give Mask classes as well: 'It shouldn't all be left to me,' he said, and we both gave classes to groups who visited the theatre.

It's true that an actor can wear a Mask casually, and just pretend to be another person, but Gaskill and myself were absolutely clear that we were trying to induce trance states. The reason why one automatically talks and writes of Masks with a capital 'M' is that one really feels that the genuine Mask actor is inhabited by a spirit. Nonsense perhaps, but [that's what the experience is like, and has always been like. To understand the Mask it's also necessary to understand the nature of trance itself.]

One day Devine invited me to lunch, which he never did unless he wanted to discuss something. He was embarrassed (he was actually a shy man), and finally when we were almost through coffee and the restaurant was practically empty, he said that he thought Bill and I had misunderstood the nature of the Mask. At this time George was giving comedy classes at the Studio, so I suggested a swop: I would give his comedy classes, and he would give my Mask classes.

George allowed his students to work in a very casual way. Bill and I had tried to condition a response to the wearing of a Mask by insisting that whenever one was on the face, the actor should attempt to enter the 'Mask state'. This led to Masks being handled as if sacred. George shocked me by allowing actors to talk as themselves while actually wearing the Masks. They'd choose clothes or wander about with the Masks on without any attempt to be in character. I think George was overreacting to the way we'd been teaching, because even in performance these Masks often spoke with the wearer's voice, although George had explained that they'd need speech lessons before they could speak 'as the Masks'. Eventually, George said that the students who had worked first with William Gaskill and myself were usually the better ones, so that our method must have something to recommend it. I think this was because we used to hurl the students into the work, whereas George was much gentler. He was very good at explaining exactly when a Mask was 'inhabited', but it was really up to the actors. Many of his students played safe, and kept to their preferred areas acting with Masks on, rather than being possessed. George's attitude was really very different from mine, and possibly Gaskill's; George was primarily interested in developing characters that could be used without the Mask when the actor was cast in plays. I saw the Masks as astounding performers, as offering a new form of theatre, and I didn't care what Mask creatures arrived, so long as they were possessed. The Masks we were using covered the top half of the face, leaving the mouth and lower half of the cheeks exposed. George had learnt the technique from Michel Saint-Denis in the 1930s, and Michel had been taught by Jacques Copeau (his uncle). These half masks are usually called 'comic masks' but George called them 'Character Masks'. He thought it important to hand on the tradition unchanged, and he was shocked when he found that I was mixing Character Masks with Tragic Masks (Tragic Masks work by a quite different technique---see page 184). My students showed him one of the mixed scenes they had prepared with me, and they reported him as saying that it did work, but that he still didn't like it! When I visited him during his last illness, almost the last thing he said to me was 'I still don't think that Mask work was right.'

George cited Chaplin's Tramp as a Mask, since the character had come from the clothes and the make-up. Here's Chaplin's own account (from his autobiography).

'On the way to the wardrobe I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, and a cane and a derby hat. I wanted everything to be a contradiction; the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large. I was undecided whether to look young or old, but remembering Sennett had expected me to be a much older man, I added a small moustache which, I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression . . .

'. . . I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and make-up made me feel the kind of person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on the stage he was fully born. When I confronted Sennett I assumed the character and strutted about, swinging my cane and parading before him. Gags and comedy ideas went racing through my mind . . .

'. . . My character was different and unfamiliar to the Americans. But with the clothes on I felt he was a reality, a living person. In fact he ignited all sorts of crazy ideas that I would never have dreamt of until I was dressed and made-up as the Tramp.'

Elsewhere Chaplin has said, 'I realised I would have to spend the rest of my life finding out about the creature. For me he was fixed, complete, the moment I looked in the mirror and saw him for the first time, yet even now I don't know all the things that are to be known about him.'^1^ (Isabel Quigly, Charlie Chaplin---Early Comedies, Studio Vista, 1968.)

2

Russians

At first I thought that Mask work was completely unlike Stanislavsky's concept of actor training, but this isn't true. Here's Stanislavsky describing the Mask state in Building a Character. Kostya, a drama student, has been told to put on a character make-up, but nothing satisfies him. He creams his face to remove the greasepaint and then, unexpectedly . . .

[' All the other colours blurred . . . It was difficult to distinguish where my nose was, or my eyes, or my lips. I smeared some of the same cream on my beard and moustache and then finally all over my wig. Some of the hair clotted into lumps . . . and then, almost as if I were in some delirium, I trembled, my heart pounded, I did away with my eyebrows, powdered myself at random, smeared the back of my hands with a greenish colour and the palms with light pink. I did all this with a quick, sure touch, for this time I knew who I was representing, and what kind of fellow he was!']

He then paced the room feeling 'how all the parts of my body, features, facial lines, fell into their proper places and established themselves . . . I glanced in the mirror and did not recognise myself. Since I had looked into it the last time a fresh transformation had taken place in me. "It is he, it is he!" I exclaimed . . .'

He presents himself to the director (Tortsov), introducing himself as 'the critic'. He's surprised to find his body doing things by itself, things he hadn't intended.

'Quite unexpectedly my twisted leg came out in advance of me and threw my body more to the right. I removed my top hat with careful exaggeration and executed a polite bow . . .'

He then played a scene with the director, having no difficulty in sustaining this weird character he had become, and knowing always exactly what to say. Later Kostya reflects: 'Can I really say that this creature is not part of me? I derived him from my own nature. I divided myself, as it were, into two personalities. One continued as an actor, the other as an observer.'

At the time when Copeau was working with Masks in France, Stanislavsky's favourite pupil Vakhtangov was working with them in Russia. Nikolai Gorchakov has left an account of those rehearsals. Vakhtangov set up a circus in which the Masks were to be auditioned as clowns. They were to do things that would make the spectators '. . . applaud wildly, rush on the stage and hug and kiss you! Or at least roll on the floor with laughter. Go ahead, start! . . .'

Vakhtangov threw an incredible number of instructions to the Masks until they were lost and confused. Someone played circus music and they had no choice but to perform. They tried imaginary gymnastics, and ice-skated, and pretended to juggle, and finally succeeded in getting warm applause from the onlookers. 'Do you really think you've hit on the "grain" of the Masks merely by doing a few exercises in front of the audience?' said Vakhtangov. 'You haven't even started to act as Masks! . . . You must vie with one another in captivating the audience [by every possible means---talk, act, dance, sing, do acrobatics, do anything. Understand?']

Things got worse until finally Vahktangov left, the Masks continuing without him. Suddenly two of them became genuine Masks in the characters of Tartaglia and Pantalone. Tartaglia was eating a cake, and Pantalone was starving. Tartaglia spoke with a stutter (which was unexpected) and said that Pantalone would have to earn it, but he 'graciously allowed Pantalone to eat the crumbs remaining on his palm each time he swallowed a bit. This made Pantalone very happy, and it was fun watching him pick up these crumbs while Tartaglia lectured him on the necessity of work . . .

'The episode was fairly long, but we were so enchanted we did not notice it. We were not much interested in their chatter, but were fascinated by their naive seriousness, the kind one sees only in two children when one is sucking a toffee and the other cannot tear his eyes away from this sweet process, looking enviously at the happy owner . . .

'Tartaglia was so carried away that he began to tease Pantalone, passing the cake under his nose every time he nipped a bit off. Suddenly, Pantalone opened wide his mouth and snapped up about three-quarters of what remained. Tartaglia burst into tears while Pantalone, his mouth full, gestured that it served him right---he should not have teased him.'

Vakhtangov had been watching from a doorway. He immediately set up another scene with the same characters. Pantalone was to be a dentist, and Tartaglia his patient. Tartaglia panicked, stepped out of character and said he didn't want to do it.

' "And what do the dentists say to that?" Vakhangov turned gravely to his partners.

' "There have been many cases in history of medicine of patients refusing to be treated," Kudryavtsev replies seriously, without forgetting that he was Pantalone, the learned secretary of King Altoum's court. "Such refusal is a sure sign of illness. In this particular case I presume we'll have to extract the aching teeth not only through the mouth, but also through other apertures, ears and nostrils included . . ." '

Afterwards Vakhtangov commented that they had at first tried to 'think up' what to do. 'I don't deny the importance of thinking, inventing or planning, but if you have to improvise on the spot (and that's exactly what we have to do), you must act and not think. It's action we must have---wise, foolish or naive, simple or complicated, [but] action.' (Nikolai Gorchakov, The Vakhtangov School of Stage Art, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow.)

Vakhangov forced his students to act spontaneously. This produces a light trance state in which the actors feel as if something else is controlling them. They 'know' what to do, whereas normally they 'choose' what to do. The state is regressive, but they experience no self-consciousness.

3

Destroying the Mask

Masks seem exotic when you first learn about them, but to my mind Mask acting is no stranger than any other kind: no more weird than the fact that an actor can blush when his character is embarrassed, or turn white with fear, or that a cold will stop for the duration of the performance, and then start streaming again as soon as the curtain falls. 'What's Hecuba to him?' asks Hamlet, and the mystery remains. Actors can be possessed by the character they play just as they can be possessed by Masks. Many actors have been unable to really 'find' a character until they put on the make-up, or until they try on the wig, or the costume. We find the Mask strange because we don't understand how irrational our responses to the face are anyway, and we don't realise that much of our lives is spent in some form of trance, i.e. absorbed. What we assume to be 'normal consciousness' is comparatively rare, it's like the light in the refrigerator: when you look in, there you are ON but what's happening when you don't look in?

It's difficult to understand the power of the Mask if you've only seen it an illustrations, or in museums. The Mask in the showcase may have been intended as an ornament on the top of a vibrating, swishing haystack. Exhibited without its costume, and without a film, or even photograph, of the Mask in use, we respond to it only as an aesthetic object. Many Masks are beautiful or striking, but that's not the point. A Mask is a device for driving the personality out of the body and allowing a spirit to take possession of it. A very beautiful Mask may be completely dead, while a piece of old sacking with a mouth and eye-holes torn in it may have tremendous vitality.

In its original culture nothing had more power than the Mask. It was used as an oracle, a judge, an arbitrator. Some were so sacred that any outsider who caught a glimpse of them was executed. They cured diseases, they made women sterile. Some tribes were so scared of their power that they carved the eye-holes so that the wearers could see only [the ground. Some Masks were led on chains to keep them from attacking the onlookers. One African Mask had a staff, the touch of which was believed to cause leprosy. In some cultures dead people are reincarnated as Masks---the back of the skull is sliced off, a stick rammed in from ear to ear, and someone dances, gripping the stick with his teeth. It's difficult to imagine the intensity of that experience.]

Masks are surrounded by rituals that reinforce their power. A Tibetan Mask was taken out of its shrine once a year and set up overnight in a locked chapel. Two novice monks sat all night chanting prayers to prevent the spirit of the Mask from breaking loose. For miles around the villagers barred their doors at sunset and no one ventured out. Next day the Mask was lowered over the head of the dancer who was to incarnate the spirit at the centre of a great ceremony. What must it feel like to be that dancer, when the terrifying face becomes his own?

We don't know much about Masks in this culture, partly because the church sees the Mask as pagan, and tries to suppress it wherever it has the power (the Vatican has a museum full of Masks confiscated from the 'natives'), but also because this culture is usually hostile to trance states. We distrust spontaneity, and try to replace it by reason: the Mask was driven out of theatre in the same way that improvisation was driven out of music. Shakers have stopped shaking. Quakers don't quake any more. Hypnotised people used to stagger about, and tremble. Victorian mediums used to rampage about the room. Education itself might be seen as primarily an anti-trance activity.^2^

The church struggled against the Mask for centuries, but what can't be done by force is eventually done by the all-pervading influence of Western education. The US Army burned the voodoo temples in Haiti and the priests were sentenced to hard labour with little effect, but voodoo is now being suppressed in a more subtle way. The ceremonies are faked for tourists. The genuine ceremonies now last for a much shorter time.

I see the Mask as something that is continually flaring up in this culture, only to be almost immediately snuffed out. No sooner have I established a tradition of Mask work somewhere than the students start getting taught the 'correct' movements, just as they learn a phoney 'Commedia dell' Arte' technique. The manipulated Mask is hardly worth having, and is easy to drive out of the theatre. The Mask begins as a sacred object, and then becomes secular and is used in festivals and in the theatre. Finally it is remembered only in the feeble imitations of Masks sold in the tourist shops. The Mask dies when it is entirely subjected to the will of the performer.

4

Faces

We have instinctive responses to faces. Parental feelings seem to be triggered by flat faces and big foreheads. We try and be rational and assert that 'people can't help their appearance', yet we feel we know all about Snow White and the Witch, or Laurel and Hardy, just by the look of them. The truth is that we learn to hold characteristic expressions as a way of maintaining our personalities, and we're far more influenced by faces than we realise. When I was a child there were faces in books that were so terrible that I had to jam the books tight into the bookcase for fear they would somehow leak out into the house. Adults lose this vision in which the face is the person, but after their first Mask class students are amazed by passers-by in the street---suddenly they see 'evil' people, and 'innocent' people, and people holding their faces in Masks of pain, or grief, or pride, or whatever. Our faces get 'fixed' with age as the muscles shorten, but even in very young people you can see that a decision has been taken to appear tough, or stupid, or defiant. (Why should anyone wish to look stupid? Because then your teachers expect less of you.) Sometimes in acting class a student will break out of his habitual facial expression and you won't know who he is until you look at his clothes. I've seen this transformation several times, and each time the student is flooded with great joy and exhilaration.^3^

Even if you just alter the face with make-up, astounding effects can be produced. A journalist called Bill Richardson told me that he'd been asked to take part in a circus matinee as one of the clowns. It was when he was cub reporter, and his editor had thought it might make an interesting story. Once the make-up was on he became 'possessed' and found himself able to tumble about, catch his feet in buckets, and so on, as if he'd been a clown in another incarnation. He stayed with the circus for some weeks, but he never got the same feeling without the make-up.

Another journalist, John Howard Griffin, disguised himself as a black man. He wrote:

'The transformation was total and shocking. I had expected to see myself disguised, but this was something else. I was imprisoned in the flesh of an utter stranger, an unsympathetic one with whom I felt no kinship. All traces of the John Griffin I had been were wiped from existence. I looked in the mirror and saw reflected nothing of the white [John Griffin's past. No, the reflection led back to Africa, back to the shanty and the ghetto, back to the fruitless struggles against the mark of blackness. Suddenly, almost with no mental preparation, no advance hint, it became clear and it permeated my whole being. My inclination was to fight against it. I had gone too far . . . The completeness of the transformation appalled me. It was unlike anything I had imagined. I became two men, the observing one and the one who panicked, who felt negroid even into the depths of his entrails.' (John Howard Griffin, ]Black Like Me', Panther, 1969.)

It's not surprising then to find that Masks produce changes in the personality, or that the first sight of oneself wearing a Mask and reflected in a mirror should be so disturbing. A bad Mask will produce little effect, but a good Mask will give you the feeling that you know all about the creature in the mirror. You feel that the Mask is about to take over. It is at this moment of crisis that the Mask teacher will urge you to continue. In most social situations you are expected to maintain a consistent personality. In a Mask class you are encouraged to 'let go' and allow yourself to become possessed.

5

Trance

Many actors report 'split' states of consciousness, or amnesias; they speak of their body acting automatically, or as being inhabited by the character they are playing.

Fanny Kemble: 'The curious part of acting, to me, is the sort of double process which the mind carries on at once, the combined operation of one's faculties, so to speak, in diametrically opposite directions; for instance, in that very last scene of Mrs Beverley, while I was half dead with crying in the midst of real grief, created by an entirely unreal cause, I perceived that my tears were falling like rain all over my silk dress, and spoiling it; and I calculated and measured most accurately the space that my father would require to fall in, and moved myself and my train accordingly in the midst of the anguish I was to feign, and absolutely did endure.' (William Archer, Masks and Faces, 1988.)

Sybil Thorndike: 'When you're an actor you cease to be male and female, you're a person, and you're a person with all the other persons inside you.' (Great Acting, BBC Publications, 1967.)

Edith Evans: '. . . I seem to have an awful lot of people inside me. Do you know what I mean? If I understand them I feel terribly like them [when I'm doing them . . . by thinking you turn into the person, if you think strongly enough. It's quite odd sometimes, you know. You are it, for quite a bit, and then you're not . . .' (]Great Acting.)

In another kind of culture I think it's clear that such actors could easily talk of being 'possessed' by the character. It's true that some actors will maintain that they always remain 'themselves' when they're acting, but how do they know? Improvisers who maintain that they're in a normal state of consciousness when the improvise often have unsuspected gaps in their memories which only emerge when you question them closely.

It's the same with Mask actors. I remember Roddy Maude-Roxby in a Mask that got angry during a show at Expo 67. He, or 'it', started throwing chairs about, so I walked on stage to stop the scene. 'S' goin' to be all right,' said the Mask, waving me aside. Afterwards Roddy remembered the chairs, but not that I'd entered the scene and tried to stop him. If he'd been in a deeper trance he'd have forgotten everything. The same kind of amnesias can be detected in any spontaneous work. An improviser writes: '. . . If a scene goes badly I remember it. If it goes well I forget very quickly.' Orgasms are the same.

Normally we only know of our trance states by the time jumps. When an improviser feels that two hours have passed in twenty minutes, we're entitled to ask where was he for the missing hour and forty minutes.

Many people think that to be awake is the same as to be conscious, but they can be deeply hypnotised while believing that they are in 'everyday consciousness'. A student assured me that he'd spent two hours on stage fooling a hypnotist, which is unlikely. Then he said that funnily enough he'd been singled out to tell the audience that he'd really just been pretending, and that he hadn't minded when they laughed, because it did---by coincidence---happen to be true!

I knew a hypnotist's assistant who used to be left in store windows as an advert for the show.

'Of course he doesn't really hypnotise me,' he said.

'No?'

'No, he used to push needles through me and it hurt, so finally I told him and now he doesn't push them through me any more.'

'But why do you agree to sit motionless in shop windows all day?'

'Well, I like him.'

I can't imagine anyone in a normal state of consciousness sitting motionless in shop windows day after day and doing the evening show. [How much then are we to trust what anyone tells us about their state of mind?]

We don't think of ourselves as moving in and out of trance because we're trained not to. It's impossible to be 'in control' all the time, but we convince ourselves that we are. Other people help to stop us drifting. They will laugh if we don't seem immediately in possession of ourselves, and we'll laugh too in acknowledgement of our inappropriate behaviour.

In 'normal consciousness' I am aware of myself as 'thinking verbally'. In sports which leave no time for verbalisation, trance states are common. If you think: 'The ball's coming at that angle but it's spinning so that I'll anticipate the direction of the bounce by . . .' you miss! You don't know you're in a trance state because whenever you check up, there you are, playing table tennis, but you may have been in just as deep a trance as the bobsleigh rider who didn't know he'd lost a thumb until he shook hands.

Most people only recognise 'trance' when the subject looks confused---out of touch with the reality around him. We even think of hypnosis as 'sleep'. In many trance states people are more in touch, more observant. I remember an experiment in which deep trance subjects were first asked how many objects there had been in the waiting-room. When they were put into trance and asked again, it was found that they had actually observed more than ten times the number of objects than they consciously remembered. Zen Masters, and sorcerers, are notoriously difficult to creep up on (Castaneda's Don Juan, for example). In Mask work people report that perceptions are more intense, and that although they see differently, they see and sense more.

I see the 'personality' as a public-relations department for the real mind, which remains unknown. My personality always seems to be functioning, at some level, in terms of what other people think. If I am alone in a room and someone knocks on the door, then I 'come back to myself'. I do this in order to check up that my social image is presentable: are my flies done up? Is my social face properly assembled? If someone enters, and I decide that I don't have to guard myself, then I can get 'lost in the conversation'. Normal consciousness is related to transactions, real or imagined, with other people. That's how I experience it, and I note widespread reports of people in isolation, or totally rejected by other people, who experience 'personality disintegration'.

When you're worried about what other people might think, the [personality is always present. In life-or-death situations something else takes over. A friend scalded himself and his mind split immediately into two parts, one of which was a child screaming with pain, while the other was cold and detached and told him exactly what to do (he was alone at the time). If a cobra dropped out of the air vent into the middle of an acting class, the students might find themselves on the piano, or outside the door, with no memory of how they got there. In extremity the body takes over for us, pushing the personality aside as an unnecessary encumbrance.]

6

Induction

How do we enter trance states? I would prefer to ask 'How do we stay out of them?' In the middle of a dark night I wake up, how do I know I'm awake? I test for consciousness by moving a muscle. If I block this impulse to move I feel a tremendous anxiety. The control I exercise over the musculature reassures me that 'I'm me'. By tensing muscles, by shifting position, by scratching, sighing, yawning, blinking, and so on, we maintain 'normal consciousness'. Entranced subjects will sit quite motionless for hours. An audience 'held' by a theatrical performance suddenly find a need to move, to shift position, to cough, as the spell breaks.

If you lie down and make your body relax, going through it from feet to head, and loosening any points of tension that you find, then you easily float away into fantasy. The substance and shape of your body seem to change. You feel as if the air is breathing you, rather than you breathing the air, and the rhythm is slow and smooth like a great tide. It's very easy to lose yourself, but if you feel the presence of a hostile person in the room you break this trance, seizing hold of the musculature, and becoming 'yourself' once more.

Meditators use stillness as a means of inducing trance. So do present-day hypnotists. The subject doesn't have to be told to be still, he knows intuitively not to assert control of his body by picking his nose of rapping his feet.

When you are 'absorbed' you no longer control the musculature. You can drive for miles, or play a movement from a sonata while your personality pays no attention at all. Nor is your performance necessarily worse. When a hypnotist takes over the function normally exercised by the personality, there's no need to leave the trance. Mask teachers, priests in possession cults, and hypnotists all play high status in voice [and movement. A high-status person whom you accept as dominant can easily propel you into unusual states of being. You're likely to respond to his suggestions, and see, like Polonius, the cloud looking like a whale. If the Queen knocked unexpectedly on your door and said 'I wonder if I might use your lavatory?' then you'd probably be in a very odd state indeed.]

Eysenck tells the seemingly improbable story of a hypnotist who worked for a total of three hundred hours on one subject with no apparent result. When the frustrated hypnotist finally snarled, 'Go to sleep, you *****!' the subject went straight into deep trance. I would interpret such an incident as the subject yielding to the status attack of the hypnotist.

I once asked a girl to close her eyes while I put a coin under one of three cups. Secretly I put a coin under each cup. When I asked her to guess which cup the coin was under, she was, of course, correct. After she'd made a correct choice about six times, she was convinced I was somehow controlling her thoughts, and moved into a rather disassociated state, so I explained, and she 'snapped out of it'. I would suggest this as a possible means of inducing hypnosis. Alan Mitchell describes a technique of 'confusion' used by the American hypnotist, Erickson. He writes:

'Erickson made a number of conflicting suggestions to a patient: "Lift your left arm, now your right. Up with the left, down with the right. Swing the left arm out and the left arm follows." Eventually the subject became so confused by these directions, which were woolly and conflicting, that he was glad to clutch at any straw, so long as it was given to him firmly enough and in a loud voice. Then, while he was so confused, if he were told: "Go to sleep", apparently he would drop off immediately into a deep sleep.' (Harley Street Hypnotist, Harrap, 1959.)

Again we see that the subject is made to feel that his body is out of control, and becomes subject to a high-status person. Some hypnotists sit you down, ask you to stare upwards into their eyes and suggest that your eyelids are wanting to close---which works because looking upwards is tiring, and because staring up into a high-status person's eyes makes you feel inferior. Another method involves getting you to hold your arm out sideways while suggesting that it's getting heavier. If you think the hypnotist is responsible for the heaviness rather than gravity, then you are likely to accept his control. Hypnotists don't, as sometimes claimed, ask you to put your hands together and then tell you that you can't part them, but they do ask you to link them in such [a way that it's awkward to part them. If you believe the hypnotist responsible for such awkwardness, then you may abandon the attempt to separate them. If you squeeze your index fingers hard, and then wait, you'll feel it starting to swell---I imagine this is an illusion caused by the weakening of the muscles of the compressing hand. This too can be a way of inducing trance so long as the subject doesn't realise that the 'swelling' would be experienced anyway, even without the hypnotist's suggestion.]^4^

Once you understand that you're no longer held responsible for your actions, then there's no need to maintain a 'personality'. Student improvisers asked to pretend to be hypnotised, show a sudden improvement. Students asked to pretend to be hypnotists show no such improvement.

Many ways of entering trance involve interfering with verbalisation. Repetitive singing or chanting are effective, or holding the mind on to single words; such techniques are often thought of as 'Oriental', but they're universal.^5^

One dramatic way of entering trance is by 'trumping'. This was used in a West Indian play at the Royal Court, with the unwanted result that actors kept going into real trance, and not just acting it. It works partly by the 'crowd effect', everyone repeating the same action and sound, but also by over-oxygenating the blood. It looks like a 'forward-moving two-step stomp'.

'With the step forward the body is bent forwards from the waist so sharply as to seem propelled by force. At the same time the breath exhaled, or inhaled, with great effort and sound. The forcefulness of the action gives justification to the term "labouring" . . . When the spirit possession does take place . . . and individual's legs may seem riveted to the ground . . . or he may be thrown to the ground.' (S.E. Simpson, Religious Cults of the Caribbean: Trinidad, Jamaica and Haiti, Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of Puerto Rico, 1970.)

Crowds are trance-inducing because the anonymity imposed by the crowd absolves you of the need to maintain your identity.

7

Possession

The type of trance I am concerned with in this essay is the 'controlled trance', in which permission to remain 'entranced' is given by other people, either by an individual or a group. Such trances may be rare, or may pass unrecognised in this culture, but we should [consider them as a normal part of human behaviour. Researchers who have studied possession cults report that it is the better adjusted citizens who are most likely to become possessed. Many people regard 'trance' as a sign of madness, just as they presume that 'madmen' must be easy to hypnotise. The truth is that if madmen were capable of being under 'social control' they would never have revealed the behaviour that categorised them as insane. It's a tautology to say that normal people are the most suggestible, since it's because they're the most suggestible that they're the most normal!]

If we compare Mask work with 'possession cults', then we can see many similarities. It's true that the possessed person is often supposed to remember nothing that happens during the trance---but this is also observed sometimes in Mask work, even though it's not demanded. And two types of possession are often described: an amnesiac and a lucid state. Possessed people don't seem to need speech lessons (which Masks do, as described later), but there are many descriptions of inarticulate sounds preceding speech. And sometimes a deeply possessed Mask will speak from the first moment.

Every Mask teacher will recognise this situation, reported by Simpson of a Shango cult: 'One person said, "The drummers are not beating well tonight." A drummer called out that "It is no use to drum if you get no response." Later a woman stood up and shouted: "You are not singing at all tonight." The leader appeared and denounced the group for its lack of enthusiasm.'

Like Mask teachers, the 'priests' in possession cults are high status, but 'indulgent' to the possessed trancers. Maya Deren describes an incident in Haiti when someone possessed by the God Ghede * arrived at the wrong time. The Houngan (priest) objected.

' "Oh I just dropped in", he (Ghede) said, making a self-effacing gesture, "to look around a bit, I'll just stroll around and look things over." ' (Ghede then asked for nine cassavas---flat breads.) 'Ghede stood eating two of them at once as if he was part of the audience, and watched the great ioa (spirit) Ogoun and Damballa. Then the audience was distracted by the problem of a man who had climbed up a tree under possession of Damballa. As the possession seemed about to leave him the Houngan was begging Damballa to bring the man to earth before leaving (else the man might fall and kill himself).' Ghede then missed some of his cassavas. 'Suddenly Ghede threw a great tantrum about the thieves who had stolen his remaining cassavas. He [caught hold of the Houngan and shrieked and stamped his feet, meanwhile Damballa and Ogoun were being ignored. There was no choice but to buy Ghede more cassavas and some biscuits to placate him.]

'Now as the loa turned to walk off with the new food, the Houngan, smiling, said to him, "Are you sure it wasn't a man in a little multicoloured cap who stole those cassavas?"

'Ghede wheeled with enormous eyes of innocence. "A little cap? What man in a little cap?" . . . Someone called out: "Are you sure you don't know who stole your cassavas?" Whereupon, looking at us out of the corner of his eye with a delightful and endearing expression, Ghede winked once, slowly, and walked away.' (The Divine Horsemen, Thames and Hudson, London, 1953; Delta Books, New York, 1970.)

Ghede, God of death, and of sexuality, is consumed by raging hungers, but note the paradox that the supernatural creature who we would expect to be 'super-adult' is very childlike---exactly as the Masks are. Ghede, in Deren's description, sounds exactly like a Mask.

'We asked him why he liked to wear smoked glasses. "Well," he explained, "I spend so much time in the dark underworld that it makes my eyes sensitive to the sun." "Why", we asked then, "do you remove the right lens so often?" "Well, my dear," he answered, "it's this way: with my left eye, I watch over the whole universe. As for the right, I keep that eye on my food, so that no thief will get it."'

The character of a Mask will not be like the wearer's character. Simpson, writing of the Shango cults, says: 'My informants denied that there is a close correspondence between the personality characteristics of a power and his followers. Sometimes a power manifests itself on a "child" ("horse") whose personality is the exact opposite of the god's. A devotee may be possessed by a violent power at one time and by a quiet power on another occasion according to the work to be done . . . One informant said: "What a person is afraid to do, he does when possessed." '

My suspicion is that the number of 'personality types' that emerge in Mask work is pretty limited. To be sure, we would have to compare films from different cultures, and analyse the movements and sounds of the 'spirits'. This research hasn't been carried out, but just as myths from all over the world show similar structures, so I believe that wherever there is a 'Pantalone-type' Mask there will be Pantalones. The same characters persisted in the Commedia dell' Arte not because the tradition was sterile, but because the Masks themselves imposed certain ways of behaving. Chaplin's Tramp has always existed. Harpo, [and Stan Laurel, and Pappa Gueda, and Ranga the Witch, and the Braggard Soldier, are just there, wherever there is a human brain.]

I consider the possessed trance as a particular form of the hypnotic trance. Some people have denied this, but all the phenomena typical of possession can be induced by hypnosis. It's true that clinical hypnosis looks very different, but that is because the hypnotist isn't arranging a performance before an approving audience.^6^ As there is hardly any literature on Mask possession, I'll quote some examples of spirit possession. Anyone teaching the Mask is likely at some time to encounter deep trance states, so it's useful to understand their nature.

Here's Lucian's description of a priestess being possessed at Delphi: 'She went blundering frantically about the shrine, with the god mounted on the nape of her neck, knocking over the tripods that stood in her path. The hair rose on her scalp, and when she tossed her head the wreaths went flying over the bare floor . . . her mouth foamed frenziedly; she groaned, gasped, uttered weird sounds, and made the huge cave re-echo with her dismal shrieks. In the end Apollo forced her to intelligible speech . . . Before her spirit could be restored to the light of common day, a spell of unconsciousness intervened. Apollo was washing her mind with Lethe water, to make her forget the fateful secrets she had learned during this effulgent visitation. The spirit of divine truth departed and returned to whence it came; Phemonoe collapsed on the floor, and was revived with difficulty.' (Translated by Robert Graves, Pharsalia, Penguin, 1956.)

The fear, and the feeling of the god mounting on the neck, or head, is typical of possession as encountered in the New World cults.^7^ But compare Lucan's description above with one by David G. Mandelbaum writing of possession in a village in South India.

'A spasm of shivering works through the diviner, then another, and his head begins to shake from side to side. The head movements continue with increasing velocity until it seems as if no human vertebrae could stand the strain. The diviner may fall to his knees and beat his palms against the earth with a furious tattoo, but the deity does not speak through him until his hair is loosened. The long Kota locks are tied up with a cord which has ritual significance, and this cord must be dislodged by the force of the head motion. When the diviner's hair does fall free about his oscillating head, a strangled sob bursts forth from him---the first articulation of the god speaking through his chosen medium. With jerky, strangled utterance, the diviner's voice serves as the mouthpiece of the deity.' (Anthropology of Folk Religion, Charles Leslie, 1960.)

[William Sargant has compared the possessed trance to the Pavlovian state of 'transmarginal inhibition'. When a brain is subjected to great stress a protective breakdown occurs: first the brain begins to give the same response to strong as to weak signals (the grading goes), next the brain responds ]more strongly to weak signals, and then conditioned responses reverse---he cites the case of Maya Deren as an example of 'transmarginal inhibition'. During her study of the voodoo cults in Haiti, she became possessed herself on several occasions. Once she arrived to film a ceremony, but 'blanked out' when the drums started, and recovered consciousness to find that not only was the ceremony over, but that she had conducted it herself. She says:

'The possessed benefits least of all men from his own possession. He may suffer for it in material loss, in the sometimes painful, always exhausted aftermath. And to the degree that his consciousness persists into its first moments or becomes aware of it at the very end, he experiences an overwhelming fear. Never have I seen the face of such anguish, ordeal and blind terror as at moments when the loa comes.'

One would imagine that people would struggle to avoid this terrifying experience, but it's obvious that many people desire it. It's part of the voodoo mythology that the god should possess you 'against your will'. I would think that Maya Deren was subject to a high level of conflict, but it's significant that she was possessed by the beautiful, sexy goddess Erzulie, and she did get an amazing chapter of her book.

I. M. Lewis says: 'The possessed person who in the seance is the centre of attention says in effect, "Look at me, I am dancing" . . . Haitian voodoo ceremonies are quite clearly theatres, in which problems and conflicts relating to the life situations of the participants are dramatically enacted with great symbolic force . . . Everything takes on the tone and character of modern psychodrama or group therapy. Abreaction is the order of the day. Repressed urges and desires, the idiosyncratic as well as the socially conditioned, are given full public rein.' (Ecstatic Religion, Penguin, 1971.)

Maya Deren's first possession occurred when she was a guest of honour at a voodoo ceremony. She was absorbed in talking to the Houngan and wasn't attending to the drums or the singing. This would tend to make her more vulnerable. Then she was called to take part in the ceremony for a moment, and 'forgot' what she had to do, even though she had done it often at previous ceremonies. What she did 'happened' to be right and she returned to her chair, to find that the drums and singing were louder and 'sharper'.

I would say that she was now already in light trance. She was then [caught up in the singing until she found herself 'standing bolt upright, singing or perhaps even screaming the song'. She felt 'winded' and took no part in the dancing.]

She describes a strong feeling of being at one with the group: 'I have but to rise, to step forward, to become a part of this glorious movement, flowing with it, its motion becoming mine, as the roll of the sea might become the inundation of my own body. At such moments one does not move to the sound, one is the movement of the sound, created and borne by it; hence nothing is difficult.'

She then crosses to her servant, only to find that her leg 'roots to the ground'. She experiences an 'unpleasant lightness in the head', and repeats the words 'hold together' to herself. She goes outside and smokes a cigarette and feels her head 'tightening, integrating, becoming solid once more'.

When she hears the salute to the god Odin, she 'has' to return in order not to give offence. Had she really wanted to escape she could of course have 'become ill'. She touches the hand of a possessed person and feels a momentary shock like 'electricity', and other people indicate to her that she is likely to become possessed. She is troubled by her 'persistent vulnerability' and all round her people are falling into trance. She decides to continue: 'To run away would be cowardice. I could resist, but I must not escape. And I can resist best, I think to myself, if I put aside the fears and nervousness; if, instead of suspecting my vulnerability, I set myself in brazen competition with all this which would compel me to its authority.'

At some level she clearly wants to enter trance, but she believes she is being forced into it against her will. The spirits are to be fully responsible for casting aside her personality. She's had all the warning signals, and now she joins in the singing and the dancing and feels no fear. She feels incredibly tired but she doesn't stop until suddenly it becomes easier, although she doesn't notice the exact moment at which 'the pace which seemed unbearably demanding had slipped down a notch into a slow motion'.

It's clear that her time sense is distorting, and that she's already in a very odd state of consciousness. Her leg 'roots' to the ground again. The 'slower' drums will actually be speeding up as the drummers try to push her into deep trance. She sees everything as very beautiful and she turns to a neighbour to say, 'See how lovely that is' when she finds herself isolated, alone in a circle.

'I realise like a shift of terror struck through me, that it is no longer myself whom I watch. Yet it is myself, for as that terror strikes, we two [are made one again, joined by and upon the point of the left leg. The white darkness starts to shoot up; I wrench my foot free but the effort catapults me over what seems a vast, vast distance, and I come to rest on a firmness of arms and bodies which would hold me up. But these have voices---great insistent, singing voices---whose sound would smother me. With every muscle I pull loose and again plunge across a vast space . . . My skull is a drum; each great beat drives that leg, like the point of a stake, into the ground. The singing is at my very ear, inside my head. This sound will drown me! "Why don't they stop! Why don't they stop!" I cannot wrench the leg free. I am caught in this cylinder, this well of sound. There is nothing anywhere except this. There is no way out. The white darkness moves up the veins of my leg like a swift tide rising, rising; it is a great force which I cannot sustain or contain, which surely will burst my skin. "Mercy" I scream within me. I hear it echoed by the voices, shrill and unearthly: "Erzulie!" The bright darkness floods up through my body, reaches my head, engulfs me. I am sucked down and exploded at once. That is all.']

This sounds more like a priestess at Delphi than hypnosis, but isn't just a spectacular induction technique. Alfred Metraux observes that 'People who are used to possession pass quickly through the whole range of nervous symptoms, and then, suddenly, there they are: in full trance. Even as much preamble as this may be dispensed with when a ceremony is in full swing and demands instantaneous entry on the part of the gods.' (Voodoo in Haiti, translated by H. Charteris, André Deutsch, 1972.) He also points out that the intensity of the attack depends on the nature of the god being incarnated. I see Sargent's 'transmarginal inhibition' as being just another way of entering trance.

As for the terror that she insists on, there are many accounts of 'calm' possession, do I don't think terror is 'built-in' to the process, or rather that it's the mythology that produces the terror. Interestingly Maya Deren said elsewhere, and before ever she went to Haiti: 'Total amnesia, although less spectacular than many other forms of mental disorder, has always seemed to me the most terrifying.' ('An Anagram of Ideas on Art', Form and Film, 1946.)

In possession cults the worshippers incarnate the gods, and their posture, movements, and voices change as does the facial expression. Oesterreich says: 'Transformation of the physiognomy appears in all descriptions.' (Oesterreich also mentions an eleven-year-old girl who began speaking in a 'deep bass voice'.) The spirits that arrive are almost [always well known to the congregation, and the priest will have the requisite costumes or props ready for them. Extended improvisations then take place which are very theatrical. Here's Jane Belo describing an Indonesian possession ceremony:]

'The crowd that gathered was alert and attentive, the whole spirit like that of a game in which everyone would take part. Everyone would join in the singing which directed the trancer's performance. People would call out jibes to the performers, urging them on, taunting them with phrases known to infuriate them. The crowd enjoyed this very much indeed. When the time came to bring the act to an end, a whole group would fall on the trancer, who struggled fiercely in convulsions precipitated by the attack. Amid great excitement, everyone would fall over everyone else in a headlong rough-and-tumble. They would then set themselves to nursing the trancer back to normal consciousness. All would then be just as intent on caring for the man who was coming back to himself as they had been a few minutes before in taunting and exciting the creature he had "become".' (Trance in Bali, Columbia University Press, New York, 1960.)

Voodoo trancers may be possessed by several different gods one after another, and the same god may inhabit several people at the same time---in Haiti there was once a mass demonstration in which several hundred people all possessed by Papa Gheda, marched on the presidential palace. It's reported that voodoo trancers remember nothing about their possessions, but Jane Belo, writing of trance in Indonesia, describes two types of possession: one in which a 'power is present that is different from his "I", and makes two simultaneous integrations, and that in which there is a temporary but total change of the personality in which the person is "transformed" into another being or object.' (Trance in Bali.)

Here's an example of voodoo gods improvising together described by Metraux: 'These impromptus, which vary in style, are much appreciated by the audience, who yell with laughter, join in the dialogue, and noisily show their pleasure or discontent. Take an example: someone possessed by Zaka appears under the peristyle in the get-up of a peasant. By canny movements he mimes the anxiety of a countryman come to town, and who fears to be robbed. Now another possessed person joins him, one might almost say 'comes on'. It is Guede-nibo of the Guede family, which watches over the dead. Zaka is clearly terrified by the presence of his gloomy colleague and tries to propitiate him, inviting him to have something to eat and to drink some rum. Guede, who is making a show as a townsman, exchanges [courtesies with him, trying to tease him. He asks him: "What have you got in your bag?" He searches it and examines the contents. Alarmed, Zaka cries "Stop, stop!" The bag is returned to him only to be surreptitiously lifted off him while he is examining one of the sick. Zaka, in despair, calls for cards and shells in order to discover the thief by means of divination. The audience chants "Play, Zaka, play".' (And so on.) (]Voodoo in Haiti.)

Any Mask teacher will recognise the scenes reported to occur during

'possession' as typical of the Mask. One would expect the gods to be presented as supermen, but in all 'trance' cultures we find a mythology which describes the gods as acting in a childlike way. As Melville says, 'The gods are like children and must be told what to do.'

8

Teaching Mask Work

For an introductory Mask class I will set up a table with a variety of props on it. They'll be on a table because the act of bending down may turn a new Mask off. I avoid any props that would present 'difficulties'. An umbrella might encourage a Mask to think how to open it. An alarm clock might suggest winding it up. Anything that would require a Mask to have a mental age of more than two and a half I would remove. The objects on the table are the sort that would interest young children. I choose things that give a variety of tactile experiences: a scarf, a carrot, bells, silver foil, a jar, a balloon, a piece of fur, a doll, a toy animal, a stick, rubber tubing, flowers, sweets. Children's books are all right if they're small, and it helps if they're in a foreign language. (My wife, Ingrid, wraps up little presents for the Masks in the classes she gives; each tiny packet has a sweet, or a little toy in it, which is something the Masks like.)

I put some furniture on the stage, and set up a screen to one side. Behind the screen are hats, and coats, and pyjamas, boiler suits, and a few dresses. If the clothes are a little out of fashion, so much the better. Real clothes are generally better than stage costumes, though. Sheets of coloured material are good. I used to have some big felt 'shoes' that some Masks liked---I think they were made to fit inside gumboots in cold weather.

Once the students are ready I change my status, and play 'high'. I don't bounce around and wave my arms like I would for a comedy class. I become stiller, 'serious' and more 'adult'. The change in me products a change of feeling in the students which I exploit by assuring [them that the Masks are ]not dangerous, that whatever happens I can handle it, and that all that matters is that they must take off the Mask when I ask them to. The more I reassure them the more jumpy they get, and by the time they come to take a Mask many of them will be trembling. The skill lies in creating the correct balance between interest and anxiety.

I also have to establish that they will not be held responsible for their actions while in the Mask. I illustrate this with stories.

We had a Mask that had a thick droopy nose and angry eyebrows. It was a deep, congested red in colour, and it liked to pick up sticks and hit people. It was quite safe so long as the teacher knew this and said 'Take the Mask off!' sharply at the critical moment. Someone borrowed it once---Pauline Melville, who had taken over my classes at Morley College. Next day she returned the Masks and said that someone had been hit on the arm. I had to explain that it was my fault for not warning her. (And I pointed to the Mask that hit people.) I once saw three similar droopy-nosed Masks---they were Kabuki Masks, and they were on the hanamichi (the platform that runs through the audience) and yes, they had sticks and were threatening people.

Another Mask was called Mr Parks. This one used to laugh, and stare into the air, and sit on the extreme edge of chairs and fall off sideways. Shay Gorman created the character. I took the Mask along to a course I gave in Hampshire. The students were entering from behind a screen and suddenly I heard Mr Parks's laughter. It entered with the same posture Shay Gorman had adopted, and looked up as if something was very amusing about the ceiling, and then it kept sitting on the extreme edge of a chair as if it wanted to fall off. Fortunately it didn't, because the wearer wasn't very athletic. It really makes no sense that a Mask should be able to transmit that sort of information to its wearer.

Once students begin to observe for themselves the way that Masks compel certain sorts of behaviour, then they really begin to feel the presence of 'spirits'. I remember a Mask I'd just made. A student tried it out and turned into a hunched, twisted, gurgling creature. Then a latecomer arrived, picked up the same Mask, and the identical creature appeared. I tell students to take any Mask as long as it's comfortable. Probably they'll be manoeuvring to pick one that they think they can do well, but this doesn't really matter because it'll look quite different when they see it reflected in the mirror. Once the student has found a comfortable Mask, one that doesn't dig into his eyes, I arrange his hair so that it covers the elastic and the top of the forehead of the Mask.

[I then say: 'Relax. Don't think of anything. When I show you the mirror, ]make your mouth fit the Mask and hold it so that the mouth and the Mask make one face. You'll know all about the creature in the mirror, so you don't have to think about it. Become the thing you see, turn away from the mirror, and go to the table. There'll be something that it wants. Let it find it. Disobey anything I'm saying if it wants to, but if I say "Take the Mask off", then you must take it off.'

I present the mirror very smoothly, slicing it upwards into the space between me and the actor. The shock of seeing the reflection is to be as strong as possible. After two seconds I begin to step aside, swinging the mirror with me, so that the actor will automatically take a step, and will be facing the table with the props as the mirror leaves him. If the actor seems to be resisting the change I might say 'You're changing now', or 'Make the fact fit the Mask.' I use a head-sized mirror because the information they need comes from the face. If the mirror is bigger, then they see their whole body and are likely to start posturing. I don't want them to think about being another creature, I want them to experience being another creature.^8^

Some students will compulsively touch their Mask as soon as they see their reflection. This is a defence: they want to reassure themselves that it's 'only a mask'. If students seem seriously afraid then I tell them to cross their fingers or something. Once they accept such a method of keeping themselves 'safe' they've already entered a 'magical universe'. When they agree to uncross their fingers or whatever, the effects of the Mask will be even stronger. In possession cults you can protect yourself by clinging to the beams or 'tying knots in your underwear'. Some students go rigid, and then remove the Mask, visibly shaken, and say 'Nothing happened.' Other students 'think out' what to do, and then hop around pretending to be boxers, or posture like Harlequins or whatever. 'Don't have any words in your head', I say.

When a student tries on a Mask for the second time I may say 'When you look in the mirror let the Mask make a sound, and keep the sound going all through the scene.' This is a meditation technique very effective in blocking verbalisation (like Tibetan monks chanting 'Oooooommmmm'). I often say things like 'Yes, that's excellent', or 'Who is it?' or 'Amazing' even before students have looked in the mirror, so that the feeling of being different, and hidden, is reinforced. The Masks begin to paint, and wheeze, and howl, which freaks out the people watching even more, and 'pumps the atmosphere up'. In voodoo cults the drums throb for hours to call the gods across the ocean from Africa.

[Once one person is possessed, others usually follow almost immediately. In a beginners' Mask class there is usually a 'dead' twenty minutes before the first Mask appears---if you're lucky. My method is to 'seed' the class with a fully developed Mask. The presence of a 'possessed' Mask allows students to 'let go', and alarms and reassures at the same time. The same phenomenon is reported in possession cults; and it's easier to hypnotise someone who has just seen it done to someone else.]

I encourage students to throw themselves in, and to stop being 'critical', by saying: 'Make mistakes! These Masks are more extreme, more powerful than ordinary faces! Don't be timid. Make big mistakes. Don't worry about being wrong! Rely on me to stop you!' Sometimes I say: 'What you saw in the mirror was right! But you only showed me a shadow of it. Try the Mask again. You'll never get anywhere if you aren't brave.' Sometimes I see that a person is transformed for just a moment as they look in a mirror, but then take hold of themselves to cancel it out. I stop them, make them remove the Mask and then start again immediately.

A girl puts on a Mask and is transformed. She seems to illuminate the room, but instantly she removes it.

'Be gentle with the Mask,' I say. When people feel that the Mask has made them betray themselves they'll throw it down. I've seen one hurled from centre stage to the back of the stalls. In the present case my warning reinforces the feeling that unexpected and violent things may happen.

'I couldn't do it,' she says.

'But it was marvellous.'

'It felt wrong.'

'You mean you didn't like the thing you had turned into.'

'That's right.'

'That means you can do it, the experience was real.'

I reassure her, and let her watch and see that no one is coming to harm.

The problem is not one of getting the students to experience the 'presence' of another personality---almost everyone gets a strong kick from their reflection---the difficulty lies in stopping the student from making the change 'himself'. There's no reason for the student to start 'thinking' when he already 'knows' intuitively exactly what sort of creature he is. Getting him to hold his mouth in a fixed position, and having him make sounds helps to block verbalisation, and 'finding a prop' helps to tear the Mask away from the mirror. Unfortunately, [even the effort of walking may throw the actor into normal consciousness. That's why I hold the mirror near the table (less than eight feet), and in extreme cases I start the Mask at the table, or sitting in a chair.]

A new Mask is like a baby that knows nothing about the world. Everything looks astounding to it, and it has little access to its wearer's skills. Very often a Mask will have to learn how to sit, or bend down, or how to hold things. It's as if you build up another personality from scratch; it's as if a part of the mind gets separated, and then develops on its own. There are exceptions, but in most cases the very best Masks start off knowing the least. They don't know how to take the lids off jars; they don't understand the idea of wrapping things (given a present they just admire the paper). When objects fall to the floor it's as if they've ceased to exist. One student always left the room before wearing a particularly regressive Mask. I asked her why, and she said, 'It's silly, but I'm afraid I might wet myself, so I always go to the toilet.'

Normal Masks go through a period of learning, so that after a dozen or so classes they have a limited vocabulary, a number of 'props' that they regularly handle, and some sort of history based on interactions with other Masks. A Mask that grabs everything will have learned that the other Masks will punish it, and so on. Actors who 'can't do' Mask work are never able to let the Mask be truly stupid and ignorant. They try to transfer their own skills directly. Instead of allowing a Mask to explore a closed umbrella they'll 'take over' and open it. Instead of letting the Mask suffer because it hasn't learned to sit in a chair they'll 'make' it sit. By their impatience, and desire to exert control, they bypass a necessary process. The Mask feeling leaks away and we are left with the actor pretending to be another person, instead of being another person.

Some Masks are 'muscle-bound', and act like 'monsters'. I don't encourage these unless they're all an actor can produce. The most important thing is that an actor should dredge up some sort of 'spirit', but I prefer Masks that release the actor physically and vocally. I encourage Masks that are 'human', like big extrovert children, or expressive of very intense feelings: greed, lust, or tenderness, for example. As soon as a Mask arrives that seems useful I get the actor to repeat it. I say, 'Tell yourself you're looking in the mirror for the first time, the Mask will do the rest.' This stops the actor from trying to remember what the Mask did 'last time'.

Soon there are a number of recognisable 'personalities' that I can [put together in scenes. I usually tell each Mask that it owns all the props, and that it's going to meet some nice people. At first Masks are often rather grotesque, very depressed or manic---and sometimes frightening. Interacting socialises them. They make friends and enemies. We now have a community of Masks, each with its own costume, props, and personal history.]

They probably still don't speak---and the inability to speak is almost a sign of good Mask work. Actors are amazed to find that it's necessary to give the Masks 'speech lessons'. Masks usually understand words said to them, but they have the comprehension of a young child. Long words are ignored, or produce bewilderment.

I set up a scene in which the Mask is to meet a 'very nice voice teacher'. I collect the props that I think will interest the Mask, and I get someone to stay close to it with a mirror.

'Come in', I say. 'Sit?'

It looks baffled.

'Sit,' I say, and I sit on a chair. If it 'catches on' it'll imitate me and probably make some sort of sound. 'Stand,' I say, and we play 'sitting and standing' like two idiots. Then I give the Mask a present, perhaps a balloon. 'Balloon,' I say, and if it doesn't want it, or won't say the word, I don't pressure it. If it likes the balloon, I say 'Yellow balloon' or whatever. Whenever the Mask begins to turn off, it gets a recharge from the mirror, and I keep well back, and hand it things at arm's length. If I get too close to it I'll probably turn it off. I have to be careful not to invade the Mask's 'space', although proximity between Masks will deepen their trance.

When other people act as voice teachers they usually want to bully the Masks. I suppose this comes from the way we treat young children. They touch the Masks; they try to blackmail them into speaking, refusing to give them presents until they obey. If a word is said, the 'teachers' try frantically to get the pronunciation exactly right. Then the Mask suffers and won't co-operate.

By far the best way is to have one Mask that already speaks work as teacher. Such Masks often express annoyance at their pupils' 'stupidity', but there's something very magical in removing the human being from the process so that the Masks hand on their own traditions. Masks can even hold the mirrors.

I'm happy if I get three sounds which resemble words in a five-minute session. Many words can't be said at the beginning because of the way the mouth is being held. Three words is a great achievement. Once the Mask has learned a dozen or so words it begins to transfer [words from its wearer's vocabulary, or to pick them up from other Masks.]

Speech lessons sound silly, but remember Chaplin, who never really found the right voice for his Tramp. He made many experiments and finally made him sing in gibberish (Modern Times). 'Charlie' always sounds like Chaplin when he talks, and I think Chaplin knew this, and this is probably why he abandoned the character. If he'd been able to work in a Mask class he'd almost certainly have been able to find a voice.

An actor may develop several Masks, each with its own characteristics and vocabulary. If I use an unfamiliar word to a Mask it'll ask me what it means, and it'll always remember that word. What is freaky is that each Mask remembers what it knows, and also what it doesn't know. An actor left the Studio just when his Mask was learning to speak. After two years he returned, and started another speech lesson, and he was using exactly the vocabulary he had learned at the previous class. Hypnotic subjects are reported to be in rapport with all the other occasions when they were in trance, and the same is true of Mask characters.

I speed up the learning of words by getting the Masks to count up to ten, or to say the alphabet. Nursery rhymes are useful. I get Masks to recite little poems to the audience who applaud wildly. One nursery rhyme can teach so many words that the Mask goes straight into simple speech.

Here are some notes by Mask students on what the Mask state feels like.

'I found that the inability to speak was the freakiest feeling, combined with a feeling of being on an energetic high, and having a total disregard for the audience. Colours seemed to deepen in intensity, and objects became possessions. The terrible feeling of having to succeed in front of people faded into the background, and body movements lost their stiffness and inhibitions. Sounds came unplanned to my throat.

'Once out of the Mask I find I am exhausted emotionally and physically, and cannot resume the Mask for a while without a rest. As an improviser I am nervous about appearing 'right', but once in a Mask, there's no such feeling and the Mask can improvise indefinitely (if happy).'

This student was an experienced amateur actress, and had learned an untruthful but effective way of presenting herself, based on strong 'demonstrations of feeling'. She was very 'armoured' against the [audience, but in Mask work she was 'released', and seemed wonderfully gifted. My suspicion is that her extreme exhaustion may have been linked to residual anxieties about 'letting go'. I worked with her for a year, mostly on improvisation, and she was just beginning to transfer her Mask skills into her acting skills. With luck she should be out of the cul-de-sac.]

Another student writes:

'I always come away from a Mask class with a feeling of renewed freshness, a light feeling.

'I like the Mask state very much---I guess you could say it acts on me the way some drugs would affect other people---an escape perhaps?

'My sense of touch and sound are increased, I want to touch and feel everything, loud sounds don't bother me. Colours are much brighter and more meaningful---I am more aware of them.

'Something happens to my eyes.

'A childlike sense of discovery.

'As a Mask there are a lot of things that can do a lot of harm---being hit---seeing someone else take their Mask off . . . a sense of failure during a Mask class. Maybe when I say harm I don't mean physically--- but mentally it boggles the mind a lot---because you are literally a young child open to all the world will offer and the first experience is usually the lasting one.

'I feel much happier with myself as an actor now---because I have had some Mask training---can I tell why I feel better? I don't know. I just have a lot more confidence. I feel 'right' in the Mask state, whatever I do is fine, no emotional hangups.

'It's hard for me to take a Mask off that has worked for a long period of time successfully---once when I did take it off, I felt my face was being ripped off with it.'

A third student writes:

'When I had my first successful speech lesson, I felt that I knew how to say the words but the Mask didn't. A part of me knew how, and a part of me did not. The latter part was much the stronger of the two and maintained control without a struggle . . .

'Masks do not like to pretend. In order to do the scene where the Mask enters from outdoors, I had to go out to the hall door and then come in. On the other hand it was easy for her (the Mask) to pretend that Ingrid's purse was a tea-cosy because she had no idea what a tea-cosy was.'

I remember some rather staid Swedish schoolteachers being let loose in a garden wearing Masks that they had developed indoors. [They shrieked with delight, raced over the flower beds and started tearing up the flowers. I stopped the scene, and found some of them very upset, since they'd never imagined themselves behaving in such a way.]

Students are likely to have vivid dreams when they begin Mask work. One very gifted student found himself sleepwalking for the first time in years. A Canadian student was trying a Mask on at home and went out into his garden wearing it when the temperature was minus twenty Centigrade. He was astounded to find that he was standing in the snow in his bare feet. Masks are very strange and should be approached with caution, not because they're really dangerous, but because a bad experience may put a teacher or student off for good.

At the moments when a Mask 'works' the student feels a decisionlessness, and an inevitability. The teacher sees a sudden 'naturalness', and that the student is no longer 'acting'. At first the Mask may flash on for just a couple of seconds. I have to see and explain exactly when the change occurs. The two states are actually very different, but most students are insensitive to changes in consciousness. Some students hold rigidly to 'normal consciousness', but most keep switching from their control to the Mask's control and back again. It becomes possible to say 'The mask switched off when you touched the table,' or 'It flashed on for a second when you saw the other Mask.' Once a student understands the immense difference between controlling a Mask and being controlled by a Mask, then he can be taught. It doesn't matter if he loses the Mask state a couple of seconds after leaving the mirror, because once he understands the point at which the change occurs, the trance state can be extended. The essential thing is to identify the two sensations: (1) the student working the Mask, which we don't want; (2) the Mask working the student, a state which the student learns to sustain.

When the actors have developed one or two characters, and have learned to sustain them, I push them into playing more complex situations. There's a sort of 'hump' you have to get them over. I invent the sort of situations that a three-year-old would respond to: playing 'shop', stealing, being shouted at by angry grown-ups, and so on. I also set up 'marathon' scenes in which the Masks interrelate for a long time---up to an hour. If someone turns off they can get a 'recharge' from the mirror, or they can rejoin the audience. More Masks arrive as other Masks leave. Once this stage is reached, then the Masks function as entertainers. You put Masks together and enjoy the scenes that [emerge. They have their own 'world', and it's fascinating to watch them exploring it.]

In normal life the personality conceals or checks impulses. Mask characters work on the opposite principle: they are childlike, impulsive, open; their machinations are completely transparent to the audience, although not necessarily to each other. If you look at, say, the adults on a bus, you can see that they work to express a 'deadness'.

If Masks were subjected to the same pressures as our children are, then they also would become dull and inexpressive. We adults have learned to be opaque. We live among hard surfaces that reflect sound back to us, so we're constantly telling our children to be quiet. Our lives are surrounded with precious objects---glass, china, televisions, stereos---so that movement has to be restrained. Any adult who acted like a three-year-old would be intolerable to us.

John Holt made this point when discussing the 'wooden' look of retarded children (in How Children Fail). A fourteen-year-old with a mental age of six doesn't 'act six' because we won't let him, but he can't 'act fourteen' either, so he looks stupid as a defence. A child of one and half can look bright and alert, but an adult with a mental age of ten has to look like a moron because this is the most acceptable persona he's able to assemble. When Veronica Sherbourne allows retarded children to behave spontaneously, we see at once that the deadness was only a cloak, a crippling disguise, yet we 'normal' people are wooden and inexpressive compared to the Masks.

This is why Mask teachers or the priests at possession ceremonies are so indulgent. When Masks are set free among a crowd they are permitted all sorts of behaviour which would be instantly forbidden to normal people.^9^

One famous French teacher of the Mask---who won't approve of this essay---divides students immediately into those who can work Masks and those who can't. I think this is damaging. One of my best improvisers (Anthony Trent) spent eight weeks working very hard until a Mask possessed him. Whether a student can succeed or not depends partly on the skill of the teacher, and the incentive of the student. When I began teaching I thought that only about one in ten of my students could really 'become the Mask'. Recently I created a Mask play with a company of actors, and because they had to succeed, everyone did---to some extent. Where possession is the norm (at least in the West Indies and Indonesia), there are always some people who don't become possessed. Maybe these just don't have sufficient incentive.

[The great improvement in my Mask teaching came when I thought of having people standing by to present mirrors ]during the scenes. The moment the Mask actor 'comes to himself' he snaps a finger and maybe two or three mirrors are rushed at him. This makes the learning process much easier. Masks can also have little mirrors in their pockets to turn themselves back on.

Mask work is particularly suitable for 'tough' adolescents who may normally think of drama as sissy. It appeals to them because it feels dangerous. I've seen excellent, and very sensitive Mask work by rather violent teenagers. Personally I think Mask work is something almost anyone can learn to enjoy. It's very refreshing to be able to shed the personality thrust on you by other people.

9

The Waif

I'll consider one particular Mask in more detail. This is 'the Waif' and it was made almost as a joke. I had smeared plasticine over a wig stand to serve as a base for further modelling. Then I stuck on three bits of plasticine, two circles and a lump, so that it had a nose and eyes. The result looked very 'alive'. I decided that this 'joke' was worth making into a Mask---a decision which the people around me objected to, so I knew there must be something rather disturbing about this particular face. When the layers of paper were dry I painted it bluish grey, with a white nose and white protruding eyes.

My wife Ingrid tried out the Mask and created a 'lost child' character, very nervous and wondering. Everyone became very fond of it. We turned it on in a garden once and it said everything seemed to be 'burning'. It seemed to see the world in a visionary manner. Ingrid and I both kept notes on it. Here are some of mine.

'When first created it looked at everything as if amazed. It made "cor!" and "ooooooooorh" noises. It covers Ingrid's top lip, which makes Ingrid's mouth form a strange shape, as if her own top lip were fixed to the Mask.

'I gave the Waif an ice cream on a stick. She tried to eat the paper. I took the paper off and showed her how to hold it. She held it by the chocolate coating. I explained again and she held the stick. She didn't wipe or lick the chocolate from her hand, she didn't seem to know there was a sticky mess on it.

'The Waif has a strong rapport with me, so I play scenes with her. I [am sweeping when she enters the acting area. She asks what I am doing. I say "sweeping", and offer her the broom. She takes the broom and holds it as if it was a baby. She hugs it as if it were alive, and nothing to do with sweeping. When she leaves she takes it with her and says "sweep" as if that were the broom's name.]

'I have used the Waif to civilise the violent Mask. This is an incredibly violent old man who picks up sticks and threatens to hit people. The Waif seems to be about four years old, so I set up a scene in which she was to arrive as his granddaughter. Everything the Waif touches she treats as someone else's, so I told the 'grandfather' that he was to tell her not to touch anything, and then leave. There was a teddy bear on the table. The Waif entered nervously holding a little suitcase, and was fascinated by the teddy bear. Granddad was gruff with her, and left. She picked up the teddy bear, and Granddad came back enraged and hit her (not hard). The Waif was appalled. Since this time the two Masks have almost become inseparable, and Granddad is now very protective, and interacts well with other Masks.'

Here are some notes on the Waif by Ingrid:

'I get very high on Mask work---it's like stepping out of my skin and experiencing something much more fluid and dynamic---sometimes when the Mask is turned on there is a part of me sitting in a distant corner of my mind that watches and notices changed body sensations, emotions, etc. But it's very passive, this watcher---does nothing that criticises or interferes---and sometimes it's not there at all. Then it's like the "I" blanks out and "something else" steps in and experiences. When Ingrid switches back she can't always remember what that something else did or experienced. But while I am the Mask I experience it, or rather the Mask experiences itself like I do myself . . . only the way the Mask experiences itself is more intense. Things are more alive. The universe becomes magical---the body full of sensations. I suppose this is where the "high" comes from . . .

'It's like you get the freedom to explore all the personalities that any human being may develop into---all the shapes and feelings that could have been Ingrid but aren't. Some Masks don't trigger any response . . . maybe these are spirits outside Ingrid's repertoire, that is any one person may have a limited number of possibilities when he develops his personality. Most of the time it's like becoming a child again, but some Masks feel very adult even though their knowledge is limited. With the Waif I feel a distinct maturing process . . . she now feels like a thirteen-to-fourteen-year-old; at first she felt six or seven years old.'

[Ingrid found that the Mask work helped her development as an improviser. At first, she says, she was 'extremely cautious and afraid of appearing in front of the class, and I couldn't bear being out in situations that made me appear vulnerable. The Waif had none of these qualities. She wasn't afraid to ]feel the emotions that came. She didn't really care about or notice the audience; also she is much freer in her relations with other Masks than Ingrid is with other people. I suppose for these reasons it was very nice for me to slip into this other creature and experience things I normally avoided or hadn't experienced since childhood. It was a tremendous release---like a marvellous kind of therapy, because the feeling of release would still be with me after I'd taken off the Mask. However, I could still never have done all those things without the Mask on.'

If we wanted to be analytical we could say that the flatness of the Mask, and its high forehead, are likely to trigger parental feelings. The eyes are very wide apart as if looking into the distance, and helping to give it its wondering look. Where the bottom of the Mask covers the wearer's top lip, a faint orange lip is painted on to the Mask. Everyone who has created a 'Waif' character with the Mask has lined their lip up with the Mask's, and then held it frozen. I wrote my play The Last Bird for this Mask, and the Danish actress Karen-lis Ahrenkiel played the role in the Aarhus production. It was only when she froze her top lip in this way that she suddenly found the character. The eyes of the Mask aren't level, which gives a lopsided feeling, and is probably the cause of the characteristic twisting movements that the Waif always has.

10

Executioners, 'Noses' and 'Men'

Another type of character Mask is the Executioner. This is a figure I resurrected from my childhood for a children's play, The Defeat of Giant Big-Nose. The actors wear dark clothes and soft black leather helmets which mould to the head and expose only the mouth and chin. Black tapes are sewn on so that they can be tied--- which they never are, but the tapes help the brutal feeling and draw attention to the chin. Each actor cuts his own eye-holes, making them as small as possible. Only a glint of an eye is occasionally visible. If necessary pinpricks can be made around the hole, but the constriction of vision helps the actor to feel 'different'.

To work this Mask you face another Executioner, and hold a [grimace that shows both sets of teeth. You must never entirely lose his grimace. With it you can speak 'in character'---the voice has a threatening roughness---and it releases very brutal feelings in the body. You feel aggressive, powerful and wide. If you expose both sets of teeth you're bound to sense yourself differently. Try it now: grimace and look round the room, move about and try and sense the differences. Some people who find it impossible to work the half masks break through after working Executioner Masks. Women never look 'right' as Executioners, but the grimace also releases strong feelings in them.]

'Noses' may be a 'way in' for some students. You need a long, pointed red nose held on by elastic, and a fluffy wig or soft hat. You then climb into a large sack or wrap a sheet round you---white seems to be preferred---and make yourself into a sort of tube that takes little steps and skips about. You place all your attention on the nose and hold it there, and then you face another 'Nose' and you both jabber in high-pitched gibberish, holding wide grins. 'Noses' are maniacally happy, move very quickly, and never do what they are told. They can be controlled by telling them to do the opposite of what you want them to do. They prefer to work in pairs, often turning each other on again by 'mirroring' each other for a moment. Very soon the high-pitched gibberish begins to throw up words, but they always jabber a lot. When they're really turned on they're amazing. The red noses seem to be pulling them around.

Executioners and 'Noses' are likely to be hindered if they use mirrors. It's much better, in the early stages, if they just use each other. Later on, mirrors can be useful.

'Men' are plastic commercial masks which are just round eyes, round noses and little moustaches---you see through the pupils of the 'eyes'. The actors wear overalls and soft hats. They use each other as mirrors and raise their hats to each other---straight up and down. They grin all the time, keep their elbows in to their sides as much as possible, and take short steps. They speak in gibberish, which soon gives way to language. With luck very real characters will suddenly emerge, and the actors will suddenly 'know' what to do, instead of 'deciding'.

11

Pre-Mask Exercises

Most of my 'acting theory' comes from my study of the Mask, and there are many exercises that can be used as pre-Mask exercises. Here are some of them.

[Face Masks]

Face Masks probably go back at least to Copeau. I sit four actors on a bench, show them a mirror and say 'Make a face, nothing like your face, hold it, don't lose the expression.' The audience laugh at the transformation, but the actors don't feel that 'they' are being laughed at. 'Get up,' I say, 'shake hands with each other, say something.' Most actors find that their bodies move in a quite different way, but some hold on to themselves and 'insert a barrier' in the neck, so that the changes in the face can't effect the posture of the body. It's easy to draw gentle attention to his, and to encourage the actors to let their bodies 'do what they want to do'. The actors then play scenes while holding faces that express some sort of emotion. The greater the emotion expressed on the face the greater the change in behaviour and the easier it is to improvise. I use the Face Mask as a rehearsal technique. Actors pick faces at random and then play the text. They often get insights into the nature of the scene in this way, and they lose their fear of overacting, which makes many actors appear inhibited.

If all the actors hold an identical face, then they accept each other's ideas more readily.

Some students 'can't' make a face. They'll change expression just a little, desperately clinging on to their self-image. You can overcome this by asking them to make an emotional sound, and then hold the face that accompanies it. If you snarl, the face automatically becomes savage.

It's a simple step from the Face Mask to Executioner Masks or 'Noses' even for very upright people.

Placing the Mind

The placing of the personality in a particular part of the body is cultural. Most Europeans place themselves in the head, because they have been taught that they are the brain. In reality of course the brain can't feel the concave of the skull, and if we believed with Lucretius that the brain was an organ for cooling the blood, we would place ourselves somewhere else. The Greeks and Romans were in the chest, the Japanese a hand's breadth below the navel, Witla Indians in the whole body, and even outside it. We only imagine ourselves as 'somewhere'.

Meditation teachers in the East have asked their students to practise placing the mind in different parts of the body, or in the Universe, as a [means of inducing trance. The author of ]The Cloud of Unknowing writes 'Where do I want you to be? Nowhere!'^[1 0]^ Michael Chekhov, a distinguished acting teacher (and friend of Vakhtangov) suggested that students should practise moving the mind around as an aid to character work. He suggested that they should invent 'imaginary bodies' and operate them from 'imaginary centres'. He writes:

'You are going to imagine that in the same space you occupy with your own, real body there exists another body---the imaginary body of your character . . . you clothe yourself, as it were, with this body; you put it on like a garment. What will be the result of this "masquerade"? After a while (or perhaps in a flash!) you will begin to feel and think of yourself as another person . . .

'Your whole being, psychologically and physically, will be changed--- I would not hesitate to say even possessed---by the character . . . your reasoning mind, however skilful it may be, is apt to leave you cold and passive, whereas the imaginary body has the power to appeal directly to your will and feelings.' (To the Actor, Harper and Row, 1953.)

I suggest that you try out Chekov's suggestion. The effects are very strong, and students are amazed at the feelings created in them. Chekov says:

'So long as the centre remains in the middle of your chest (pretend it's a few inches deep), you will feel that you are still yourself and in full command, only more energetically and harmoniously so, with your body approaching an "ideal type". But as soon as you try to shift the centre to some other place within or outside your body, you will feel that your whole psychological and physical attitude will change, just as it changes when you step into an imaginary body. You will notice that the centre is able to draw and concentrate your whole being into one spot from which your activity emanates and radiates.

'Try a few experiments for a while. Put a soft, warm, not too small centre in the region of your abdomen and you may experience a psychology that is self-satisfied, earthy, a bit heavy and even humorous. Place a tiny, hard centre on the tip of your nose and you will become curious, inquisitive, prying and even meddlesome. Move the centre to one of your eyes and notice how quickly it seems that you have become sly, cunning and perhaps hypocritical. Imagine a big, heavy, dull and sloppy centre placed outside the seat of your pants and you have a cowardly, not too honest, droll character. A centre located a few feet outside your eyes or forehead may invoke the sensation of a sharp, penetrating and even a sagacious mind. A warm, [hot and even fiery centre situated without your heart may awaken in you heroic, loving and courageous feelings.]

'You can also imagine a movable centre. Let it sway slowly before your forehead and circle your head from time to time, and you will sense the psychology of a bewildered person; or let it circle irregularly around your whole body, in varying tempos, now going up and now sinking down, and the effect will no doubt be one of intoxication.'

I find it sad that Chekov's work is not continued by more teachers. Few actors have really tried it out. In rehearsal it's sometimes been perfect for helping an actor to find a 'character'. And its relation to Mask work is obvious.

Costume

I ask the actors to dress up as characters. Most put on too many clothes. It's quite normal for a student to wear three hats at once, believing himself 'original'. I encourage them to take few articles.

A girl puts on a pink tutu. She wears a bus conductor's hat, the peak low over her eyes, and one shoe. As soon as she moves she assumes an aggressive posture, like an angry child. She stops instantly and starts to remove the costume. I say, 'You felt something!' She replies, 'It was too childish.' I tell her to stop criticising, and to keep any costume that makes her feel different. She improvises a scene with the costume on and she's very confident, most unlike her usual timid self.

Someone wears a boiler suit stuffed with balloons to make him 'huge'. He still looks 'himself'. I say, 'Move and imagine that the costume is your body surface', and suddenly he becomes a 'fat man'.

Pretending that the costume is the actual body surface has a powerful transforming effect on most people. We all of us have a 'body image' which may not be at all the same as our actual body. Some people imagine themselves as a blob with bits sticking out, and others have a finely articulated body image. Sometimes a person who has slimmed will still have, visibly, a 'fat' body image.

Once students have found transforming costumes I set them to play scenes in gibberish, and later in speech.

Animals

If the class act as animals, playing together or clawing at each other, or 'mating', very regressed states occur. Playing different animals develops movement and voice skills, but it may also unlock [other personalities. I gradually turn the animals into 'people'. I got this idea from Vernon Hickling, one of my first teaching colleagues in Battersea, but the idea is ancient.]

Toddlers

I read that small children don't punch each other, but 'pat', and that the child with the hand nearest the head loses the confrontations. I taught this at first as a status exercise. But sometimes the result was that the whole class were romping about like big children.

Being Handled

Trance states are likely whenever you abandon control of the musculature. Many people can get an incredible 'high' from being moved about while they remain relaxed. Pass them round a circle, lift them, and (especially) roll them about on a soft surface. For some people it's very liberating, but the movers have to be skilled.

12

Text

Scholars have advanced many reasons for the use of Masks by the players of the Commedia dell' Arte, but they miss the obvious one---that Masks improvise for hours, in an effortless way. It's difficult to 'act' a Commedia scenario at any high level of achievement. Masks take to it like ducks to water.

Masks don't fit so well into 'normal' theatre, unless the director understands their problems. The technique of 'blocking' the moves has to be abandoned, since at first the Masks move where they want to, and it's no use getting the designer to work out which Masks are to represent which characters.

The biggest problem is that the Masks refuse to repeat scenes. Even when you tell them they are going to take part in a play, they insist on being spontaneous. If you force them to act in plays, then they switch off, and you are left with the actors pretending to be Masks.

I now rehearse the Masks away from the text, letting them play scenes together, and trying to find a Mask that will more or less fit the dialogue. At the same time I rehearse the actor on the text, but I don't set the moves, and I'm mainly concerned that he should understand it, and learn it.

When I decide it's time to put the Masks on to the text, I choose a scene, and I tell the Masks they're going to act in a play. I stand by the [mirror and feed the first line to the Mask as it sees its reflection. It then turns away from the mirror, says its line, and maybe proceeds to the next line. I keep showing it the mirror as I feed it lines, and after about half a page we stop and rest. For the actor it will probably have been an amazing experience. Everything suddenly becomes 'real' and the Mask has quite different reactions from those he'd intended.]

When they come to repeat the scene it's very important to say, 'Tell yourself that this has never happened to you before.' Everything is then OK. Until I learned this last trick the whole business of getting fully possessed Masks to function on text seemed insoluble.

With this technique you can use Masks almost like actors. It's a little different, because of course the Masks only know what they have 'learned' or managed to 'transfer' from the skills of the wearer. If a stranger enters the rehearsal room all work will stop while the Masks turn to look at him. If a staircase is suddenly introduced the Masks may stop in amazement and you realise that they've never met the concept of another level before. My play The Last Bird was written for a mixture of Masks and people. In one rehearsal of the Copenhagen production, the Mask actors suddenly removed the Masks and rolled on the floor in hysterical laughter. The script said the Masks were to make bird noises, and their lips had absolutely refused to 'whistle'. I had to give a 'bird noise' lesson; even so, they never became very good at it.

If you are not happy with the Masks---that is if they seem miscast--- you can change everything by running the scene with other Masks. Everything will now alter, and the 'truths' of the scene will be different. In the case of The Last Bird, which was written for two Masks already created (Grandfather and the Waif), the original Grandfather mask never worked. Finally we used a commercial plastic 'old man' mask.

Masks aren't 'pretending', they actually undergo the experiences. I remember an actress whom I asked to approach a man lying in a 'wood' to ask him the way. The class were impressed and said her performance was very truthful. Then I asked her to repeat the exercise as a Mask, and everything was transformed. The Mask was afraid of being in the 'wood'. It thought the man must be dead and was terrified to go near him.

In The Last Bird, Death was to reap the Grandfather. It was a 'good' scene, and the actors were working well. But when we tried the scene with the Mask, Grandfather stopped doing anything one could recognise as 'acting' and stared transfixed at the point of the scythe. It was just cardboard with aluminium foil covering it, but suddenly it seemed the most terrible instrument in the universe. Dick Kajsør, who [was playing Death, backed off. 'I can't kill him,' he said, very upset, as we all were. It took about an hour before we could try the scene again.]

When I directed the second production of the play (at Aarhus) everything was fine until we added the Masks. Then the actors were appalled. It seemed impossible that they were to present this play night after night when it disturbed them so much. The play is about a colonial war, and what had been a game became a monstrous reality. Tragedy is horrible when you really experience it. Olivier has been reported as saying he doesn't want to do any more of the great tragic roles because it's too painful---he'd rather play comedy.

In the first production Birthe Neumann 'found' the Waif almost immediately. In the Aarhus production Karen-lis Ahrenkiel could turn the Waif on, but the thing wouldn't speak. It seemed desperately unhappy, and thrashed its arms around and howled, and didn't want anything to do with the text. It was eerie. It was as if it had a determination not to do the play because it knew the terrible things that were to happen to it---Grandfather dies, the Waif is raped by the Executioners, the wings are sawn off the Angel, Jesus sinks when he tries to walk on the water, and so on. When we had finally coaxed and lured the Waif into performing the part (and at one time I thought I'd have to cast someone else), it was a very emotional time. Tears and mucus would pour out of the nose holes. Even in performance you would hear it howling as it groped off stage during the blackouts. Directed with actors, the play would have lost some of this raw emotion. With Masks it seemed almost cruel to show it to an audience who might be expecting museum theatre.

One of the strangest paradoxes about the Mask is that the actor who is magnificent wearing it may be colourless and unconvincing when he isn't. This is something obvious to everyone, including the actor himself. In the Mask events really happen. The wearers experience everything with great vividness. Without the Mask they perpetually judge themselves. In time the Mask abilities spill over into the acting, but it's a very gradual process.

My methods make it relatively easy to put character Masks into plays, but you won't see good Mask work in the theatre very often. Usually the Masks arrive with the costumes---just in time for the dress rehearsal, and the actor is expected to wear the Mask designed for him irrespective of whether it turns him on or not. In my Mask productions I begin rehearsing with fifty of sixty Masks and let the actors discover which ones fit the roles in the play. My designers work with the actors and assemble the costumes to the Mask's tastes. I've even taken the [Masks out shopping to choose their costumes in department stores--- which creates some odd scenes. I don't cast an actor to play a Masked role until I know he has the ability to become 'possessed'. If necessary I rewrite scenes to fit in with the Mask's requirements. The depth of possession during performance depends on the freedom with which mirrors are used. In my productions there are usually mirrors on stage, and people standing by to present a mirror if a Mask snaps its fingers. Some Masks have little mirrors on their person. The style of the production has to allow for these eccentricities. When the Mask is used, theatre has to be theatrical, not just a 'slice of life'.]

Once the Masks have learned their roles, and have mastered the 'This-is-for-the-first-time' trick, then they'll do more or less the same thing each performance. It's silly to preset exactly how they should move, but similar patterns will always appear. If a moth flies in, maybe they'll be momentarily distracted and start chasing it, or snapping at it as it flies past, but the actors then assert their control, call in a mirror, and set the Mask back on its track again.

13

Tragic Masks

George Devine gave a second Mask class to the writers' group, this time showing us the full, or 'Tragic' Mask. These Masks cover the whole face and make the wearer feel safe (if he doesn't feel claustrophobic) because there's no way his expression can betray him. He can't look confused, or embarrassed, or scared, so he isn't. Some students find a physical release for the first time when they perform with their face covered, and it's usual to improvise with more emotion. Thespis was said to have invented tragedy in this way, using canvas clothes to cover the actors' faces. I once asked Michael Saint-Denis how Copeau, his uncle, came to be interested in Mask work.^[1 1]^ He said one of Copeau's students had been wooden and totally lacking in absorption; all she worried about was whether the audience was admiring her. In desperation Copeau made her repeat the scene with a handkerchief in front of her face, and she relaxed, became expressive, and was very moving.

If one of the greatest half Masks of the cinema is Chaplin, then one of the greatest full Masks is Garbo. Critics raved about her face: '. . . Her face, early called the face of the century, had an extraordinary plasticity, a mirrorlike quality; people could see in it their own conflicts and desires.' (Norman Zierold, Garbo, W. H. Allen, London 1970.) [People who worked with her noticed that her face didn't change. Robert Taylor said: 'The muscles in her face would not move, and yet her eyes would express exactly what she needed.' Clarence Brown said: 'I have seen her change from love to hate and never alter her facial expression. I would be somewhat unhappy and take the scene again. The expression still would not change. Still unhappy, I would go ahead and say "Print it." And when I looked at the print, there it was. The eyes told it all. Her face wouldn't change but on the screen would be that transition from love to hate.' (Kevin Brownlow, ]The Parade's Gone By, Sphere, 1973.)

Garbo had a stand-in who was identical to her, and who was said to have 'everything that Garbo has except whatever it is Garbo has'. What Garbo had was a body that transmitted and received. It was her spine that should have been raved about: every vertebra alive and separated so that feelings flowed in and out from the center. She responded spontaneously with emotion and warmth, and what she felt, the audience felt, yet the information transmitted by the body was perceived as emanating from the face. You can watch a marvellous actor from the back of a big theatre, his face just a microdot on the retina, and have the illusion you've seen every tiny expression. Such an actor can make a wooden Mask smile, its carved lips tremble, its painted brows narrow.

The reason usually given for the changes of expression that occur in Mask work is that the Masks are asymetrical, and that as they move about we see different angels. This may be true in a few cases, but if you hold a Mask and move it about it won't smile knowingly, or seem about to weep, or become filled with terror. It's only when a Mask is being worn by a skilled performer that the expression changes. If you buy a magazine with full-sized head and shoulders on the cover and hold it in front of your face, very few Mask effects occur. If you tear the cover off and strap it on your face the magic still won't work. Only when you cut the neck and shoulders away, so that the angle between this mask and the wearer's body can change with every head movement, does it become a 'face'. We 'read' the body, and especially the head--neck relationship, but we experience ourselves as reading the Mask. If you look at the head--neck relationship in great paintings you'll see amazing distortions which increase the emotional effect. The angle between head and neck, and neck and body is crucial to us. There are reports of crowds panicking with horror when they witness public executions; they don't panic when the head is severed, but they do when the executioner holds it up and turns it to face the crowd.

[To some extent we can say that the half, or comic, Masks are low status, and the full Tragic Masks are high status. If there are two different types of Mask experience, then we should expect to find the same phenomenon in possession cults---and we do. Jane Belo writes:]

'When the manifestations are abandoned and violent, they are related to the exhibitions of riotous behaviour which break out at cremations and in great crowds, when the habitual decorum is cast aside. Other individuals who go into trance may seek a more quiescent change, sitting immobile during a ritual sequence until the spirit of the god "comes into" them, when they behave as an altered personality, demanding and imperious.' (Trance in Bali.)

The first exercise George set involved an actor sitting in a chair, putting on a full Mask with head lowered, and then raising the head as if looking into the distance. It was interesting to see how much more we did than was asked of us, either because we felt the need to 'act', i.e. to add something extra, or because we weren't used to doing anything so simple; hands fumbled unnecessarily, the head wasn't brought up smoothly, and it trembled. With the face covered every movement of the body was emphasised.

When a full Mask is absolutely still the spectator stares at the face like a person entranced. The art of the full Mask lies in moving the Mask in such a way that the attention is never distracted away from the face, by the body. This implies a method of acting, a style, that all great tragedians master, whether they're wearing a Mask or not---Duse for example, almost certainly Rachel. When the student first wears a full Mask his body betrays him, his posture isn't good enough, he's hesitant, his 'space' is restricted. When the Mask is still, or when it moves smoothly and decisively, or in slow motion, then the room seems to fill with power. Invisible ice forms on the walls. When the Mask does anything trivial, or moves in a trivial way, the power gutters out.

Many students believe that the full Mask can only do a limited number of things without turning off, but this is because of the limitations in the performer's technique. A great Mask actor can do anything, and still keep the Mask expressive and 'alive'. In Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, when the peasants lose heart and start to scatter, the leader of the Samurai---the great actor---runs to block their retreat. Running at full speed with drawn sword, his technique is still that of the full Mask.

George said that learning the full Mask was as difficult as learning to [sing; that while a half Mask could spring into existence at the first moment, the full Mask required a long training. The posture had to be right, and the body had to be fully expressive.]

I don't think George ever wrote about his Mask work, and I'm embarrassed to be explaining his ideas for him, but I have found an account by Jean Dorcy of Mask work at Copeau's school (Ecole de Vieux-Colombier) in 1922 (The Mime, Robert Speller, New York, 1961). He writes:

'What happens to the actor who puts on a mask? He is cut off from the outside world. The night he deliberately enters allows him first to reject everything that hampered him. Then, by an effort of concentration, to reach a void, a state of un-being. From this moment forwards, he will be able to come back to life and to behave in a new and truly dramatic way.'

The Masks that Dorcey used were 'neutral'---'mime' Masks. I don't know at what point the Tragic Mask was introduced, but the technique was clearly based on the neutral Mask work. Here's Dorcy explaining how he 'shoed' the Mask, i.e. put it on.

'Here are the rites I followed . . .

'A. Well seated in the middle of the chair, not leaning against the back of the seat. Legs spaced to ensure perfect balance. Feet flat on the ground.

'B. Stretch the right arm horizontally forward, shoulder high; it holds the mask, hanging by its elastic. The left hand, also stretched out, helps to shoe the mask, thumb holding the chin, index and second finger seizing the opening of the mouth.

'C. Simultaneously, inhale, close the eyes and shoe the mask.

'In all this only the arms and hands are active. They carry out the small movements necessary to fasten the mask on the face, arrange the hair, verify the proper adjustment of the elastic so that the mask will cling well and hold without slackness.

'D. Simultaneously, breathe and place forearms and hands on the thighs. The arms, as well as the elbows, touch the torso, fingers not quite reaching the knees.

'E. Open the eyes, inhale then, simultaneously, close the eyes, exhale and bend the head forward. While bending the head, the back becomes slightly rounded. In this phase, arms, hands, torso, and head are completely relaxed.

'F. It is here in this position that the clearing of the mind occurs. Repeat mentally or utter, if this helps, during the necessary time (2, 5, 10, 25 seconds): "I am not thinking of anything, I am not thinking of anything. . ."

[' If, through nervousness, or because the heart was beating too strongly, the "I am not thinking anything" was ineffective, concentrate on the blackish, grey, steel, saffron, blue, or other shade found inside the eye, and extend it indefinitely in thought: almost always, this shade blots out conscious thought.]

'G. Simultaneously, inhale and sit upright, then exhale and open your eyes.

'Now the mask actor, sufficiently recollected, can be inhabited by characters, objects, thoughts; he is ready to perform dramatically.

'This was my method. One of us (Yvonne Galli) achieved this clearing of the mind, this preliminary state better and more rapidly. Had she another Sesame? I have never asked for her technique.

'When the actor is not seated but standing, nothing changes; however (see 'E'), the back should not be rounded, for the weight of the head would draw the torso forward.

'Al these phases are for beginners. Later the technique will be altered . . .'

Closing your eyes and 'looking' into the darkness of the eyelids is a common trace-inducing technique. I used it when I wanted to study my hypnagogic imagery. Notice that Dorcy leaves his body alone except for those parts which he must move in order to put the Mask on.

George set simple scenarios for his actors, and insisted that they find a simple, direct way of moving, and that the Mask should be presented to the audience. It wasn't good to turn away or to hold the Mask at too sharp an angle. Once the technical aspects of a scene had been mastered, he asked the actor to invent a tragic background for it. A man lifting his head to look at the far horizon might imagine himself looking over a battlefield of corpses, or the sea that had drowned his sons. George didn't invent the 'given circumstances' and he didn't ask what they were. It was a private matter. If the actor was brave enough then he would choose something that was profoundly upsetting for him. If so then the Mask would transmit his grief to the audience, and would seem to shine with magical intensity.

I've sometimes checked up on the lighting after a scene, because I couldn't believe that a spotlight wasn't focused exactly where the Mask was standing, or a chance beam of sunlight wasn't leaking through the blinds. This was the quality that George looked for in the full-Mask work, a sort of ethereal radiance---actually I think a 'Gestalt' separation of figure from ground. An actor would remove a Mask, very shaken, and George would say 'Ah! You felt something', with [approval. Such Masks he referred to as 'inhabited'---possessed by the tragic spirit.]

He set exercises involving more than one actor, but the technique was always the same. Here are five exercises that he gave out on duplicated sheets to a class at the Studio.

A. A statue---a mourner comes with flowers---on leaving kisses the statues hand---it comes to life---gets down from its pedestal---crushes the mourner as if still of stone.

B. Two very old people dream of themselves as young---he as a bird, she as a cat---they play---the cat finally kills the bird.

C. Two young people in love---in the sunshine---a storm rises---she runs away in fright---he makes to go but she returns with a very old face on her still young body.

D. A guilty person is sleepwalking---is visited by a ghost of his or her victim---the ghost pursues, sending the victim mad.

E. A young girl takes poison to avoid a mismarriage---she dies on her bed---her mother or nurse comes in and finds her dead.

George's Masks were stylised faces with an air of sadness about them. They were beautiful objects to look at and handle. I used them for several years myself until the Theatre asked for them back. Eventually someone stole them.

I saw a film called David some years ago. It was made in 1951, and was a Welsh contribution to the Festival of Britain---a documentary about the life of a miner, a man called Griffiths, who had always longed for education, and who had been injured in the mine and was now working as a school caretaker. The part was played by the man himself, and at a point when it seemed as if the dreams of the father are about to be achieved by the student son, a telegram arrives. We see the caretaker scrubbing out the school hall; about one-third of it is done. The telegraph boy crosses the hall, gives him the telegraph and waits for an answer. The caretaker reads the telegram, which tells him of the death of his son; he expresses nothing, or rather does nothing in order to express anything. He's changed, but it's impossible to say how the change has been achieved. Probably his timing alters. The boy leaves, and the caretaker returns to his job of scrubbing the other two-thirds of the hall.

If an actor had played the scene he would almost certainly have tried to display his grief. The caretaker, acting out his own story, underwent the experience again, and it's not anything I'll ever forget. It's difficult to be sure of anything that one saw only once, many years ago, but my memory is that it was like a tragic Mask exercise, and I use it as that. A [Mask starts some action, the messenger interrupts. The Mask reads the message and waves the messenger away, and then continues the action. What the message says is for the actor to decide, but it has to be something shattering to him.]

Something happens to people in moments of great seriousness. When Annigoni was painting the Queen she told him that usually she feels like an ordinary woman, but when she wears the robes of state she 'becomes the Queen'. We all know how a wreath should be placed on a memorial during a great ceremony: we may have to be told where to stand, and when to move forward, but the way we move and hold our bodies is instinctive. We know we mustn't do anything trivial or repetitive. Our movements will be as simple as possible. Our bodies will be straight. We won't hurry. There will be a smoothness about us. The people you see standing around after mine disasters, or similar tragedies, have a stillness and simplicity of movement. They rise in status. They are straighter, they don't make little nervous movements---not when the shock is on them---and I would guess that they hold eye contacts for longer than normal.

It is this high-status seriousness which is typical of the full Mask. I teach people to be still---if they can!---and I explain the type of movements that diminish the power of the Mask, but I also have to awaken feelings of grieving and seriousness. In moments of awe, or of grief, something takes over the body and tells it what to do, how to behave. The personality stops doing all the trivial things that help to maintain 'normal consciousness'. Jean Dorcey's technique is clearly intended to produce this sort of serious trance state; so was Michel Saint-Denis's and so was George's. A different kind of spirit is involved from that which inhabits the half Mask.

I now have a number of full Masks which I occasionally use, but at the moment I prefer 'photo' Masks. These are photographs of faces that I cut out of magazines, and stick on to plastic backing so that the sweat doesn't ruin them. In some ways these are the most amazing Masks I've ever seen, and they're easy to make so you could experiment yourself. Modern photography is of such high quality that you can hardly believe that it's not a face you're watching. Also each Mask has it's own built-in lighting. People gasp when they see them, and get frightened. Sometimes I've had to stop a class because we've all felt sick. This happens if you work for a long time, say an hour, during which the tensions can become unbearable.

The students wearing the Masks feel completely safe, since they are light, and don't even make the face feel confined. The gasps from the [onlookers add to the wearer's pleasure. Normally we keep altering our faces to reassure other people. The effect is subliminal, but when it's missing we can't understand the anxiety created in us. We continually reassure people by making unnecessary movements, we twitch, we 'get comfortable', we move the head about, and so on. When all such reassurances are removed we experience the Mask as supernatural.]

I start the actors against the wall which they lean on for support. This means that they don't wobble, or shake. It's amazing how few people can stand really still; yet nothing is more powerful than absolute stillness on stage. The first Masks I let them try won't have eye-holes. Being blind makes the actor feel even safer, on the 'head-in-the-sand' principle. I say things like 'Slide along the wall until you find the actor playing the scene with you. Freeze. In your own time, make a gesture and hold it. Slide down the wall. Huddle together and be afraid of us. Always keep the Mask held like a shield between your face and us. Laugh at us. Stand up. Get angry. Come towards us. Point at someone who has mistreated you . . .' and so on.

As the Masks approach the class its normal to see people scrambling out of their chairs to get away. They laugh nervously, but they move. If I want to increase the power then I set a scene in which the actors work out some fantasy that upsets them. Then they look at the Mask, not thinking about it, but remembering the image. If they perform with the image of the Mask in the forefront of their minds, then suddenly the Mask blazes with power. In the old days actors in the Noh Theatre might look at the Mask for an hour.

When actors insist on 'thinking' about the Mask, I tell them to 'attend' to it instead. I say, 'Imagine you're in a great forest and you hear a sound you can't identify quite close to you. Is it a bear? Is it dangerous? The mind goes empty as you stay motionless waiting for the sound to be repeated. This mindless listening is like attending to a Mask.' This usually works. If you attend to a Mask you'll see it start to change--- probably because your eyes are getting tired. Don't stop these changes. The edges crawl about, it may suddenly seem like a real face in your hands. Fine, don't lose the sensation, put the Mask on gently and hold the image in your mind. If you lose it, take the Mask off.

A student at RADA worked out an elegant way of using the photo Mask. He had the actors stand in a line facing the audience, and act out a play in which a landlord raped a woman who wouldn't pay the rent. Each Mask acted in its 'own space'. One Mask knocked at a 'door' and another Mask answered a second 'door'. We saw two mimed 'doors', but we put them together in the brain. The rape was weird: the landlord [tore at the air in front of him, while the girl Mask two places away from him defended herself from the imaginary attack. As he sank to his knees, she sank back, so that the rape was enacted by each person separately. Another class heard about this scene and wanted to try it. Their play went wrong, the woman didn't react at all. Then we saw her Mask was disintegrating. It only had a cardboard backing and her tears were dissolving it.]

Four more actors tried the scene, but they chose a child Mask for the woman, and then the actress knelt down, reducing her height, so they decided to make it the rape of a child. The four characters were the landlord, child, father and social worker. They went through the scene stage by stage in hideous detail, the landlord finding that Mum and Dad were out, getting himself admitted, and so on. The actors couldn't see each other, and the timing was often wrong, so that we were having to correct the lack of synchronisation as well as the lack of space: the landlord was making feeble copulatory movements while the child was still being forced to the ground. When the landlord panicked he ran on the spot, and then froze. When the father found his daughter, the landlord's still figure was unbearable, even though he was no longer 'in the scene'. My impression is that everyone was weeping, but we couldn't really get the emotion out of us. We couldn't really speak, or work. It was as if we had seen the actual event.

The actors could never have gone so 'deep' and been so serious if it wasn't for the protection and anonymity of the Masks. Everyone looked white. We agreed to end the class; there really wasn't any way to continue.

You'll understand that these are students I knew very well. At first no one will choose really terrible scenes, because secretly they don't want to get upset---there's a point beyond which they aren't prepared to suffer. As the group becomes more trusting and affectionate, they will eventually follow wherever the Tragic Masks lead them.

14

Dangers

Many people express alarm about the 'dangers of Mask work'. I think this is an expression of the general hostility to trance and is unfounded. The 'magical' thinking that underlies the fear can be shown by the fact that the presence of a doctor is thought to make things OK. One of my first students was a brain surgeon, and this made everyone very happy, although he knew no more about [Mask work than anyone else did.]

People seem to be afraid of three things: (1) that the students will be violent; (2) that the students will go 'mad'; (3) that the students will refuse to remove the Mask when instructed (a combination of the first two).

It's true that there are many reports of violent and frightening 'possessions'. Steward Wavell describes a ceremony in which Malayan men were riding hobby-horses and becoming possessed by the spirits of horses.

'One centaur had leapt towards a group of women gnashing his teeth, pawing at the ground, kicking, snapping and biting, rushing backwards and then leaping again. Men rushed forwards to drag the centaur back, but his strength was phenomenal. Three times he was grabbed and restrained but managed to break himself free. Two of the women had fainted. One had been badly bitten . . . Finally, the old pawang, pressing forefinger and thumb on the centaur's temples, gave a sharp jerk to the man's head which must have given a severe shock to his spinal cord. The man recovered, looked dazed for a while, and the dancing continued as if nothing had happened.

'The headman took the incident as a matter of course. Such outbursts sometimes occurred, he said. It was the bitten girl's fault: she should not have been wearing a flower in her hair. A flower on a girl was bound to excite any hantu (horse-god).' (Wavell, Butt and Epton, Trances, Dutton, 1966.)

Jane Belo describes 'violence' occurring during Balinese ceremonies. A man entered trance while dressed in a 'pig' costume of sugar-cane fibre; while incarnating a pig-god he was insulted by someone who cried out 'To the market!' The 'pig' attacked, and scattered the crowd.

'Then the pig turned and leaped down again on to the ground, from a height of at least five feet, landed on all fours with as much ease as if he'd been all his life a four-footed creature.

'Still angry, he attacked the overturned stone trough, butting it and pushing it along the ground with his head. Men, seeing that he was getting out of control, hurried to restrain him. Others brought great jars of water which they poured in the centre of the court, making a wet and muddy place, sloshy as a pigsty . . . By this time most of the fibre covering had come off him, only the head and snout remaining. Someone got close enough to him to tear this off, as they called out, "Wallow, wallow!"'

The 'pig' went into the mud and rolled about in ecstasy, and then a crowd of men grabbed him, 'precipitating a fit of powerful con [vulsions'. They poured water over him, and as he grew quiet they massaged him. Then they carried him to the 'sleeping platform' and he 'woke up'.]

Another example of a 'pig-god' going out of control also resulted from an insult. Jane Belo writes:

'He [the pig\ was rubbing himself along the wall of a building on which dozens of people were standing. Suddenly he fell over and began to cry dreadfully, beating the ground with his legs and arms. Five or six men jumped up and tried to hold him. He was defending himself fiercely. They put him on the mat and began to massage him, but he cried and shouted and had dreadful convulsions.]

'It seemed that one of the children standing on the pavilion had spat at him . . . At last he became calmer and fell asleep for a long time. There was no feed brought for him and no mud bath, as we saw before, I suppose because of this accident. The crowd was very annoyed by the sudden end of it, and all went home.

'G.N. noted that many people had called out: "Who was that who was so very insulting? . . . It's not right for him to come out of trance yet, he hasn't had enough of playing. When he's had enough, as soon as he's caught, he'll come out of trance." '

Such scenes do not take place in Mask classes because we don't require them. Notice that in the above examples the 'pigs' remain pigs, and the 'horses' are still horses. The violence is completely in character, and is approved and expected. The rules are broken, the violence occurs, and the group agrees that it's justified. If the violence wasn't 'in character' then the performer would be removed. In the West Indies people who are really violent, that is, who don't get possessed properly, are told to see psychiatrists, just as they would be if they acted 'crazily' in any other situation. The 'violence' is part of the game.

Masks can be terrifying but the ability to inspire terror doesn't mean they're actually dangerous, not even the cannibal Masks of Vancouver Island. Here's Ruth Benedict:

'That which distinguished the Cannibal was his passion for human flesh. His dance was that of a frenzied addict enamoured of the "food" that was held before him, a prepared corpse carried on the outstretched arms of a woman. On great occasions the Cannibal ate the bodies of slaves who had been killed for the purpose.'

This 'Cannibal' used to bite chunks out of the spectators---an interesting example of audience participation: 'Count was kept of the mouthfuls of skin the Cannibal had taken from the arms of the [onlookers, and he took emetics until he had voided them. He often did not swallow them at all.' (]Patterns of Culture, Mentor 1946.)

Obviously this wasn't something the actor went into casually, but the cannibalism was planned. It's alarming to hear of people going berserk and biting chunks out of people, but such behaviour had complete approval, and there's nothing to suggest that the cannibal was out of control.

Phillip Druckner, in Indians of the Northwest Coast (American Museum Science Books, 1963), surmises that the 'corpse' that was eaten may have been faked (a bear carcass with a carved head). As to the biting of spectators he says: 'This was not a trick, although it is said that the dancer actually cut off the skin with a sharp knife concealed in his hand. The persons to whom this was done were not selected at random---it was arranged beforehand that they were to allow themselves to be bitten, and they were subsequently rewarded with special gifts.'

It would be easier to argue that it's the Masks who are in danger, not the onlookers. Ingrid once put on a Mask and a fur coat at a party and someone came up and hit her. Wild Pehrt, and Austrian 'Demon' Mask, sometimes got torn to pieces by the onlookers. (There are several stone crosses around Salzburg where Wild Pehrts are said to be buried.)

The violence that occurs is violence permitted by custom (in a way this is true of all violence). Suppose I were to introduce 'handlers' whose job was to control anyone who went berserk. Violence would then be part of the game, and permitted. Mask teachers get the kind of behaviour that they prepare for.

I was told a horrifying story (in Alberta) of a schoolteacher who got her class to make Masks. They put them on, and picked up a boy and tried to throw him out of a window: 'Only the timely arrival of a more experienced teacher prevented a tragedy.' No doubt by now the story has grown to include the mass suicide of the class after raping the teacher, but in fact nothing violent seems to have happened at all.

'Was anyone actually hurt?' I asked.

'No, thank heavens.'

'Why did they pick on the boy?'

'That's the strange thing, he was the most popular boy in the class.' 'What exactly did the teacher say to them?'

'She said that they were to do exactly what the Masks made them feel like doing---ah, and that they were to hate someone.'

'Did they get the boy out of the window?'

'Fortunately, the other teacher came in in time.'

[The real story was obviously one of an inexperienced teacher panicking. In fact they must have been a nice group of children, since they chose to 'hate' the most ]popular boy. In my schooldays I remember boys being hung out of high windows by their ankles. These boys didn't even get anyone through the window. No one was trying to murder anyone. They had just been given permission to misbehave, and that's what they were doing. My advice is that if you understand the nature of the transaction between you and the class, and if you go into the work gently, Mask work is much less dangerous than, say, gymnastics.

I did once have a Mask hold up a chair as if it was going to attack me. I walked towards it, said 'Take the Mask off', and held the chair while the actor took off the Mask. My confidence stemmed from the fact that there was no reason why the actor should attack me. He relied on my authority to be in a trance in the first place.

A teacher who is secretly frightened of the Masks will teach himself, and his students, to avoid Mask work. I know several teachers who say that they'll 'never touch Mask work again', but they won't tell me what happened! If anyone had got their arm broken, or had been rushed off to a mental hospital, then they'd tell me. What must have happened is that the teacher's status suffered. He got himself into a situation he couldn't understand or control, and it deeply disturbed and embarrassed him.

I once saw a Mask cut its hand slightly because a mirror it was tapping at suddenly smashed. That was my fault for not anticipating the danger. I saw a girl hit hard on the bottom by another girl who disliked her, and who obviously used the Mask as an excuse---similar exploitations of trance states are reported from Haiti. The only serious injury I've heard of in a drama class occurred during a 'method' improvisation (Margaretta D'Arcy broke her arm). I've never known physical or mental injury to result from a Mask class.

Masks may cause physical harm when the teacher is believed to be in control, but in fact has been distracted. The Mask may be depending on the teacher to say 'Take the Mask off.' When the instruction doesn't come, as a rule the Mask turns itself off, but it might, I suppose, make an error, and hit harder than it 'intends'. We have the paradox that Masks are safest when the teacher is absent, since the actors then operate their own controls.

As for the fear of madness, I would answer that the ability to become possessed is a sign of correct social adjustment, and that really disturbed people censor themselves out. Either they can't do it, or [they're afraid to even try. People who feel themselves at risk avoid situations where they feel likely to 'go to pieces'. Compared to marriage, appearing on a TV show, family quarrels, playing rugby, being fired from one's job or other stressful social experiences, the Mask is very gentle and makes few demands. Ordinary people can face the death of the people they love, or their house burning down, without having their sanity threatened. The fear that the Mask will somehow drive people out of their minds stems from the taboo against trance states.]

In a paper on 'The Failure to Eliminate Hypothesis' P. C. Wason described an experiment in which students were asked to guess the rule that had been used to generate a given series of numbers. One student offered no hypothesis at all, but instead developed 'psychotic symptoms . . . and had to be removed by ambulance'. No one would suggest that Wason shouldn't have continued his experiment, but I'm sure that after a similar incident Mask work would have been stopped immediately. When a student cracked up during a summer school at which I was teaching, everyone went around saying 'What a good job she didn't take part in the Mask work'!

The truth is that in acting class, improvisation class, and Mask class we meet opposition from people who believe, in the teeth of all evidence, that emotional abreaction is 'wrong'. Many other cultures have encouraged the 'loose upper lip', but we even try to suppress grieving. England is full of bereaved people who have never discharged their grief and who sit around like stones. We are even encouraged to hit people when they get hysterical!

As for actors refusing to remove the Mask, it's never happened to me in the way people mean, although I imagine it could happen. There are reports of people in clinical hypnosis who have 'stayed asleep' (though not for long!) but we have to ask what people would gain from such behaviour. If someone refused to come out of a trance during a public hypnosis show, then he'd be put into a dressing-room to sleep it off, and would miss all the fun. In clinical hypnosis, the only purpose of such an action would lie in the opportunity to embarrass and confuse the hypnotist. If the hypnotist remained calm, then there'd be no pay-off. In case of any trouble with people refusing to remove the Mask, all you'd have to do would be to say 'OK, fine, good,' and keep your status. Then the refusal would be pointless. Always remember that unless the subject is crazy, or freaked out on drugs, then his trance has a purpose, and it exists because of the support of the teacher and the rest of the class. Go close to the Mask, put your arm around its [shoulders. Your physical proximity to an entranced person usually switches Masks off.]

Sometimes a student will be very upset, and will keep the Mask on to hide tears. Put your arm around such people, lead them to the side and let them sit down. I remember a man in his fifties who turned into a 'monster' and obviously felt extremely violent. He lifted a chair in slow motion as if to smash it to the floor. I walked in towards him, saying 'It's all right, take the Mask off', and he put the chair down and leaned on it for support. I put my arm round him and said 'It's all right, it's all right.' He was shaking. (When someone is upset it usually helps to hold them rather firmly---the message you give is that you're willing to be close to them and to support them. Patting people who are upset isn't really much use. It's more like trying to push them away.)

Gradually this student relaxed, and then took his Mask off. He explained that he'd always felt that he was a gentle person, and that all his life he'd been unable to understand how people could do violent things; I explained that this Mask always made people feel like that, but he was insistent that the feelings were 'his'. I pointed out that he couldn't be more violent than the rest of us were, and that we all had great extremes of emotion locked away inside us. I added, privately, that he should remember the experience, and that maybe he ought to change his view of himself a little. Surely it was less lonely to know he was just like the rest of us.

During a weekend course a student went into a very deep trance, and became a little old man consumed by paroxysms of lust. He seemed to blaze with an inner light. One of the old gods had returned to earth. The student was shaken, but quite calm until the other students talked to him during lunch and made him appreciate how odd it had been. I had to reassure him that he wasn't going crazy and that the Mask had been very successful.

Good drama teaching, of any kind, threatens to alter the personality. The better the teacher the more powerful the effects. In any actor training we work in the voice and the body, and feelings of 'disintegration' are likely to occur. I remember asking an actress to mime an animal with her eyes shut, and to let her hands just move 'by themselves'. Suddenly she hallucinated a real animal! It's more difficult to handle this sort of situation. I told her that it did sometimes happen to people, and that it meant she had become very absorbed. At least in Mask work you can pass the responsibility over to the Mask. The problem is not that one's students really do go crazy, but that they may [withdraw from work they regard as dangerous. They judge the 'danger' by the calmness, or jumpiness of the teacher. In reality the work is very therapeutic, but in this culture any irrational experience gets defined as 'mad'.]

The Mask teacher has to develop a coolness, a therapeutic blandness. There is nothing his students can do that will surprise or disconcert him. Like a meditation teacher, he conveys the feeling that nothing really alarming is happening. If he doesn't project stability and confidence, then his students will be frightened away. Here's the Zen Master Yasutani talking with a distressed student.

Student: (Crying) Just about five minutes ago I had a frightful experience. Suddenly I felt as though the whole universe had crashed into my stomach, and I burst out crying. I can't stop crying even now.

Yasutani: Many strange experiences take place when you do zazen, some of them agreeable, some of them, like your present one, fearful. But they have no particular significance. If you become elated by a pleasant occurrence and frightened by a dreadful one, such experiences may hinder you. But if you don't cling to them such experiences will naturally pass away.

Again, with another student:

Yasutani: If I were to cut off my hand or my leg, the real I would not be decreased one whit. Strictly speaking, this body and mind are also you but only a fraction. The essence of your true nature is no different from that of this stick in front of me or this table or that clock---in fact every single object in this universe. When you directly experience the truth of this, it will be so convincing that you will exclaim 'How true!' because not only your brain but all your being will participate in this knowledge.

Student: (Suddenly crying) But I am afraid! I don't know what of, but I am afraid!

Yasutani: There is nothing to fear. Just deepen and deepen the questioning until all your preconceived notions of who and what you are vanish, and all at once you will realise that the entire universe is no different from yourself. You are at a crucial stage. Don't retreat---march on! (Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen, Beacon, 1967.)

[If you were to use Mask work literally as 'therapy', and to try and psychoanalyse the content of scenes, then I've no doubt you could produce some amazing conflicts, and really screw everyone up. Mask work, or any spontaneous acting, can be therapeutic because of the intense abreactions involved; but the teacher's job is to keep the student ]safe, and to protect him so that he can regress.^[1 2]^ This is the opposite of the Freudian view that people regress in search of greater security. In acting class, students only regress when they feel protected by a high-status teacher.

When the students begin Mask work, and 'characters' inhabit them for the first time, it's normal for everything to be extremely grotesque. The spirits often seem straight out of the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch (Bosch himself acted in plays where Masks were used). Grotesque and frightening things are released as soon as people begin to work with spontaneity. Even if a class works on improvisation every day for only a week or so, then they start producing very 'sick' scenes: they become cannibals pretending to eat each other, and so on. But when you give the student permission to explore this material he very soon uncovers layers of unsuspected gentleness and tenderness. It is no longer sexual feelings and violence that are deeply repressed in this culture now, whatever it may have been like in fin-de-siècle Vienna. We repress our benevolence and tenderness.

NOTES{.small}

[1 .] There are accounts of Chaplin's discovery of Charlie, and I've seen an early film in which Chaplin plays 'Charlie' without the moustache, but there's no doubt that Chaplin experienced the character as stemming from the change in his appearance, rather than from a more intellectual process.

[2 .] Nina Epton met a Balinese who told her that before he left to be educated in Europe he could 'leap into the other world' of trance in twenty seconds, but that even if he can succeed these days it takes at least half an hour. (Wavell, Butt and Epton, Trances, Allen and Unwin, 1967.)

[3 .] The psychologist Wilhelm Reich developed the idea of 'character armour', which he said was 'a protection of the ego against external and internal dangers. As a protective mechanism which has become chronic it can rightly be called armour . . . in unpleasurable situations the armouring increases, in pleasurable situations it decreases. The degree of character mobility, the ability to open up to a situation or to close up against it, constitutes the difference between the healthy and the neurotic character structure.' (Character Analysis, translated by

V. R. Carfagno, Vision Press, 1973.)

He might have been talking about good and bad acting. Drama students who are 'tight' and 'inflexible' and 'alone' are able to receive and transmit only a very narrow range of feeling. They experience muscle tension as 'acting'. In The Function of the Orgasm (translated by T. P. Wolfe, Panther, 1968), Reich says:

[' The facial expression ]as a whole---independent of the individual parts---has to be observed carefully. We know the depressed face of the melancholic patient. It is peculiar how the expression of flaccidity can be associated with a severe chronic tension of the musculature. There are people with an always artificially beaming face; there are "stiff" and "sagging" cheeks. Usually, the patients are able to find the corresponding expression themselves, if the attitude is repeatedly pointed out and described to them, or shown to them by imitating it. One patient with "stiff" cheeks said: "My cheeks are as if heavy with tears." Suppressed crying easily leads to a masklike stiffness of the facial musculature. At an early age, children develop a fear of "faces" which they used to delight in making; they are afraid because they are told that if they make a face it'll stay that way, and because the very impulses they express in their grimaces are impulses for which they are likely to be reprimanded or punished. Thus they check these impulses and hold their faces "rigidly under control".'

I remember my own friends 'changing' during their adolescence. One grew an RAF moustache and spoke with a phoney officer-type voice---in adult life he actually became an Air Force officer and got a medal in the Suez fiasco. Other friends modelled themselves on sportsmen, or film stars, or adults they admired. Props like a walking-stick, a pipe, or an individual choice of clothing help support an identity. If you shave off a beard you 'feel' different. A bride in her regalia is supposed to 'become a bride'. Oscar Wilde dressed as a convict on Clapham Junction was defenceless in a way that he would never have been in his own clothes. The appearance, and especially the face, fixes the personality. This is why plastic surgery has been suggested as a way of reforming criminals--- the opposite approach to outdated nose-slicing. In Vietnam, terrible burns to the body are reported to produce relatively little change in the personality. Relatively minor facial burns have severe consequences.

[4 .] Here is a description by Melvin Powers of how he introduces the 'eye test'. It shows the nature of the transaction very clearly.

'It is suggested to the subject that at the count of three he will be unable to open his eyes. Let's say that you had done this, and that the subject, in spite of this suggestion, has opened his eyes. What is to be done? . . . He may feel that he is not a good subject, or worse still, that you are not a good hypnotist, since he had so easily opened his eyes, when he had been challenged to do so. It is at this point . . . that so many hypnotists lose their subjects . . . To avoid this: after the subject has closed his eyes, continue to give him suggestions that he is in a deep state of relaxation, and that as you (the hypnotist) complete a count of three, he, the subject, will move deeper and deeper into the ease of the hypnotic state. Begin your procedure. Take a great deal of time before you finally use the "eye test" . . . At this point, give the subject the following suggestions: "When I complete the count of three you will open your eyes, and look at the crystal ball. Then after I give you the suggestion and when I complete the count of three again, you will fall into a very deep, sound hypnotic sleep." '

If this doesn't work Powers says: 'Should the test fail for the first time, or even the second, be certain not to show the least sign of annoyance. After a pause proceed again in a matter-of-fact and businesslike manner so as to ensure the fullest co-operation on the part of the subject. It is very important that the subject be made to understand that the failure to close the eyes was not an actual test but merely part of the induction procedure . . . The subject feels that the difficulty lies in the fact that he has not yet been adequately conditioned. [The conviction is a much healthier one than the recognition that the hypnosis has been a failure, since he isn't aware that he has been exposed to hypnosis at all . . . Tell him that at the next attempt he will be more responsive.' (]Advanced Self-Hypnosis, Thorsons, 1962.)

[5 .] Here's a fourteenth-century English meditation teacher describing the 'one word' technique. He says: 'A naked intention directed to God, and himself alone, is wholly sufficient . . . The shorter the word the better, being more like the working of the Spirit. A word like "God" or "Love". Choose which you like, or perhaps some other, so long as it is of one syllable. And fix this word fast to your heart, so that it is always there come what may. It will be your shield and spear in peace and war alike. With this word you will hammer the cloud and the darkness about you. With this word you will suppress all thought under the cloud of forgetting. So much so that if ever you are tempted to think of what it is you are seeking, this one word will be sufficient answer. And if you would go on to think learnedly about the significance and analysis of that same word, tell yourself that you would have it whole, and not in bits and pieces .' (The Cloud of Unknowing, translated by Clifton Wolters, Penguin, 1961.)

Naming everything that you are doing also interferes with the 'voice in the head': 'I am breathing. I am thinking about breathing. I am noticing a bird. I am feeling the weight of my arm on the chair . . .' This doesn't suppress verbalisation, but it diverts it.

Dancing to repetitive rhythms is trance-inducing. People report that the body seems to be moving itself as they move into a trance state. Drummers at possession cults drum louder and with more syncopation in order to 'throw people over the edge'.

Other methods involve weakening the ego by drugs, by increasing the excitement so that the subject is emotionally exhausted, by spinning the person round and round and inducing giddiness. One method reported from the West Indies involves smashing people on the head with a sacred brick. When Professor Eysenck says that only such-and-such a percentage of the population can enter trance, one wonders if he has really tried all the methods.

[6 .] In clinical hypnosis a reluctance to perform has been observed, but this is surely because there's no pay-off. The hypnotist isn't suggesting dramatic scenes to play, and there's no audience to reward them. Hilgard writes:

'I asked a young woman subject who was practising appearing awake while hypnotised to examine some interesting objects in a box on a table at the far end of the room and to comment to me on them as if she were not hypnotised. She was quite reluctant to make this effort, eventually starting to do it with a final plea: "Do you really want me to do this? I'll do it if you say so." '

Another subject of Hilgard said: 'Once I was going to swallow, but I decided it wasn't worth the effort. At one point I was trying to decide if my legs were crossed, but I couldn't tell, and I didn't quite have the initiative to find out.' Another subject said: 'I panic in an open-ended situation where I am not given specific directions. I like very definite suggestions from the hypnotist.' Hilgard comments: 'Thus the planning function, while not entirely lost, is turned over very largely to the hypnotist, willingly and comfortably, with some annoyance being shown when the subject is asked to take responsibility for what he has to do.' (Ernest R. Hilgard, The Experience of Hypnosis, Harcourt Brace, 1968.)

[7 .] There's something very odd about the idea that spirits enter at the neck. This belief crops up all over the place. For example, here's Ena Twigg, a medium, [describing how she enters a trance.]

'I get a sensation at the back of my neck, right at the top of the spine. It's as if there was a blockage. I may be sitting, giving clairaudience or clairvoyance, and I feel myself gradually subdued.'

[8 .] Morton Sobell found that the size of a mirror was very important during his years of imprisonment on Alcatraz.

'On the Rock we had only small five-by-seven inch shaving-mirrors; there were no others. Somehow the size of the mirror seemed to be critical in self-recognition, probably because the larger mirror allowed me to see my face as part of my head and whole body. Ordinarily we correlate all these images, because they are available to us. On the Rock this was not true.' (On Doing Time, Charles Scribner, 1974.)

[9 .] Here are some of Goethe's observations (from his Travels in Italy) on the astonishing way Mask behaviour can be reinforced by the crowd.

'The masks began to multiply. Young men dressed in the holiday attire of the women of the lowest class, exposing an open breast and displaying an impudent self-complacency, are mostly the first to be seen. They caress the men they meet, allow themselves all familiarities with the women they encounter, as being persons the same as themselves, and for the rest do whatever humour, wit or wantonness suggests . . .

'With rapid steps, declaiming as before a court of justice, an advocate pushes through the crowd. He bawls up at the windows, lays hold of passers-by masked or unmasked, threatens every person with a process, impeaches this man in a long narration with ridiculous crimes and specifies to another the list of debts. He rates the women for their coquetries, the girls for the number of their lovers. He appeals by way of proof to a book he carries about with him, producing documents as well, and setting everything forth with a shrill voice and fluent tongue. When you fancy he is at an end he is only beginning, when you think he is leaving he turns back. He flies at one without addressing him, he seizes hold of another who is already past. Should he come across a brother of his profession, the folly rises to its height . . .

'The quakers show themselves in the character of tasteless dandies. They hop about on their toes with great agility, and carry about large black rings without glass to serve them in the way of opera-glasses, with which they peer into every carriage, and gaze up at all windows. Usually they make a stiff bow, and, especially on meeting each other, express their job by hopping several times straight up into the air, uttering at the same time a shrill, piercing, inarticulate cry, in which the consonants "brr" prevail . . .

'When four or five girls have once caught a man on whom they have designs, there is no deliverance for him. The throng prevents his escape, and let him turn how he will, the besom is under his nose. To defend himself in earnest against such provocations would be a very dangerous experiment, seeing the masks are inviolate and under the special protection of the watch . . .

'No coach passes with impunity, without suffering at the hands of some maskers or other. No foot passenger is secure from them. An abbot in black dress becomes a target for missiles on all hands; and seeing that gypsum and chalk always leave their mark wherever they alight, the abbot soon gets spotted all over with white and grey.' (Translated by A. J. W. Morrison and Charles Nesbit, G. Bell and Sons.)

[1 0.] 'What I will say is this: See that in no sense you withdraw into yourself. [And, briefly, I do not want you to be outside or above, behind or beside yourself either.]

' "Well," you will say, "where am I to be? Nowhere according to you!" And you will be quite right! "Nowhere" is where I want you! Why, when you are "nowhere" physically, you are "everywhere" spiritually.' (The Cloud of Unknowing---see note 5.)

[1 1.] George had an extract from Saint-Denis's book Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style (Theatre Art Books, New York, 1960) handed out to his students at the studio. Here it is: 'This silent improvisation culminated in the use of masks, full-face masks of normal human size, simple and harmonious masks representing the four ages of man: the adolescent, the adult, mature middle age and old age. In getting the students to wear masks, we were not aiming at aesthetic results nor was it our intention to revive the art of mime. To us, a mask was a temporary instrument which we offered to the curiosity of the young actor, in the hope that it might help his concentration, strengthen his inner feelings, diminish his self-consciousness, and lead him to develop his powers of outward expression.

'A mask is a concrete object. When you put it on your face you receive from it a strong impulse which you have got to obey. But the mask is also an inanimate object which the personality of the actor will bring to life. As his inner feelings accumulate behind the mask, so the actor's face relaxes. His body, which is made more expressive by the very immobility of the mask, will be brought to action by the strength of inner feeling.

'Once the actor has acquired the elementary technique that is demanded by wearing a mask, he will begin to realise that masks dislike agitation, that they can only be animated by controlled, strong, and utterly simple actions which depend upon the richness of the inner life within the calm and balanced body of the performer. The mask absorbs the actor's personality from which it feeds. It warms his feelings and cools his head. It enables the actor to experience, in its most virulent form, the chemistry of acting: at the very moment when the actor's feelings are at their height, beneath the mask, the urgent necessity of controlling his physical actions compels him to detachment and lucidity.

'Submission to the lesson of the mask enables an actor of talent to discover a broad, inspired and objective style of acting. It is a good preparatory school for tragedy and drama in its greatest styles. Scenarios using up to three actors were drawn from striking dramatic movements in classical tragedies and dramas. Further than this silent improvisation cannot go.'

**12.(#12_MASKS_AND_TRANCE.xhtml_id_2) I had to comfort someone who was a student of a student of mine---neither of whom had been trained; the first had only been in a play I directed. She writes: 'My Mask was white and immediately grabbed my interest. As I stared I felt my face changing into his, a mildly smiling, very open face.'

She then played a scene together with another, rather frightening Mask.

'I walked into the closet and shut the door. Immediately my fear changed to terror---I was trapped. I knelt down holding the door shut tightly, but I knew his form would soon fill the window. I couldn't stand that, so just as his coat came into view in a corner of the window I pulled my head down. I was screaming. I did so for a long time till finally I felt that surely by now my director would have stopped G [the other Mask. As I stepped out I was grabbed by that horrible-faced creature, it was still there till finally I ripped my Mask off and screamed, "I'm taking the Mask off." I was very happy with my Mask, how simple it was to get into (the easiest it's ever been) but very annoyed otherwise. I was annoyed by not having someone there who knew enough to save me, my Mask, from the fear, from not having someone say "Stop! Take the Mask off . . ." The Mask was very open, and would be anxious to take whatever was prepared for it. It was vulnerable. The other Mask fed on its fear. The condition was like being hypnotised yet not aware of the surroundings or real things but still in the hypnotic state---doing very different things, moving, making sounds, freedom to do things in another . . . what? Face? State? Can't find the word.']

She was as upset as if the event had been real. I would agree with her that she should have been protected. It's the first time she had worn the Mask. If she had been through other emotional scenes, then it might have been OK to let her go through it. She would have been upset, but she wouldn't have felt hostile. The effect of allowing her to experience the 'terror' is likely to make her more inhibited, not less. All Mask work should be graded.

*Also spelt Ghédé, Gheda, (Papa), Gueda, etc. by different writers.