THE REDEMPTION OF WOLF MASK - PART THREE

By Rita Grimaldi

Developing A Costume To Reflect Wolf’s Inner Changes

My Changes To The Wolf Mask

In Part Two, I talked about rewriting the story of ‘The Iron Wolf’ in a way that would allow the wolf to choose reason over instinct.

Now wishing to reflect this change in the mask itself, I choose to see fur as representing instinct – the animal side, and cloth as representing reason – the more human side.

Here is Wolf mask redone for the story.

See how Wolf now has cloth on both sides of his lower face. I have also given him an extra piece of fur to each side of the lower face. By making these changes, I want to say that in my revised story, Wolf now has a choice to follow either instinct or reason.

My Choice Of Clothing For ‘The Iron Wolf’ Story

The original story of ‘The Iron Wolf’ is a Russian fairy tale.

So for my base clothing, I chose traditional Russian male clothing. But I also wanted to reflect the balancing of instinct and reason in some way in the clothing costume. So I took the tie that goes around the hips and added to it. On one side, both fur (instinct) and cloth (reason). On the other side, I added only fur.

Finally, I added the last part of the costume - fur wristlets for each arm.

The amount of fur and cloth in these last pieces is not balanced. There is more fur (instinct) than cloth (reason) because in the new story, Wolf is stronger in instinct than in reason.

At the end of the story, after Wolf’s death and reconstruction - when Wolf chooses to function by reason - I will remove the sash and the wristlets.

THIS ACT WILL BE A SIGN THAT WOLF IS NOW READY TO CHOOSE TO FUNCTION BY EITHER REASON OR INSTINCT.

And, as I have rewritten the story, his choice is reason.

This is the right choice because it keeps all the characters in the story alive including Wolf.

January 3, 2016

To be continued…

Part Four will be about the rehearsal and the performance of Rita's version of 'The Iron Wolf'.