THE PRINCESS MASK AND ITS TRANSFORMATION - PART 5

By Rita Grimaldi                                  

The Experience Of Performance

Doing is far different than making. All assumptions are off. In my first performance in Warkworth, I assumed that the Bird section would be easy for me. But when I got to it, I stumbled over the words and the mask. Even though the Bird mask was on properly over the Princess mask, it did not feel right. So, preparing for the Peterborough performance, I rewrote again what the Bird says and sees. I also made some changes to the fitting of the Bird mask.

In the second performance, I had no stumbles. For me, it was a purely emotional experience. I felt everything. I saw everything. Looking through the key, I saw as things really are and not how things appeared to be. When I saw the Troll beating the Prince, my feelings of fear and helplessness were real to me. When I was restored to my real Princess appearance and my Prince was restored to health, my joy was real.

The Clothing And Its Effect On Me And On The Audience

Here is the introduction I wrote for another storyteller to say before I appeared in front of the audience to tell the story.

The story of The Linden Tree contains both beautiful and positive times and difficult and dark times. Rita will represent these times with both mask and costume.

The beautiful Princess dress, worn at the beginning and end of the story, will symbolize positive times. Dark times will come in the middle and these will be represented by dark clothing. But these times will not last. They will give way to hope and a positive future.

So you see that I wanted the audience to know before I began that the effect of costume linked to mask was a prime exploration both for me and for them in presenting this story.

Above is the Princess dress and her mask at the beginning of the story.

Can you feel the peacefulness and abundance of dress and mask?

Now here is a powerful picture of my feeling of fear when the Troll enters and I say “The door opened and in came a huge, ugly Troll. His head was as big as a bucket.”

And here I am as the Bird. Again feeling sad and needing the Prince’s help as I sing “I wept over you three times and three times I made you well. Why do you sleep, my beloved?”

Changing In Front Of The Audience

One of the audience members in Warkworth came up to me after the performance and said that it was very powerful that I changed in full view of the audience. I felt I wanted to do this because the visible change allowed the audience sufficient time to adjust their emotions. And as I changed, the harp music playing softly and in sync with the emotional changes, helped the audience feel the emotions with me.

Here is a picture of my transformation back into the Princess dress at the end of the story.

You can see that I have already removed the Bird mask and Bird cloak and I am in the process of removing the dark soot dress. The sheepskin lies on the floor where I dropped it when I became the Bird (see Part 2).

The Experience Of Mask And Costume Together

Clothing affects us more than we know. And changing my clothing affected the emotion of my mask personna immensely. I did not feel the same while wearing the soot dress, veil, and gloves as I felt when wearing the Princess dress. And I am going to guess that watching me, the audience did not feel the same either.

Here are two comments from audience members watching me remove one of the gloves of the soot dress clothing.

“When you took the glove off, in the dark environment of the (Warkworth) stage, your hand really did seem to glow.”

And from someone in the Peterborough audience who knows me.

“I never realized that you had such long fingers on your hands.”

Both these comments indicate that when the body went from the total dark covering of the soot clothing to the whiteness of one uncovered hand, the contrast made the uncovered part of the body extremely visible.

If I were to see this transformation clearly, I would say that the face, the body and the clothing read together to form an outside person’s view of our identity. And in mask storytelling, the mask, the storyteller’s body and the costume form the audience’s view of the story persona.

The Message Of Mask And Costume

Here is the final question.

Does clothing have a message to tell the storytelling audience and the storyteller herself?

My answer after this experience is ‘yes’. My experience wearing the Princess dress helped me feel the positive times and wearing the soot clothing helped me to feel the difficult and fearful times. The Bird mask and shawl fall between these two extremes. Although the bird is free to fly she is not free to return to her human form. She needs the help of the Prince to do that. This is why I originally decided not to remove the soot dress when I put on the bird shawl. Look at the Bird picture again and see how the head is tilted to the side showing her need for help. In some way the Bird acts as a transition that goes this way: soot dress > Bird mask and shawl > Princess dress.

What I Have Learned

Overall the exploration of clothing and mask together has taught me a great deal as a person and as a storyteller.

> It has taught me that emotion does not rest only in the mask face but in the body and clothing of the storyteller wearing it with the mask.

> It has taught me to be careful what clothing I wear to tell stories both in and out of mask.

> And maybe most of all, it has taught me to look more carefully at my own and other people’s faces, bodies and clothing. This act of looking might perhaps tell me what my own story is and what their story is as well.

Rita welcomes your comments about her mask articles.

Contact Rita - peterboroughstorytellers@cogeco.ca