African masked theatre

Ritual and ceremonial masks are an essential feature of the traditional culture of the peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa. While the specific implications associated to ritual masks widely vary in different cultures, some traits are common to most African cultures. For instance, masks usually have a spiritual and religious meaning and they are used in ritual dances and social and religious events, and a special status is attributed to the artists that create masks and to those that wear them in ceremonies. In most cases, mask-making is an art that is passed on from father to son, along with the knowledge of the symbolic meanings conveyed by such masks. African masks come in all different colours, there is red, black, orange, and brown.

Masks are one of the elements of great African art that have most evidently influenced Europe and Western art in general; in the 20th century, artistic movements such as cubism, fauvism and expressionism have often taken inspiration from the vast and diverse heritage of African masks. Influences of this heritage can also be found in other traditions such as South- and Central American masked Carnival parades.

The most commonly used material for masks is wood, although a wide variety of other elements can be used, including light stone such as steatite, metals such as copper or bronze, different types of fabric, pottery, and more. Some masks are painted (for example using ochre or other natural colorants). A wide array of ornamental items can be applied to the mask surface; example include animal hair, horns, or teeth, sea shells, seeds, straws, egg shell, and feathers. For example, animal hair or straws are often used for a mask's hair or beard.

The general structure of a mask varies depending on the way it is intended to be worn. The most common type applies to the wearer's face, like most Western (e.g., carnival) masks. Others are worn like hats on the top of the wearer's head; examples include those of the Ekhoi people of Nigeria and Bwa people of Burkina Faso, as well as the famous chiwara masks of the Bambara people. Some masks (for example those of the Sande society of Liberia and the Mende people of Sierra Leone, that are made from hollow tree stumps) are worn like helmets covering both the head and face. Some African cultures have mask-like ornaments that are worn on the chest rather than the head of face; this includes those used by the Makonde people of East Africa in ndimu ceremonies.

Presentation

I worked in a group with KJ and Jovan. We all research different types of masked theatre together then scripted it, and split it up between the three of us.

I forgot to add that because the masks in Greek Theater were made of organic materials like cork leather and wood, and when they decomposed it was seen as the people of Athens sent it as a gift to the Dyonisis God.

Evaluation

Commedia dell’arte Evaluation of the final show

The show was a success in my opinion; I didn’t see that there were many faults in what we had done in the performance itself. I also thought we had a very limited time to prepare we did try to put in 100% effort. We finished a whole devised piece in less than a week, which seems pretty crazy, but I think as a class we enjoyed the challenge. We also had lighting and a fully working stage and set, which really brought the play to life.

The set was put together on the morning of the performance, given that this was very quickly produced it was a simple staging arrangement consisting of hay bales and three walls. It gave a period atmosphere that linked to the time in which it was set and added to the quality of the production as the colours of it where based on natural tones. I think its simplicity gave the actors more of an opportunity to stand out from the set and make the play come to life with physicality and the masks. On the other hand I think the hay bales where quite hard to manoeuvre around, this was because the play had a lot of black outs which meant the actors couldn’t see anything so we kept tripping over them, however with more rehearsal along side the set we would have had more chance of getting used to the space and working around them.

Our costumes were also simplistic keeping in period with the set, the colours again were in natural tones. The majority of us wore beige tunics and white long johns, and a belt for our weaponry (usually the Zanni’s, Brigella’s and Columbinas would wear this). The hierarchy of the character within the performance was portrayed by the costume they wore. They wore something of a slight different colour to everyone else. The long johns and tunics were quite easy to move in as the bottoms were loose and the tunics were baggy. However in the case of the Cyrano Debegerac actor this was different, she found that her cape got in the way of her sword fights, so she had to take it on and off which led to predicaments behind stage, to improve this she could have a shorter cape or not have worn one at all.

The masks are worn so that the actors can play different/multiple characters and it also depicts who the characters are. They also add to the comedy as they are funny looking. From speaking to an audience member I found out that apparently when it got to the fight scene it got slightly confusing for them as they couldn’t point out who the Spanish party were and who the French were. To resolve this we could use the red tone masks for one side and the black colour masks for another.

Props were quite the challenge as people got hurt by them in play and also they would get in the way as we didn’t have proper holsters for them, we would have to tuck them in our belts and they were quite large swords so they might hit the ground, due to the physicality of this style of theatre, (lots of movement) people would get hurt by props banging into them as we passed. This could be combatted in a number of ways next time by either reduce the amount of things on set, reducing the amount of people on stage at any one time or alternative ways to store the swords within costume.

A strength in our performance I think was the multi cultural characters. We had characters that a wide variety of difference audience members could relate to. For example we had Jamaican, Spanish, Turkish, Africans etc. We also had different British accents, this was also handled sensitively so that no offence was caused. This aided characterisation of the roles by making each of them individual and easier to tell the difference between each of the characters as the masks can get confusing. The use of language also enhanced the comic delivery of the characters. As we didn’t include any music or other false sound effects this enhanced the comedic quality of the performance. So to improve the performance in terms of sound we could have added in more sound effects like horse shoes in the war scene. However the slapsticks gave quite an impact on sound as well, for example the scene where James and I are being hit on the behind with them which made it sound like we were singing a song and made it sound painful when it wasn’t which advanced the comedy.

The lighting was pretty much natural throughout, though there was one exception when the character Cyrano was fighting off “100 men” the lighting changed to red to indicate that there was lots of bloodshed. The blackouts were quite frequent which led to scene changes being quite challenge with there being no light. To improve on this I would try to take out some of the blacks and try to make the play flow with the lights on.

One of the most memorable moments was the scene was the Turkish man and Russian man trying to communicate. It was most memorable for me as the timing was good, and got laughs from the audience and they always clocked the audience which made the audience want to watch them. This was also a key piece of dialogue because it set the comedy up for a related joke later on in the play. The dialogue throughout the play was largely formal given that it was based on a battle and grand period gestures of love. Also most of the plot was based on how we communicate so it is funnier to the audience because they could relate. Though it could have been improved by ones who were speaking in a completely different language by introducing more hand gestures and body language so that the audience had a clear understanding of what was going on.

Day Six and Seven

Day Six

Today we were actually putting the play together and Graham the director wanted to put the scene from yesterday into the play. So we had to go over it again and put as much comedy as we could into it to make it better.

We added a song reference which went down quite well when we showed it to the rest of the class.

Day Seven

Feedback was given after our first whole run through…

-          Go over the walks and try to stay in character.

-          Be louder.

-          Always clock the audience.

-          Be quiet in the wings.

-          Put 100% energy into matinee and evening performances.

Day Five

Day Five

We started to use a literal slapstick to go with our slapstick comedy. It is used for sounds and hitting people with. Zanni’s can use it for lots of different thing like cutting nails, brushing hair and they can even hide behind it.

James, Chris and I had to devise a scene. Me and James were Zanni’s and Chris as a Brigella. We were in the army as soldiers and Chris was our overseer though he had to make it seem like we were good at what we do but we actually were not.

Day Four

Day four

The Doctor is exactly what is says. He is usually an old man and he can do all the walks that have been shown to us, though he is expected to be old he doesn’t have to sound like he is and he usually goes off on a tangent.

We had to perform another devised piece, I was the Doctor, Corrina was my helper Zanni and KJ was the dead person. I found it hard to portray this character as the doctor has to talk a lot whilst keeping the audience entertained I struggled with this as I wasn’t very good at being witty and funny under pressure.

We were also introduced to the character Brigella he is a ‘Laddy’ ‘Chappy’ type man, who seems like a stereotypical market salesman, loud and upfront. As Brigella is quite a loud outgoing type character we had to try and sell something and we had to do it individually to the rest of the class. I tried to sell a top to start off with, and wasn’t too successful with that. Then we had to change the way we spoke in the next time we showed it. So I put on a Jamaican accent and sold a mysterious object which apparently worked better than the first one I did according to my peers. 

Day Three

Day three

Today we really needed our warm up as we were starting our first lesson in stage combat. We were taught hair pulling, punching, slapping, and neck breaking. As well as this, we learnt how to use swords in performance. we were taught different terms and stances. Each stance was numbered, so we could refer back to each movement. Here are some terms and descriptions of each term;

* Bind – taking the foible of the opposing blade diagonally from high to low line and vice versa.

* Blade – the main component of a sword that is mounted on a hilt.

* Cadence – the rhythm in which a sequence of movements is made.

* Parry – defensive action to deflect an opponents attack by opposing forte to opponents foible.

* Hilt – guard, pad, grip – the assembled parts of the sword including the blade.

We then devised a new scene with stage combat incorporated in it. Me and KJ were Zanni’s fighting over a mouse that we wanted to eat. I Jumped on her back and she threw me off, then I grabbed her hair and threw her, then she kicked me, etc.