The Five Masks
by Savithaa Markandu
We’ve all heard of Snow White and the seven Dwarfs, but how about Jacques Lecoq and the five Masks?
It’s a pretty similar story except Lecoq did not meet the five masks while running away from his evil stepmother, and the masks aren’t talking people. Funnily enough, each mask elicits so much life that they might as well be people.
The best part is that the five masks of Lecoq have names of their own. They are, the Neutral Mask, Expressive Mask, Larval Mask, Commedia Mask and The Clown, or The Red Nose. Judging from their names you may have an idea of what purpose some of these masks serve, but to help you further, I’m going to dig deeper and give you the full story.
Where did the Five masks come from?
Lecoq’s interest in masked performance was ignited when he was first introduced to it by Jean Daste [link to Who Is Jacques Lecoq?], who he worked with in Jean’s company, Les Comédiens de Grenoble. Daste had trained under Jacques Copeau who was a well-known dramatic coach, and had used masks at the core of his training. Daste strongly believed in Copeau’s teachings and infused his methods of masked performance into his work at the Grenoble, so as to uphold Copeau’s practice. During his profession at the Grenoble, Lecoq learned about masked performance, which he combined with his own pedagogy that he was already applying at the time.
How were they made?
Masks produced by Sartori
When Lecoq travelled to Italy to teach at the University of Padua, he met a talented sculptor known as Amleto Sartoti [link to Who Is Jacques Lecoq?]. Sartori and Lecoq grew to become very close friends, and during this time, Sartori rediscovered the original techniques for making the leather masks of commedia dell’arte.
“In Sartori Lecoq had found a collaborator who was not only a brilliant craftsman but who also had a strong theatrical imagination. By working together through countless drawings and prototypes to the final exploration of a new mask in the studio, Lecoq and Sartori produced masks so specifically designed for their function that they were like precision tools”
With this exciting discovery, Sartori and Lecoq embarked on an investigation into creating a brand new mask, known as The Neutral Mask. Sartori played an important role in Lecoq’s journey, as their encounter led to the discovery of the five masks, which became fundamental in Lecoq’s teachings later on.
“Telling the students how to do it would be to hinder them from wearing the mask. They would be too worried about doing it right, whereas their primary need is to experience.”
The Neutral Mask
This is not just any mask. Lecoq referred to The Neutral Mask as a “perfectly balanced mask” that occupies a “middle position between two extremes”. This is beautifully reflected in Sartori’s design of the mask, which appears symmetrical, relaxed and positioned in a state between 2 expressions or actions. Unlike white masks used in carnival processions, which do not contain any life, The Neutral Mask holds much power in its state of equilibrium. As John Wright so perfectly describes it, The Neutral Mask has “neither a history nor a future but simply lives in the moment, without comment”.
When most of us imagine a mask, we envision an actor wearing it. However, The Neutral Mask is not worn. It is held at a particular distance from the actor’s face, and designed to be larger than the actor’s face, so that they can play and extend the different possibilities of their physicality. Behind this mask, the actor is not a character. A character has conflict, history and context, whereas a Neutral Mask does not, as it is in perfect balance. This opens doors to openness and neutrality for an actor to explore and experiment. It also pushes the actor to release tension from their body and find an equal position. The further challenge is that the mask covers the face, which people normally look at because it is the most expressive part of the body. Once the face disappears behind the mask, it “becomes the whole body” and the actor must transfer all expressions from the face to the body. To achieve this, they develop physically expressive movements, and gestures. According to Lecoq, the students who mastered The Neutral Mask, were the ones who had a relaxed face when they removed the mask. Those were the students who understood how to let go, and became available and ready to enter a state of neutrality, where after they became able to embody anything existing: any movement, any character, any motion of life.
The Expressive Mask
Unlike The Neutral Mask, The Expressive Mask depicts a character-it has conflict, history and context. There is a change in the actor’s physical energy as they must produce organic bodily expressions oppositely to how they would when wearing The Neutral Mask. The Expressive Mask narrows the scope for actors and simplifies their playing style. The Expressive Mask can be approached from two standpoints: playing with the mask known as ’the Jesuit’ or playing with the mask while feeling ‘very jesuitical’. With the former, the mask has a distorted face and displays one side more significantly than the other. The structure of the mask shapes the physicality of the actor, who always moves sideways. In this case, the mask takes the lead and drives the actor’s movements through space, inducing specific movements that portray the character of the mask. The latter however, begins with the actor searching for the character's psychology, which influences the behavioural patterns and the style of physicality adopted by the actor. This affects how the mask appears to the audience, although the physical structure of the mask may not change.
the larval mask
The Larval Mask has minimal shapes, lacks human features and has no specific characterization. It does however have a very, very, large nose. In fact, it is especially larger than the actor’s face. Because the mask appears not fully developed, the actor behind the mask assumes that their body is not fully developed either. Its simplicity and size, gives the actor space to explore playfulness, under two methods introduced by Lecoq. Firstly, the actor analyses a caricatured performance of characters and situations, by converting realistic scenarios into bizarre situations. Next, the actor examines animalism or fantasy. They expand their imagination and innovate new methods of physically embodying mythical characters that are unfamiliar to the human body. Progressively, under Lecoq’s training, these two methods of studying The Larval Mask, soon extended to other forms of play such as utilitarian (defensive masks, designed to protect) and disguise (detective masks, designed to spy).
“ We see no perspective about learning about the world [...] we discover it but do not make any sense from it [...] [there is an] insatiable appetite to play ”
The actors follow the impulse of the mask’s shape, and are challenged to push their boundaries of imagination, testing new grounds that may not fit into the ‘real’ world. Rather than focusing on how accurate and precise their movements are, the actors are encouraged to be hungry, curious and sensitive; to question the different ways in which they can interact with the world. The result is incredible-the world becomes a playground.
The Red Nose/The Clown
“When they realized what a failure it was, they stopped improvising and went back to their seats feeling frustrated, confused and embarrassed..
...It was at that point, when they saw their weakness, that everyone burst out laughing, not at the characters that they had been trying to show us, but at the person underneath, stripped bare for all to see ”
Yes, you guessed it. Clowning is about vulnerability; peeling off the protective layers and standing there naked with our imperfections. Humans have been conditioned by society to hide their personal clown behind a facade of status, education, authority and other sophisticated traits that society deems as more accepting. Lecoq however, taught his students to reveal their inner child who falls on his or her feet every now and then. And this was the lesson to Clowning. In Clowning, the actors expose their hidden selves who are childish, idotioc and ungraceful. It takes them immense courage to risk making mistakes, and become the laughing stock in an irreversible situation.
“above all, he must avoid playing a role, but give free reign, in the most psychological manner, to the innocence inside him which comes out when he is a flop or bungles his presentation ”
Rather than embodying a character, the actors are themselves, and they dig deep to find their weaknesses. The more weaknesses they expose, the funnier they are. Moreover, The Clown must always be in a state of “reaction and surprise”, without intentionally initiating the performance. This means that they interact with the audience and improvise by playing off the audience’s reactions. This form of performance requires constant thinking on the feet and spontaneity, and it may not always be a success. The Clown shows the audience that it is okay to make mistakes, and fall on our feet as it is at the very core of human nature. There is a meaningful lesson to learn from this and it is that weakness is a valuable asset of human nature, that can become our strength.
The Commedia Dell’arte
Lecoq defined commedia dell’arte as an art of childhood. This field introduces the cunning side of human nature such as trickery, duping people, and taking advantage of them. The characters played are often conniving and devious, with the urgent need to survive, and the main theme is centred on trapping vulnerable victims in a convincing story that leads them to fall for the characters’ scheme. However, when the characters go to extremes to get what they want, the plan backfires and traps them in their own spinning tales. The entire performance becomes a comedy of foolish individuals stuck in an endless cycle of despair and struggle which they constantly land themselves in. It is ultimately quite tragic. The performance unfolds the limits of human nature and although the audience laughs at what the characters look like and do, they recognise themselves in these characters.
Commedia dell’arte requires a high level of physical energy, boldness, imagination, spontaneity and adaptability. While it is important that the players cover significant narrative stages in the story, while improvising, a more essential element is the driving force of the performance:
“Who is pulling? Who is pushing? Who is pulling or pushing himself? Who is being pulled or pushed? By answering these simple questions, we can give the sequence its dynamics ”
The dynamic of the performance is never linear, but constantly changing, injecting thrill and suspense into the air and keeping the audience on their toes. If one actor pushes for something, the other pulls away, or pushes back. The action and reaction between them builds up towards an extreme scenario ending in an unexpected outcome. Every reaction is dramatic, such as feigning a heart attack just to escape a sticky situation.
Commedia dell’arte was a popular form of theatre that flourished throughout Italy from the 16th to 18th century. It was humorous theatrical presentation of stereotypical characters, which Lecoq found was present in the day-to-day life of Italian culture. This beautiful discovery inspired Lecoq’s pedagogy later on in his training.
And there you have it, these are the five masks. Each mask is more than a name. It is rich with history, culture and spirit, and to this day, many of Lecoq’s students continue to apply his knowledge and passion for masked performance. Oh, and if it hasn’t dawned upon you yet, this story has nothing to do with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
By Savithaa Markandu