Aim of Task: To learn about Commedia del Arte character masks, to know the characteristics of our specific character mas and to make the Commedia del Arte mask that corresponds to our character (Pantalone in my case).
Description of Task: First, we had to get an idea of what our character mask should look like. Therefore, we investigated about the characteristics in our masks and drew a sketch on a piece of paper. Pantalone, my character, almost always has thick eyebrows and a falic-like nose. I know his animal is a chicken, so it should have a lot of wrinkles in his face. Here is a picture of the sketch I did before starting the making of the mask:
First, we molded the mask with clay. We used a very hard, yet very mold-able, kind of clay. We had to use a lot of clay to make the details since Steve told us to "not be gentle" with characteristics. Therefore, we had to use a lot of clay to make the nose and the eyebrows. We used a cutter to leave space for the eyes. We had to put the clay in our faces to see if the size of the mask was adequate and keep on asking our peers how could we improve the mask according to our face. After we were done doing the mold, we took it outside to the roof to put it somewhere were the mold could receive sunlight and dry. We left it there for a whole day for it to dry
After we had the mold, we used cotton and polyester cloth to make the mask. To paste the cloth to the mask we used a mixture of water and glue. To make sure the mask will end hard enough, put three layers of cloth on top. Cutting the cloth and pasting it was a thorough activity. We had to make sure that the cloth was in the edges of each characteristic in the mask, so there would be no problems when the cloth hardens. After finishing putting the three layers of cloth, we let the masks dry for another day.
After letting them dry, we used paintbrushes to paint the masks. Pantalone usually uses a dark color so I decided to paint the mask in a dark gray paint and use light gray paint to emphasize the characteristics like eyebrows and lips.
The final result was very different from the sketch. Using light gray in the mask really helped emphasizing the characteristics but the mask was too long; it's difficult to use the clay mold to shape it to the size of your head.
Reflection: Next time, in order to make a clay mold that would more accurately fit my face, I could make a paper shape that shapes my face to put the clay on it. The nose could have been bigger to exaggerate the characteristics in commedia. Also, the nose ended positioned over my mouth, which obstructs my voice when I am speaking. Bigger wholes for the eyes would have been better also to have a better view through the mask.
Conclusion: Making a commedia del arte mask can be lengthy process. There is different characteristics in different commedia del arte characters that must be emphasized in masks. Now that we have made the first mask, if we have to do a second mask we can use difference things to enhance it like draw a shape of our face before in paper so we can put it on top of the clay.
Aim of Task: To make a mask design on Pantalone so we can later use it to design the mask.
Description of Task:In an A4 or double-A4 sheet of paper, we drew the design of a the mask of our character so we could further develop it to a mask. I looked for images of "pantalone" mask on google and found several masks: most of them very wide and in dark colors like black, brown, etc. A common characteristic on most of the masks, was very wide eyebrows and big nose. The description that the book "Commedia dell' Arte: An actor's handbook" did about the mask was "Long, hooked nose with bushy eyebrows, sometimes also a moustache. Pointed beard just forward as if to meet the nose coming down, thus giving a very dynamic profile".
While designing the mask I tried to emphasize the "hooked nose" aspect and very large eyebrows. Many of the masks that I saw on Google images had hairy eyebrows but since I didn't have anything to make the eyebrows specifically hairy, I drew the design with eyebrows of rough texture so I could later do it on the mask. This is the final result of the design:
Reflection:It is important that the mask that each of the characters in Commedia dell' Arte wear a mask with consistent characteristics so the audience can associate each mask with the personality of each character and the things that they commonly do. It is important to make a mask design before making the mask to be sure to have a mental image of the final product of the mask.
Conclusion:Commedia dell' Arte largely relies on a consistent image of different characters throughout different scenes. This is why the designing of a mask according to the character's personality is important, so that the audience can identify it in different plays.
Aim of Task: To recall what we had done before holidays. Remember the concept of status on stage.
Description of Task: After greeting us for new years and holidays, Steve took a deck of cards, shuffled it and asked for two volunteers. He gave a card nobody else saw to each one of them. The lowest value the card had, the highest status this person was going to play. In that sense, Ace would mean the highest status possible and King the lowest status possible. After giving the cards to the two volunteers he asked each one of them to walk from opposite sides of the room to the other side; using the status they had in the card. The rest of the class had to guess. It was interesting to notice who had a highest status from the two. However, in some cases, like when one person had a 5 and the other one 6, it was very difficult to guess because the status was almost the same. It was a good exercise to remember the basic characteristics about high and low status though; high status: careless, confident; low status: emotion showing, rejected, defensive body posture.
After that, we all sit in a circle. Two people went up in the middle on the circle and started improvising a scene. One of them played a high status character and the other one played a low status character. Then, whenever somebody in the circle felt like it, he would say "stop" and take the place of one of the two actors. However, this person had to change the character so if it was a low status character, it would change to high status and if it was a high status character, it would change to low status. This helped create different scenes with different characters who showed different statuses.
Reflection: When somebody changed character with someone else, he had to take the position of a character that is higher status in society. For example, if the other character was a student, the person would take the teacher character which is a person of higher status/authority in society. Other characters that students in our class took as high status characters were business owners, security guards and policemen. I think that there is certain positions of people we see daily that have authority and normally hold a high status in everyday life.
Conclusion: Normally authority plays a great role in status. Somebody who has authority can implicitly demand more from the other people around him. When acting somebody of authority during a play, a high status should be taken into account.
