"In Rome, behind the mask, the audacity of the obscene mimes was multiplied and they ventured gestures and postures they would never have dared with bare faces.So, in order to loosen up my people at the School, I masked them. Immediately, I was able to observe a transformation of the young actor. You understand that the face, for us, is tormenting: the mask saves our dignity, our freedom. The mask protects the soul from grimaces." - Jacques Copeau
In western
theatre, the use of the neutral
mask (sometimes called a
noble mask) as a
training tool began with
Jacques Copeau in
1921, after he had opened the
Vieux Colombier School. His experiments were partially inspired by his encounter with
English theatre
practitioner Gordon Craig, and they were also a desperately needed means to free his
apprentice actors from their
facially expressive habits. The work began by accident: in an effort to help an actress who repeatedly
froze in the middle of a scene and was completely unable to move, Copeau covered her face with his
handkerchief and immediately noticed that
her body became more expressive. Copeau found that working with the neutral mask allowed him to teach his actors how to act
physically, even after countless hours of
movement training and
gymnastics had reached a
plateau in results.
The neutral mask does not
express anything; it can be
male or
female but it tells no story whatsoever. It effectively erases the
actor's ego and puts in its place a being, albeit a very creepy looking one, that exists purely in the
here and now, a being that can only express itself by means of
physical action. The actor learns that s/he cannot rely on facial expressions to show emotion and must learn some other way of communicating, because no matter how much
gurning one does behind a mask, an
audience will never be able to see it. Gestures, posture, and quality of movement can be
isolated for study when using the neutral mask, and any
insincerity or
indecisiveness becomes immediately apparent. A gesture must be clear and sustained; posture and quality of movement will also start to reveal any unnecessary
characterisation.
It has limited possibilities in
performance, but such
mask work is invaluable in learing
Commedia del'Arte,
clown, or other mask styles of theatre.
Copeau's work was largely handed down to
LeCoq, who used it extensively in his method. Try one today; you'll love it.