Theatre for the Ancient Greeks was not just entertainment; it was part of the worship of the god Dionysus during religious festivals.
Masks were also worn in Greek theatre this was because the number of actors varied from one to three, they had to put on different masks, in order to play more roles. The actors were all men. The mask was therefore necessary to let them play female roles. Another reason for wearing the mask was that the mask amplified the hypocrite’s voice, making it possible to hear him everywhere in the theatre. Next, because the masks were pretty simple, the audience would be able to pay more attention to the hypocrite’s actions rather then his appearances. The masks worn do much of the same thing that the costumes do. However, the masks are personalized for each character. Special emotions were expressed on the mask, so the audience knew if a character was happy, upset, tired, or scared. Since the masks could be seen even in the last rows, the audience could tell how the character was feeling. Thespis was the first writer to use a mask. Usually the masks were made of linen, wood, or leather. A marble or stone face was used as a mould for the mask. Human or animal hair was also used. The eyes were fully drawn but in the place of the pupil of the eye was a small hole so that the actor could see. When wearing a mask, the actor would have to face the audience so that it could be seen; so all fights were done towards the audience etc. When the character wasn’t “onstage” he would turn so the audience could see the back of him, showing he wasn’t present.
After looking at Greek Theatre and how they used masks, I designed a mask for a character that I wanted to play in our own Greek theatre performance piece.
To make my mask I started off with a small piece of rectangle cardboard, which I rolled one way then the other to make the cardboard shape around my head easier. I then got someone near me to mark on where my eyes and nose were on the cardboard, so that I could design the face of the character onto the mask. I then drew on the eyes; we had a choice of which eyes to use depending on our characters for example we could use angry, happy, sad or normal. I chose normal eyes; as I didn’t know what character I was going to be at the time.
After drawing the eyes I realised that it looked like duck eyes, so I chose to be a duck. Once I had drawn my eyes, I had to decide what nose to use. Once again we had a choice: button nose, long nose or a beak, of any size. I used a beak, which originally started as a pointed triangular shape, but after I had fixed it onto the cardboard with masking tape I realised that it didn’t look like a duck’s beak. So I sat starring at it for a while trying to work out why it didn’t look like a beak and after about 15 minutes of staring I realised that ducks don’t have a point on their beak they are slightly rounded. I then cut it to a rounded end and it looked perfect, I added eyebrows to the eyes, by twisting some newspaper into long strips and securing them onto the cardboard with masking tape. I then started to papier-mache. (This is where you put paper into PVA glue and stick it onto the cardboard) and after a few coats it will make the mask stiffer and less likely to bend about whilst acting in it when on stage. All together I believe that I did around 7 layers of papier-mache. I then had to make a cradle so that the mask would stay on my face, to do this I cut two pieces of long cardboard and then I got my sister to connect the two pieces to the mask and then I could secure it with papier-mache.
I then made myself fourteen feathers to go around the top of the mask to: give the mask more colours and also to make it more obvious I was a duck. To make the feathers I cut some cardboard into an oval shape and then I twisted some more paper into a small, tight strip and secured it onto the cardboard and then I did this for everyone, then I had to papier-mache these.
After this I was trying to find the best way to fix the feathers onto the mask, someone suggested that maybe I should of just papier-mache them onto the mask. But I wanted to make a suggestion of my own and I came across split pins (also known as a windmill pins) and I thought this could work well, they could all move slightly like a real ducks feathers do. After fixing them to the mask, I painted it. I wanted it to be bright coloured so the children would be attracted to the mask and not to my actions. The face itself was red, the beak was a dark blue and the feathers were a navy blue with purple. I did several layers of paint and then when it had finally dried I started to rehearse with the mask on. As I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to act with having to look at the audience all the time.
Our performance, in the group there was Simon, the Evil Thig, Sophie, Peaches, Princess Peaches, Deanna, Gobbles the Goblin, Kirsten, kitty the kitten and me quackers the duck. We decided that, as our story had to have a moral so we would have evil and nice characters. We looked at the characters we had and decided to have Peaches in a thrown stage Left with Gobbles as her slave and Kitty, her most precious thing in the world, sat purring next to her. We decided to do this to show Peaches authority over the rest of the characters. Evil Thig and Quackers were stage right, in freeze until Gobbles called them in and Peaches banished them from Banana Ville for stealing the Bananas. We decided to put Evil Thig and Quackers separate to show that we were unwanted and to show that we weren’t in the same place as Peaches and the others. Evil Thig and Quackers then leave Peaches’ house. Peaches goes into the village to do a bit of shopping and Evil Thig and Quackers come up with a plan to steal Kitty as Evil Thig loves Peaches to much to leave the kingdom. Peaches then came back to her house to find Gobbles tied up & Kitty gone. Her and Gobbles then head of towards Evil Thig’s Castle and then Evil Thig confesses his live for Peaches they get married and Quackers got pushed away and the others lived happily ever after.
I think overall our piece went well; there were things that went well and things that needed to be worked on more. Some of the good points were, where we used the split stage between Peaches, Kitty and Gobbles & Evil Thig and Quackers, although the children at Beaupre didn’t understand it – I thought it worked well as it showed two different places at once and it saved us having to turn around through out the whole performance as I took time where as we could go straight into acting instead of having a possible empty stage. I thought it was also good when we used levels between Peaches, Kitty and Gobbles throughout the whole piece- this worked well cause it gave something interesting to look at and showed who was the most dominate on stage.
Some of the things I don’t think worked are where Quackers scared Gobbles away from here master- I don’t think this worked as quackers wasn’t loud enough or scary enough. Projection wasn’t very good either with some characters; preventing people towards the back of the audience couldn’t hear you. We also needed to be aware of the stage and make sure we used it all, as I don’t think we used it as much as we could’ve done. I think we probably could have added a few more comedy points into the story so the children could have enjoyed it more, as watching the other group they had more comedy and the children certainly enjoyed it more. I also think we could have made the moral stand out more in the story.
My mask had brilliant peripheral vision I could see everything that was going on, on stage beside me. I also had some stark contrast on it with the dark eyebrows and then the bright red face. Also the contrast between the purple and indigo feathers worked better then I thought it would. It had a good nose space to allow good projection, and also the feathers being able to move around on split pins worked well as they made it look even more real like. I needed to take care a little more when painting as after the paint had dried I had realised that the left eye had dripped red paint onto the dark coloured beak.
