Mark Evans "Neutral Mask"
Learning about Neutral Mask was valuable for me, as I've been intrigued about it since the start of the year, of what it is. It's a training tool for actors, developed by Jacque Copeau. He was a frenchman who wanted to develop readiness for the actors on stage, this involved training the actors to 'neutral act'.
To do this, there are two masks: a male mask and a female mask. Between the two you can see the massive differences between the female and male facial components.It's similar to normal maskwork as the mask requires you to cut out old habits that you've developed such as, fidgeting or touching your hair/touching your face. If you touch the mask, it stops the illusion of the mask being an actual being.
The type of exercises Copeau used to practise with his students were developing the art of neutral acting. For example, an exercise we did were 3 people had to 'don' the mask (put it on) and pretend that they were walking along a pier towards the beach, looking out to the sea, looking down, seeing a stone and throwing the stone in the sea. It's alot harder than it looks as when all 3 people did this same action, it was shown in 3 different ways. For example, one person would take their foot off the ground while throwing, another would throw the stone lightly. The feedback was it's best to have a strong dynamic throw that really accentuates the body. As there's a mask on your face you can't use facial expressions to tell the story, you have to rely on your gestures. Because of this, to have exaggerated movements wouldn't be 'neutral' either because its over the top, it would need to have the same energy but to be toned down.
Although it looks easy it's very hard to grasp how to 'neutral act' and feels weird because you can't see yourself when doing it, but you have to imagine in your head what the audience are seeing, and try and go off what you think the audience would find acceptable as that neutral action.
 Jacque Copeau |
| http://www.landrucimetieres.fr/spip/spip.php?article1403 |
To do this, there are two masks: a male mask and a female mask. Between the two you can see the massive differences between the female and male facial components.It's similar to normal maskwork as the mask requires you to cut out old habits that you've developed such as, fidgeting or touching your hair/touching your face. If you touch the mask, it stops the illusion of the mask being an actual being.
The type of exercises Copeau used to practise with his students were developing the art of neutral acting. For example, an exercise we did were 3 people had to 'don' the mask (put it on) and pretend that they were walking along a pier towards the beach, looking out to the sea, looking down, seeing a stone and throwing the stone in the sea. It's alot harder than it looks as when all 3 people did this same action, it was shown in 3 different ways. For example, one person would take their foot off the ground while throwing, another would throw the stone lightly. The feedback was it's best to have a strong dynamic throw that really accentuates the body. As there's a mask on your face you can't use facial expressions to tell the story, you have to rely on your gestures. Because of this, to have exaggerated movements wouldn't be 'neutral' either because its over the top, it would need to have the same energy but to be toned down.
Although it looks easy it's very hard to grasp how to 'neutral act' and feels weird because you can't see yourself when doing it, but you have to imagine in your head what the audience are seeing, and try and go off what you think the audience would find acceptable as that neutral action.
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