Begin Again Gilligan
Last night I lasted through our next to last Mask class this quarter. The Larval Mask work we are starting uses the Neutral Mask work as a foundation, and is intended to serve as a bridge to Expressive Mask. Now we are communicating character.
The mask progression process as I see it thus far, is learn to approach neutrality. That is, add no extraneous story or intention with your physicality. Next use that neutrality to inhabit a character, while minimizing your idiosyncrasies. (We used the animal study as a very effective practical implementation of neutrality to which we added 'character'.) As we add character the neutral mask work enables us to keep our personal traits from diminishing the character we are working to create.
It was much like the first few classes. I felt adrift, and other students were asking lots of questions. The masks we are using now are somewhat expressive, and we are 'following' the mask. It's another trial and error process and it feels like starting all over again.
I found it nice people were asking questions. "What do you mean by letting the mask lead?" "What are we trying to do?" "Why did you tell me to..." The same questions were floating in the back of my mind somewhere, but I rarely verbalize them. I have an eagerness to go and see what I will discover. When I question I go into my head too much, and block myself. Hearing others ask the questions I'm not voicing is very helpful. Okay, sometimes the questions go on too long. I think I'd rather have a few too many questions than none at all. I was surprised to find myself grateful there are people asking questions.
I cracked a joke towards the end of class. Sometimes you just can't help it, and it was also a safe way of making an observation. Our class sessions are in a rather large room, which was once a dance studio. We set up a couple rolling screens, which serve as a solid scrim at the arbitrarily defined upstage end of the room. The larval masks were laid out on a table behind the scrim. In groups of four, we got behind the scrim and one at a time shoed a mask, came out interacted with the other half of the class a bit, and went back behind the scrim. We did this four times and were learning the scope, presence, and life of the masks.
We cycled through four times, so each one of us had four simple transits. Plus the inevitable do-overs and adjustments. I was the last in line for the first group. On the last pass people unshoed their masks and went back and joined the rest of the class. It really felt weird returning behind the scrim to unshoe with my fellow players gone, and I was struck by a funny thought which I shared when we were done discussing the exercise.
"This is totally unrelated. I was the last one, and it was really strange to go behind the screen and find nobody there. There was a real feeling of being abandoned and I had this line run through my head. I can't believe the bitch took the ice cube tray!"
Luckily everybody got my allusion to having a spouse or significant other pack up and leave without warning. Nearly as good a laugh as I got on Monday. It was very satisfying people got the joke for two reasons. I crack jokes a lot, and while I have gotten better at it, I always worry the references I'm making won't be clear. It was not a big deal, but I wanted to put the idea in people's heads that leaving before everyone was done felt weird. Thinking back on it, it seems staying in the exercise is way of being generous and present for your scene partners. I use humor when I can, mostly self-deprecating as it is a way for me to face things. If I can't joke about my weight, I sure as Hell can't face the problem. I'm a little more tentative when I joke outside that realm. Unless I'm throwing barbs at evildoers, like republicans.
A blogger observation. I refuse cookies, so adding new words to the blogger spell checker is doesn't work. Why is blog not in the blog spell checker?
The mask progression process as I see it thus far, is learn to approach neutrality. That is, add no extraneous story or intention with your physicality. Next use that neutrality to inhabit a character, while minimizing your idiosyncrasies. (We used the animal study as a very effective practical implementation of neutrality to which we added 'character'.) As we add character the neutral mask work enables us to keep our personal traits from diminishing the character we are working to create.
It was much like the first few classes. I felt adrift, and other students were asking lots of questions. The masks we are using now are somewhat expressive, and we are 'following' the mask. It's another trial and error process and it feels like starting all over again.
I found it nice people were asking questions. "What do you mean by letting the mask lead?" "What are we trying to do?" "Why did you tell me to..." The same questions were floating in the back of my mind somewhere, but I rarely verbalize them. I have an eagerness to go and see what I will discover. When I question I go into my head too much, and block myself. Hearing others ask the questions I'm not voicing is very helpful. Okay, sometimes the questions go on too long. I think I'd rather have a few too many questions than none at all. I was surprised to find myself grateful there are people asking questions.
I cracked a joke towards the end of class. Sometimes you just can't help it, and it was also a safe way of making an observation. Our class sessions are in a rather large room, which was once a dance studio. We set up a couple rolling screens, which serve as a solid scrim at the arbitrarily defined upstage end of the room. The larval masks were laid out on a table behind the scrim. In groups of four, we got behind the scrim and one at a time shoed a mask, came out interacted with the other half of the class a bit, and went back behind the scrim. We did this four times and were learning the scope, presence, and life of the masks.
We cycled through four times, so each one of us had four simple transits. Plus the inevitable do-overs and adjustments. I was the last in line for the first group. On the last pass people unshoed their masks and went back and joined the rest of the class. It really felt weird returning behind the scrim to unshoe with my fellow players gone, and I was struck by a funny thought which I shared when we were done discussing the exercise.
"This is totally unrelated. I was the last one, and it was really strange to go behind the screen and find nobody there. There was a real feeling of being abandoned and I had this line run through my head. I can't believe the bitch took the ice cube tray!"
Luckily everybody got my allusion to having a spouse or significant other pack up and leave without warning. Nearly as good a laugh as I got on Monday. It was very satisfying people got the joke for two reasons. I crack jokes a lot, and while I have gotten better at it, I always worry the references I'm making won't be clear. It was not a big deal, but I wanted to put the idea in people's heads that leaving before everyone was done felt weird. Thinking back on it, it seems staying in the exercise is way of being generous and present for your scene partners. I use humor when I can, mostly self-deprecating as it is a way for me to face things. If I can't joke about my weight, I sure as Hell can't face the problem. I'm a little more tentative when I joke outside that realm. Unless I'm throwing barbs at evildoers, like republicans.
A blogger observation. I refuse cookies, so adding new words to the blogger spell checker is doesn't work. Why is blog not in the blog spell checker?
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