No open-access location is known for this record yet.
No open-access location is known for this record yet.
Toby Wilsher, The Mask Handbook: A Practical Guide (London and New York: Routledge, 2007) The last decade has seen a proliferation of books that emphasise the significance of mask work as a revelatory tool of actor training. The values of physical theatre training has gathered momentum as a result of the availability of the works of Jacques Lecoq in English, in particular The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre (2002) and Theatre of Movement and Gesture (2006) while John Rudlin has extended his seminal book on cotnmedia dell'arte published in 1994 to include, with OHy Crick, Commedia dell'arte: A Handbook for Troupes (2001). No doubt this latest regeneration of interest has been fuelled by Lecoq's death in 1999 and equally by the spectacular success of such companies as Mummenschanz, itself highly indebted to Lecoq's pedagogy. Toby Wilsher is both a skilled mask practitioner and a passionate advocate for the medium. He was the founding artistic director of Trestle Theatre Company (1981-2004), known especially for its work with young people and in theatre-in-education programmes. It gained, however, a particular international reputation for its mask work. In this book Wilsher makes his position quite plain: 'what theatre needs ... at the beginning of the twenty-first century, are more masks and more puppets' and thus he hopes the book will encourage 'more participants to don the mask and connect with the imagination of the audience'. The title suggests that it is intended as a handbook that might promote strategies for awakening the imagination and for developing in actors the powers of outward expression - to paraphrase Michel St Denis' comments on mask work as far back as 1960. Nevertheless, while the title might suggest a broad coverage of mask work for the aspiring practitioner, in fact it focuses on the specific practices and values of the full mask and the implications that come from the absence of a spoken text - 'a silent expressive medium' - on its users. The book itself starts with an historical overview of differing kinds of masks which Wilsher loosely divides between those which reflect a sacred origin and those whose function is primarily to entertain. In this respect, Wilsher's positioning is clear: he has little time for the sacralisation of masks in contemporary theatre practice. It clearly distances him from the evocation of trance-like states that informs Keith Johnstone's perception of mask work in Impro (1981) and, while acknowledging the transformative capacity of the mask, Wilsher is at pains to remind the reader of the full mask's carnivalesque origins. The chapters on 'How the Mask Works' and 'Applications' are hortatory, intended to explain the benefits of full masks and the physical demands that accompany them. In the latter respect, Wilsher suggests that the expressiveness required of the mask actor is different from that required of mime, an arbitrary distinction that needs more clarification than the book gives it. However, as soon as he moves into 'Preparing for the Mask' (Chapter 5), which focuses on the physical demonstration of emotional truth, Wilsher provides useful advice about tension and energy, speed and rhythm through exercises which develop the vocabulary of a mask performer. …
Loading…
Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.