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 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
