Monday, 9 November 2015

Masks and Costume

A mask enabled an actor to hide his own identity and take on that of another, namely the character he was playing, by giving him a new face. But the putting on a mask or donning a face was not really a negative act of concealment but more really a positive act of becoming. Masks worn by the chorus also gave the members of the chorus a group identity, especially if their masks were similar or all the same. In the large Ancient Greek theatres most of the audience could not see the expressions on the real faces of the actors or chorus. Masks enlarged the images of a facial expression allowing the audience to see grief, joy, and/or any other feeling or emotion the poet or playwright was trying to express. Masks identified and distinguished the good characters from the bad, the tragic characters from the comic ones. Ancient Greek theatre used a standard sets of masks with conventional expressions on them, such that the moment the audience saw a character on stage wearing one those masks, they knew exactly what standard character that actor was trying to portray.

Dionysus wore a mask and was personified by means of it. His effigy was a mask nailed to a wooden pole.

A mask was at the centre or heart of imitation, the very core of Ancient Greek theatre.

Andrew Stott (2014). Comedy. Aristotle's Definition of Comedy: Routledge. pp. 19–. ISBN 978-1-134-45397-9.A comic mask is ugly, but does not indicate pain.

[Ugliness, in the Greek mind, was equivalent to badness.]

Some have argued that the shape of the mask amplified the actor's voice, like a megaphone, making it easier for the audience to hear the words and lines he was speaking..  Others, after testing this theory, have argued that this did not hold up but rather that it was the tone of the voice of the actor which the mask changed rather than its loudness. A mask forced the actor to become clearer in his diction.


Extract from
Arthur Elam Haigh; Sir Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge (1968). The Attic Theatre: A Description of the Stage and Theatre of the Athenians, and of the Dramatic Performances at Athens. Ardent Media. pp. 244–.
Archive.Org (1907): The Attic theatre a description of the stage and theatre of the Athenians.

...
Masks were generally made of linen. Cork and wood were occasionally used. The mask covered the whole of the head, both in front and behind. The white of the eye was painted on the mask, but the place for the pupil was left hollow, to enable the actor to see. The expression of the tragic mask was gloomy and often fierce; the mouth was opened wide, to give a clear outlet to the actor's voice. One of the most characteristic features of the tragic mask was the onkos. This was a coneshaped prolongation of the upper part of the mask above the forehead, intended to give size and impressiveness to the face. The onkos was not used in every case, but only where dignity was to be imparted. It varied in size according to the character of the personage. The onkos of the tyrant was especially large; that of women was less than that of men. A character was not necessarily represented by the same mask throughout the piece. The effects of misfortune or of accident had often to be depicted by a fresh mask. For instance, in the Helen of Euripides Helen returns upon the stage with her hair shorn off, and her cheeks pale with weeping, Oedipus, at the end of the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, is seen with blinded eyes and a bloodstained face. In such cases a change of mask must have been necessary.
...

Colour

The statues in an Ancient Greek Temple or Shrine, or on the Friezes were all part of the theatricals and rituals that took place in those temples and shrines. Those statues were not bare white marble but were highly coloured. It is my supposition that the costumes and masks of Ancient Greek Theatre were polychrome and highly coloured just like the statues in the temples and shrines were, and were probably coloured using similar colours to the temples and their statues.

Colour in Ancient Greece < Journal | Sophia> https://bit.ly/3LhIlA6
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AH Sommerstein - 2003 - taylorfrancis.com

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by Amy R. Cohen
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Royal Holloway College, Egham, Surrey
 
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Vase: kalyx krater
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Collection of  The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California
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Ancient masks Tsilfidis et alii
The Acoustics of Ancient Theatres Conference
Patras, September 18-21, 2011



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