IN AND OUT OF MASK                                         

By Rita Grimaldi

I have told so many stories in mask over the last year that I have forgotten the look of my own storytelling face without the mask.

Yesterday, rehearsing before a mirror for children’s storytelling, my out-of-mask face seemed flat, two-dimensional.

Rita performing ‘The People of the Trees’

But as soon as I put on Monkey mask, to rehearse ‘Molly the Monkey’ - one of the stories I planned to tell - my whole being came alive. The story came alive. Energy welled up in me and poured into my experience of the story.

It occurred to me that this was not right. My own face must be as valuable a storyteller as my mask face. My energy out-of-mask has to be as deep and available to audiences as when I’m in mask.

The key factor is emotion. Mask automatically brings emotion out of me because mask automatically bonds me with the feeling of being part of the story’s reality. The story’s reality becomes my reality. I see the story from inside rather than from outside.

It is not that I like the stories I tell in mask any better than I like the stories I tell out-of-mask. It’s that the stories I tell in mask I know better. They are part of me in a different way. They belong to me and I belong to them. The transformation of using the mask causes this belonging experience. When I put on the mask, it is as if I no longer belong to my regular life. I belong to the reality of the story.

So here is the Question

How can I tell stories out-of-mask with the same depth as I tell stories while in mask?

Or perhaps the better question is this.

Can my audience experience the story at the same depth whether I tell the story in or out-of-mask?

Here are strategies I use in mask work that can be applied to telling stories out of mask.

1.   First, I think about the main characters in the story.

o   Who are they?

o   What are their desires?

o   Who are their allies?

o   Who are their enemies?

All these questions are unconscious within me while I build the mask. However, the answers will become part of the mask face.

2. As I tell the story out-of-mask, I need to let my body and face express the emotion of the main character. Just as I do when in mask.

My voice needs to be just as dramatic out-of-mask. It has to express a range of volume and be different for each character.

Making each character sound distinct helps the audience separate the characters into different individuals, especially if emotion is added to the voice. For example, a fairy, a witch and a king would not only each have their own unique and different voice, but each voice will tell you how the character feels about their actions.

3. Finally, my clothing has to tell the audience something. Each item of clothing or costume gives a message. I must be aware of what that message is. For example, when we think about suits, dresses, sports clothes, we immediately have images of roles and jobs. I must remember this. What I wear as a storyteller will always tell a unique story to the audience.

I do all of the above when I tell stories in mask. Now I must do them for storytelling out-of-mask.

I have always told my storytelling students to develop their own natural style. Perhaps it’s true that my mask storytelling style has become part of me.

Now I need to let it come into my non-mask telling.

Belonging to the story’s world

I strongly believe that the more I belong to the story, the more my audience will also belong to the story. In a real way I want the external world to disappear during my telling – both for me and the audience listening to it.

Working in mask makes this transition into the story world easier. But I want to work on having equal ability to bring the audience and myself into the story world whether I am telling the story in or out of mask.

Writing this short article is the first step in doing that.

Last week, in telling stories to children, I made some progress.

o   I chose my clothes well.

o   I felt the stories more.

o   I examined who the characters were in a deeper way.

It’s a beginning. All learning first starts with awareness of the situation which then progresses to developing and practicing the skills.

Rita is a co-founding member of Peterborough Storytellers 

in Ontario, Canada.

She can be contacted at peterboroughstorytellers@cogeco.ca