1

Mask and Masked Performance Peter W. Marx Introduction In contrast to many Asian theatrical traditions, Western/European theatre has a much more

difficult – at some points even puzzled relation to masks. Whereas earlier researchers

claimed an almost universal aspect in the mask – they can be found in almost every known

culture – I will rather suggest to focus on the contingency and the historical and cultural

specificities of masks and masked performance. Geographically, I will focus on Western

Europe with a special emphasis on the German-speaking sphere.

I will argue in the following that for the Western context, face and mask turn into almost

opposite poles not only in the paradigm of theatrical/aesthetic representation but also in the

broader discourse of anthropological definitions.

Interestingly, in the ancient period the linguistic distinction between the two emerged only

over the course of time – with a significant shift from Greek to Latin, as David Wiles has

pointed out:

„Yet, when fifth-century Greeks spoke of masks, they had only the word prosōpon, the regular term for ‚face‘. […] Later Greeks coined the word prosōpeion to separate false faces from real ones, but no such distinction was made in the age of Sophocles, when donning a face was no negative act of concealment but a positive act of becoming. […] The Latin term for a theatre mask, persona, was not the same as vultus, ‚face‘, and it gave birth to handy modern terms like ‚personality‘, the front that we present to the world.“ (1)

Wiles refers to the Roman tradition of ancestral masks that played a major role in the

pompae, the funeral processions during which these masks were carried in front of the

coffin. Masks in ancient times have been rather objects of cult (as the theatre itself was) than

aesthetic means for performance.

The Western mask has three key purposes:

- Transgression of one’s personality into a different one. This capacity of the mask places

the object (and its practice) between the realm of aesthetics and ritual; we can regard the

Roman personae as the prototype of this function in connecting the living with the dead

but also the bearer (usually a slave of the household) with the late ancestors. - Concealment of its bearer. This second type is in many cases intertwined with the first

function but it also gains an autonomous meaning in its own right – allowing for actions

that would be otherwise sanctioned – think for example of popular culture figures such as

Zorro or Batman. Lately, the movement of Anonymus has turned the use of masks into its

hall mark.

2

- Creating a new persona. This this type can be observed in the field of theatrical forms

such as the commedia dell’arte – but is exists in the European tradition only as a marginal

or transitional phenomenon.

If we try to classify the different types of masks in categories I would classify them as

follows:

Ritual Para-Ritual Aesthetic Concealment

Pre-Christian period Pagan roots, partly integrated into Christian customs

fueled by aesthetic/theatrical considerations

transgressive/transformative

transgressive instrumental instrumental

Ritual (pompa funebris) Ancient theatre/Carnival commedia dell’arte topos: masked revenger

Antiquity Medieval –> today Early Modern Period

In the following, I will try to tracy these various types (mostly neglecting the phenomenon of

concealment) in order to provide a historical background and examples for my hypothesis.

1. Ancient Times

Since the Attic theatre, the theatre of Athens is the key point of reference when talking about

ancient theatre, we can clearly state that the theatre was installed in the framework of a

religious festival celebrating the god Dionysos. He was – as Wiles points out – associated

with transgression and transformation and the usage of masks. (Wiles, 3; 44) Yet, the

theatrical usage of masks is more or less still in the dark. Some scholars have argued that –

considering the vast performances spaces – the masks were probably developed out of

sheer necessity in order to make faces visible to the auditorium. Yet since no historical

specimen survived, its theatrical use and functions remains in the dark.

Interestingly, in Roman history the usage of masks in a different field is rather well

documented: During the rites of mourning and funeral, (facial) masks of the deceased’s

ancestors were pretty instrumental. The funeral procession (pompa funebris) saw the

theatrical representation – literally an impersonation – of the deceased through an actor. As

one of the sources notes this sometimes grew even into a satirical moment. This was then

followed by the representation of the ancestors:

3

„Sehr natürlich war es, dass sich an diese imago des Todten die imagines seiner Vorfahren anschlossen […]. Es waren Wachsmasken, welche von Histrionen vorgenommen wurden, die an Größe und Figur den Betroffenen glichen, und durch geeignete Costümirung und Geberdung die Aehnlichkeit zu erhöhen suchten.“ (Pauly, III, 545)

„It was natural that this imago of the deceased was followed by the imagines of his ancestors. They were masks of wax borne by actors who resembled in stature and height these ancestors. The actors tried to increase the similarity through costumes and gestures.“

As Kurt Latte has pointed out in his classical study Römische Religionsgeschichte (1960)

this practice of impersonation – which equals the impersonation of gods in other rituals – can

probably be traced back to Etruscan origins. The tradition of these pompae is of interest for

us because it might give a hint on the general attitude towards masks: While they were an

integral part of the ancient religions they were suspiciously perceived in the Judaeo and later

Christian tradition – thus masks as an aesthetic means became a somehow marginal

element in the emerging christian system of representation.

2. Carnival

For the German-speaking realm, we can observe a continuous presence of masks in the

tradition of carnival. Carnival itself – mostly regarded by anthropologists as an almost

universal holiday of transgression. In the Roman period the Saturnalia have been this kind of

a feast that celebrated a fundamental subversion of any order – seniority, political and social

status and even ownership (as slaves became masters for this day). In Christian times,

carnival became integrated in the new cycle of holidays, marking the beginning of lent,

celebrated by a last, excessive feast. Anthropologists have pointed out that Carnival

probably roots in comparable Pagan holidays, building on rites of vegetation. Much to the

astonishment of anthropologists, some of these masks and masked performances have

survived until today: Especially in the area of Austria (Tyrolia), Switzerland, and Germany

(Swabia) some of these rites and customs can still be found.

Usually, the masks used in these performances represent a state of transgression by either

representing demon-like animals. Others depicted the devil himself or witches. The

absurdist, sometimes frightening look of the masks ties them to the mythical figure of the

„Wild Man“, representing a creature standing outside of the divine order.

According to Emmel (29), the St. Nicolas-plays are an essential element in the use of masks,

especially in its para-theatrical function. The best-known (and probably most impressive of

these characters) is the Austrian Krampus – a beast-like creature wearing frightening masks.

While St. Nicolas is rewarding the obedient children, Krampus punishes the bad ones. While

St. Nicolas is celebrated on Dec. 6, Krampus’ day is on Dec. 5. In some communities, there

are even Krampus-parades. While there have been various attempts since the

4

Enlightenment to prohibit the Krampus-tradition it is still carried on, also giving proof to the

longevity of Pagan elements in Christian cultures. The interpretation of Krampus is the devil

probably is certainly not totally correct. He probably rather represents a deity of vegetation –

representing the cycle of death and life.

Usually these figures processed through the streets, sometimes snatched small children or

young girls, carrying them for a little while and then releasing them. In many cases, these

processions are accompanied by noisy music as to expel bad spirits and winter and securing

the return of spring and life. Here the mask is in the middle of para-liturgical practice and a

means of concealment that allows for mischievousness and the transgression of borders.

At the same time, the masks provides a different corporeality, reminding us on Michail

Bachtin’s definition of the grotesque, carnivalesque body:

„[I]m grotesken Körper [wird] durch den Tod nichts Wesentliches beendet. Der Tod betrifft ja nicht den kollektiven Körper, im Gegenteil, dieser wird in einer neuen Generation erneuert. Die Ereignisse des grotesken Körpers entwickeln sich immer an der Grenze zwischen zwei Körpern, quasi in ihrem Schnittpunkt: der eine Körper trägt seinen Tod bei, der andere seine Geburt, sie sind zusammengeschlossen zu einem zweileibigen Motiv.“ (Bachtin 1987, 363)

„The grotesque body is not essentially affected by death. Death does not concern the collective body. On the contrary, he is rejuvenated through every new generation. The collective body is always at the border of two bodies: One contributes his death, the other his birth. They amalgamate into a two-body-being.“

The duplication of man, the transgression of gender and ontological even theological

categories determine the ambivalence of these masks. They clearly become objects of

superstition and various kinds of supernatural belief. In many cases, wearing the mask and

the attribution of the mask is restricted by a complex set of social categories defining social

identity. In Nuremberg, for example, at the turn of the 16th century a new kind of masked

performance emerged, basically restricted to the Patrician youth. These masks, resp. their

ostentatious presentation, Schembartlaufen, were not only a concealment for their wearers –

allowing for all kinds of mischievous behavior – but also sumptuous and precious props to

reveal the social and economical fluency.

Over the course of time, these masks and processions got out of hand, culminated in pranks

and minor assaults and were eventually banned by the magistrate of Nuremberg. But the

masks did not simply vanish, they rather migrated in the medium of illuminated manuscripts,

depicting single masks and actors but also small scenes. Thus the Schembart-practice is

transformed and even dissolved into a mere graphical phenomenon.

Concerning the Carnival tradition of wearing masks, we should be coutious against over-

reaching anthropological approaches that aim at identifying the carnival mask as residues of

5

preceding, Pagan rituals. Some of these masks were rather recently invented and carry a

totally different legacy: In Mainz, for example, documented for the first time in 1927, the so-

called Schwellkopp (swollen head) became one of those new traditions: Over-sized heads,

made of plaster and weighing about 25 kg, these heads are carried through the carnical

parade. They do not represent super-natural or demonic creatures but rather depict

caricatures of contemporary social types. This partly falls in line with the distinction between

the Alemannic carnival (in Southern parts of Germany and Switzerland) and the Catholic

tradition in the Rhineland that eventually gained its shape as a post-Enlightenment form of

revelry with a strong emphasis on satire.

3. Masked performance in the Early Modern Period

At about the same time when in Nuremberg the Schembart-tradition vanishes into graphical

representation, in Italy the commedia dell’arte – the iconic form of masked performance –

emerges. The commedia dell’arte did not use fully spelled-out dramatic texts but rather

rough sketches of plots – a technique that immediately grew out of the organizational and

economic condition of this performance tradition: Performing for audiences of all social strata

and in performance conditions that ranged from open-air market-place performances to

more lavish court performances, the commedia dell’arte is the text-book example of a

socially and physically mobile theatre as Richards and Richards point out:

„For these reasons the players were itinerant, versatile and flexible in their skills and repertoires. Many of the companies operated at different social levels […]. This impelled them to devise a species of production which could meet these different market opportunities and requirements without imposing impossible demands on their time, materials and resources. Improvisation was a mode of production, a way of composing and presenting plays on a bread-and-butter basis, and one admirably suited to the needs of travelling players but convenient too for audiences at all social levels for it made theatrical entertainment more readily and widely avaiblabe than it had been hitherto, and was welcome even in the court sphere, where royalty could now provide regular entertainment at a fraction of the outlay involved in mounting the scripted drama of the literate.“ (Richards/Richards 1990, 106)

By the 1560s companies consisted of about ten players, usually including to vecchi –

Pantaloon (Il Magnifico) and Dottore – two servi or zanni (servants), and one or two pairs of

innamorati (lovers). It was this set of players that were the core of the improvisational

practice of the commedia dell’arte – allowing for quite a range of prototypical structures that

could then be filled with more or less spontaneous additions.

These masks were defined as a mixture of regional and social characteristics: the servant-

characters (zanni) – of course most famously the Arleccino – functioned as go-betweens not

only among the figures but also as an important communicative device between stage and

audience. The Vecchi, in contrast, represent the older generation of socially arrivées:

Pantalone, a rich merchant from Venice, and the Dottore, a scholar from Bologna. Both

6

characters are defined through their mask and costume and also through a fixated set of

characteristics. Only the Innamorati, the lovers, do not wear masks and show –

corresponding to their emotional depth, their real faces.

Rooting in the use of masks in medieval religious plays where devils and demons appeared

with facial masks, the commedia dell’arte used masks to depict the vecchi and zanni. The

innamorati, in contrast, did not wear masks to allow for a more subtle play and a greater

psychological/emotional effect. The comic roles of the vecchi and zanni were even

characterized by these devices:

„Certainly use of masks both signaled and licensed revelry and extravagant stage activity, as traditionally it had done for classical gesticulatores, devil figures in Medieval and Renaissance spectacle, ad Carnival and banquet buffoons. Masks underscored too the highly stylized, pre-eminently theatrical world of the performed play; they served to distance, without divorcing, the traffic of the stage from that of everyday life, and by establishing distinctly non-naturalistic performance conventions which aesthetically complemented the extravagances of the favole, gave credence to the improbable.“ (Richards/Richards 1990, 113)

The essential keywords here are „giving credence to the aesthetic world created by the

performance“: a theatrical traditional that could not rely on a specific setting or a built

structure that already signaled the distinction between the sphere of the imagined and the

‚reality‘ had to translate this line of demarcation – the border between the scena and the

world of its audience – into the physical appearance of (some of) its actors. Their grotesque

and exaggerated outward appearance marked the stage as a sphere of ontological

difference – but it also helped to highlight the ‚naturalness‘ of the un-masked characters:

„Curiously, notwithstanding their powerful visual presence, the effect of the ‚masks‘ was to highlight those figures who did not masks by pointing the greater kinship of the unmasked to the spectators. In the theatrical event there were three planes of reality: that of the masks, that of the unmasked, and that of the audience.“ (Richards/Richards 1990, 113)

Thus, the commedia dell’arte-peformances were based on multiple layers of fiction/reality –

allowing for a complex mirroring of these various levels and of establishing a level of meta-

theatricality that can also be observed in the English Early Modern tradition.

The masks themselves have not survived as physical objects but – in a comparable way to

the Nuremberg Schembart-tradition – have become a fixed motif in the European

iconography. The masks were made of leather and usually covered only parts of the face,

„covering no more than the forehead, eyes, nose and cheeks, leaving the mouth, jaw and other parts of the head free. They were, then, at once striking and yet discrete: the stage figure was manifestly masked yet not to the extent that the personality of the player was totally absorbed wholly by the assumed persona; the mask did not dehumanize the actor, it lent mystery without detracting from the live actuality of the stage figure.“ (Richards/Richards 1990, 113)

As various historical accounts indicate, the masks did not define the actors – which might be

an indication of why we do not have any surviving objects themselves – but were rather

7

considered as tools, stage devices that could be abandoned if required. In his retrospective

account of the Italian theatre Riccoboni writes in 1744:

„Besides, we find in Italy an Excellence not easily to be met with amongst other Nations. No Italian company ever contains more than eleven Actors or Actresses; of whom five, including the Scaramouch, speak only the Bolognese, Venetian, Lombard and Neapolitan [i.e. they are masked] Yet, when they are to act a Tragedy which requires a large Number of Players, every one of them is employed; even Harlequin lays aside his Masque, and they all declaim in Verse as properly as if they were Natives of Rome.“ (Riccoboni in Richards/Richards 1990, 122f.)

‚Laying aside masque and dialect‘ if required by the genre – this could be read as a proof of

the mere instrumental character of the mask. Obviously the commedia dell’arte required this

distance of actor and role – objectified in the mask – to function in its mobile and versatile

mode.

At the same time – and this has been noted various times in the scholarly discussion – we

are facing the contradicition of a exuberant iconographic representation of the mask in

pictures, statues and even in porcelain for which the mask gains a cental position that

probably exceeds the theatrical reality.

Richards/Richards call for a new perspective on the commedia dell’arte mask and

performance in emphasizing that the actor and its role preceded the mask:

„The actors did not simply inherit the ‚masks‘ in all their essential lineaments, from pre-existent embryonic types already available in literature, folklore or Carnival figures. The players themselves often created the ‚masks‘ for their professional purposes. […] If we allow that the actor often preceded the ‚mask‘, then the origins of a particular ‚mask‘ are in most cases unfathomable, for such an actor’s ‚mask‘ would have been rooted in his conscious or instinctive awareness of his own performance skills and personal idiosyncracies, and in what he felt he could best exploit for stage purposes […]. The ‚masks‘ were but an element in the design of the improvised plays which were performed; roles balanced against other roles in that equilibrium of performer ‚lines‘ which determined the composition of companies.“ (Richards/Richards 1990, 117f.)

Richards/Richards ‚secular‘ reading of the masked roles in the commedia dell’arte makes a

historiographic argument agains an anthropological one: While previous scholars tried to

identify the masks with archetypical figures – revealing a subterranean level of culture that

goes further back than any cultural consciousness would allow, Richards/Richards

emphasize the instrumental character of the mask and its essential function for the theatrical

apparatus of a company and its mode of performance. While one could probably make the

case that there might a moment of resonance in which a older cultural level intensifies the

theatrical effect, Richards/Richards instrumental interpretation does away with the myth of

the commedia dell’arte as a cultural residue of older cultural traditions to restore the agency

of its artists and actors in stressing their choices.

I would like to highlight two elements that are important from my point of view to understand

the European interpretation of masks as a theatrical technique:

8

- Mask in this context does not so much refer to the actual physical object than rather to a

style of acting. It refers rather to an entire habitus than to an object applied to the face. As

Richards/Richards have rightly remarked the mask draws a line between various levels of

reality (or fiction) and serves as a marker for the border of scena and the audience’s

reality. - An element that comes with this technique of the mask is a diachronic dimension which

can best be defined as intertheatrical (Bratton):

„An intertheatrical reading goes beyond the written. It seeks to articulate the mesh of connections between all kinds of theatre texts, and between texts and their users. It posits that all entertainments, including the dramas, that are performed within a single theatrical tradition are more less independent. They are uttered in a language, shared by successive generations, which includes not only speech and the systems of the stage […] but also genres, conventions and, very importantly, memory.“ (Bratton 2003, 37f.)

The mask might create an intertheatrical reference which will allow the audience to

recognize certain types across various troupes. But this does not mean that they should be

considered as emanations of a super-temporal archetype but rather as the re-application of

a once successful type.

Even tough the commedia dell’arte is the most famous example of a masked-performance-

tradition in Europe, it is not unique in the Early Modern period: We rather observe a

comparable technique among the various traditions of strolling troupes in Europe. Many of

the had a comparable technique of mask or I should better say masquerade. It is especially

the comic figure that is based on this technique: Hanswurst, Peter Pickelhering or Jean

Pottage are constants in this theatrical cosmos. They all represent more or less fixated sets

of emotional and affective characteristics – such as greed, appetite, a grim humour. As

Günther Hansen was able to show, these figures were recognized through their outward

appearance and constancy was the audience’s expectation when a performance of one of

these figures was announced. Although the use of facial masks is not constantly

documented, we might apply the notion of mask to their entire appearance, including clothes

and head gear as well as movement, and physical characteristics.

4. Banning the masks

Already the French tradition saw the process of vanishing masks: While many of Molière’s

characters cleary show a remarkable resemblance with characters of the commedia

dell’arte, his dramaturgical techniques and his psychologizing of characters were steps to

overcome the rather fixed mode of acting connected with the mask, resp. the masked

characters.

9

Although stimulated by different impulses in the various European countries, the 18th century

sees all over Europe a substantial shift in the paradigm of theatrical representation: Whereas

the mask/masked character was fueled distinctively by their „non-naturalistic performance

conventions“ (Richards/Richards 1990, 113), the reform of theatre and performance under

the auspices of the emerging bourgeois societies called for a more realistic style of acting.

The historic terminology calls for Natürlichkeit (naturalness) – a concept that must not be

misread as realism.

In the french context, it is the public intellectual Denis Diderot who formulates one of the

most influential programs to reform the stage and acting. His point of departure is the alleged

kinship of theatre and painting. He even creates a new dramaturgical unit, the tableau vivant

which he defines as a scene so „natural and true that I would like it to be banned on the

canvas by a painter.“ According to Diderot, the characters on stage as well as their mutual

relations should be almost self-evident by merely looking at them – as he would expect this

from a painting.

While the characters of the commedia dell’arte were legible for the audience through the

coded masks that functioned as fixed signs (although created by the individual actor), the

‚new‘ actor was supposed to be immediately understandable. This new formation of the

theatrical character also changed the formation of the theatrical communication: While the

commedia dell’arte – especially through its comic figures – allowed for an immediate

communication with the audience, the 18th century theatre and its paradigm of Natürlichkeit

created a situation where the scene became a cosmos of its own – as the picture is

independent of its beholder.

The social foundation of this aesthetic shift lay in the emerging bourgeois society – a

development that can be found almost over Europe. Bourgeois ethos called for truth and

sincerity in the social behaviour. This becomes evident in Goethe’s „Rules for actors“ which

he issued for the members of the Weimar court theatre. Here, Goethe wrote:

„Da man auf der Bühne nicht nur alles wahr, sondern auch schön dargestellt haben will, da das Auge des Zuschauers auch durch anmutige Gruppierungen und Attitüden gereizt sein will, so soll der Schauspieler auch außer der Bühne trachten, selbe zu erhalten; er soll sich immer einen Platz von Zuschauern vor sich denken.“ (260)

„Since on stage everything shall be not only true but also beautiful, […] the actor shall also poised to act also offstage as if he were looked at by spectators.“

Goethe’s idea of a perpetual theatre of social control in which the actor gains the position of

an ideal representation of a virtuous subject marks the stark contrast to the mode of

representation associated with the use of masks: While the outward appearance was at the

core of the courtly society, bourgeous ideology focuses on inner values and character. The

10

German dramaturg Gotthold Ephraim Lessing called for a significant shift in the presentation

of the character:

„Alle Moral muß aus der Fülle des Herzens kommen, von der der Mund übergehet; man muß eben so wenig lange darauf zu denken, als damit zu prahlen scheinen. Es versteht sich also von selbst, daß die moralischen Stellen vorzüglich wohl gelernet sein wollen. Sie müssen ohne Stocken, ohne den geringsten Anstoß, in einem ununterbrochenen Flusse der Worte, mit einer Leichtigkeit gesprochen werden, […].“

All moral statements have to root in the heart itself – from there reaching the mouth; it is important that they appear neither as carefully thought-out nor as consciously remembered. It goes without saying that all these moralistic passages must by carefully known by heart – they shall be delivered without any hesitation, external impulse, in a constant flow of words, spoken with ease […].“

Whereas the mask created a moment of distance between actor and character, the ‚new‘

character is an amalgamation of actor and role – their seamless physical unity creates the

kind of authenticity and authorizes not only the aesthetic appearance but also the ethical

impulse that grants legitimacy to the theatre as a bourgeois practice. Thus, the mask does

not only fall out of fashion for its alleged aesthetic deficiencies but rather for its practice of

social representation which is now considered as disingenuous and morally dubious.In the

light of the philosophical horizon of the Enlightenment, the concept of Rationalism and moral

judgement, that the mask turns into the opposite of the face: Where the face figures as the

mirror of the soul, representing honesty and virtuousness, the mask becomes the epitome of

disguise and immoral behavior.

August Wilhelm Iffland coined the new term Menschendarsteller (‚presenter of human

beings‘) as a synonym for actor – he thereby fixated the actor on the tradition of this inner

appropriation of a character – in comparison to which traditional devices such as costume

but also mask appeared as merely accidental elements.

It was the professor of philosophy Johann Christoph Gottsched who allegedly staged the

symbolic expulsion of the Arlecchino of the German stage. Gottsched, a sterne rationalist,

called for a theatrical apparatus that was fueled and governed by moral principles in which

the character was supposed to represent a higher principle. Therefore the Arlecchino was

not only a persona non grata because of his merely physical behavior but also because his

sheer existence, created by a mask, not by moral conviction.

Although Gottsched’s widely discussed reform of the stage was not as successful as he had

hoped for, it marks a significant shift in the Western history of theatre. The new paradigm

helps to build a representational code that more or less still guides Western media culture.

Its key features are:

- The relation of scena and auditorium is defined as fourth wall – the invisible border

between the aesthetic sphere and the audience’s ‚reality‘. Formerly common techniques

such as the pro- or epilogue as well as monologues ad spectatores vanish.

11

- Actor and character amalgamate into one figure – histrionic mastership is defined by the

seamless amalgamation of the two.

- The stage character is immediately legible – it does not require any explanation nor any

external ‚devices‘.

- The narrative framing of the stage claims to be a radical here and now – an immediacy

of events that follow their own rules and that are merely watched by a spectator that is

not to be addressed explicitly in order to keep this arrangement.

The significance of this paradigm lies mainly in the fact that it holds true not only for the 18th

and 19th century-stage but also for the emerging visual media of film and television. The

nowadays prevailing doctrine of psychological realism build on these principles. It is not only

the line of tradition in training actors that goes from Lessing over Stanislawski to the

legendary Actors’ Studio in New York – the hotspot for training US-American actors but also

the concept of the scena as an independent cosmos. In this understanding there is no room

for the non-realistic, ostentatiously divided mode of representation that is associated with the

mask.

As a result of this re-formation of the theatrical apparatus in the 18th century, we can also

observe a symptomatic effect of transformation: Since usually customs and techniques do

not simply vanish if they lose their primary functionality, we can follow these moment

displacement: In this light, it is merely consistent that we can observe the emergence of a

new wave of puppetry at the end of the 18th century. If you pardon me the outburst of local

pride, I will hereby refer to a local example from Cologne: it is the former tailor Johann

Christoph Winters who in 1802 opens his newly established Hänneschen-theatre. While the

puppets are rather primitive stock-characters, his surviving playbooks – dating back to the

beginning of his enterprise – contain the kind of theatrical ware that had been banned by the

bourgeois such as Knight-Plays, Oriental and Miracle Plays. While the newly defined actor’s

body did no longer allow for these kinds of non-realistic representations, the entirely non-

biologic body of the puppet granted the freedom lost in the rigor of the bourgeois re-

formation of theatrical representation.

Epilogue (1): Theoretical Nachspiel

The theatre historian Gerda Baumbach has argued in her seminal „Historical Anthropology

of actors“ (2012) that the disappearance of the mask is not only a shift in the theatrical

12

means but rather the symptom for a substantial change in the definition and perception of

the human being as such. Baumbach suggests a classification of differing historic strata:

Period Name Description Theatrical Techniques

Early Modern Period

Comedian

The actor’s body is understood as merely a physical Leib (‚Body‘). The actor turns his Leib into a symbolic appearance that enables him to tell stories. This Leib is fully part of the mundane conditions of the world – he is physical in a drastic sense: His appetite (in the broadest sense of the word) transcends all precepts of modesty and appropriateness. (Baumbach 2012, 185)

Masks, Masquerade and Costume are applicable.

Baroque Epoch

Rhetorical Style

The actor's body is about to be closed against the world – the use of the body is determined by the affective impulse of the words. The body orchestrates the speech and the literary sense.

Gestures, partly codified.

Post-Enlightenment

Veristic Style

The actor's body is closed against the world; he is object of a complex regime of disciplining oneself and thereby forming the individual in the modern sense of the word – his/her body becomes the expression of the inner state of the mind.

(psycho-)realistic acting

Baumbach’s reading of the development of acting styles is instructive in its radical

deconstruction of the contingencies of cultural developments: In contrast to previous studies

that were driven by the idea of an inner impulse towards veristic representation, Baumbach

underscores that these modi are contingent conventions – inspired and fueled by specific

historical and cultural circumstances, following cultural concepts that are naturalized to grant

them additional legitimacy and authority. The kind of re-reading Baumbach offers allows us

not only to understand the (sometimes lost) multiplicity of aesthetic and theatrical languages

but also reminds us of the fact that aesthetic means might provide perspectives to question

predominant concepts of identity, conditiones humanae and the definition of what human

beings are.

Epilogue (2): The Return of the Mask as an aesthetic Enticement

13

At the beginning of the 20th century, departing from a general feeling of discontent with the

restrictions of realism ( -> especially with respect to the rising influence of photography and

film), theatre practitioners started to look for new aesthetic languages that were thought to

provide new angles and perspectives. It is barely surprising that artists as different as Max

Reinhardt or Vsevolod Meyerhold grew an interest in the modi of representation associated

with the commedia dell’arte. The allure of a non-realistic representational mode, a totally

different way of defining acting interested equally the great director Reinhardt as well as the

revolutionary practitioner Meyerhold. And yet, both experiments sort of stuck in the clumsy

adaptation of a different aesthetic.

It was the Italian director Giorgio Strehler who actually started plunging into the

distinctiveness, accepting the categorial difference and thereby achieved to glimpse at the

different potential of this ‚other kind of theatre‘.

But the mask returned also in the context of the historical Avantgarde: Be it in the realm of

Expressionism – partly dreaming of liberating Western art from its bourgeois, secular context

and leading it back to a Dionysian (in the Nietzschean sense) and ritualistic approach. After

World War II, the set designer Hein Heckroth accepted to provide setting and costumes for a

television production of Strindberg’s Dream Play: Here Heckroth developed a totally new

approach to masks which actually were meant to turn the human actor into a graphical sign:

The flat masks were meant to turn the nightmarish figures of Strindberg into an acting entity

without confining them to the idea of realism or psychological identification.

Concluding Remarks

The Western tradition’ attitude towards masks is more than ambivalent: While the mask is at

the core of the ancient theatrical apparatus – and eventually becomes the emblematic icon

of the histrionic art – the post-antiquity theatre restricts the usage of masks to rather

negative, demonic characters. Here we can observe a broad sphere of intersection between

theatrical activities and the practice of Carnival. Figures such as the Krampus or the

Alemannic witches bear the legacy of the devilish figures of the liturgical plays. Here, the

masks function as a means of transgression of ontological borders: The bearer of the mask

slips into a different kind of being whose character and agency are defined by folk-tale or

mythical figures – thus, granting a license for mischievousness.

In the theatrical context, it is the Italian commedia dell’arte that is the standard reference for

a theatrical usage of masks. Here, the recent discussion has emphasized the instrumental

character of the masks as a means to enhance a social mobile mode of theatre as well as

14

the technique of improvisation. As Richards/Richards argue masks in context of the

commedia dell’arte should be considered as contingent phenomena – rooting in the actor’s

definition of his stage persona.

Although in the aftermath of Nietzsche’s influential re-reading of the ancient culture under the

sign of Dionysos and his emphasis on transgressive rituals masks were highly discussed as

super-historical entities that bore the legacy of a counter-culture, we rather should focus on

their historical contingency. While some practices might contain residues that attribute to

their form and cultural function, the general attitude towards masks is rather instrumental.

Here, a recent debate in the Netherlands might shed some light: Customarily, St. Nicolas (as

an impersonated figure) is visiting families and children at the beginning of December. Here

he is accompanied by a figure called Zwarte Piet (Black Peter). This figure – donning

blackface, earrings and a wig – is first documented in the 16th century, in a historical period

when the Netherlands clearly started their imperial and colonial enterprises. In recent years,

the continuing appearance of the Zwarte Piet has been criticized as being racist. Although a

court refused to rule against the figure, the current practice demonstrates the instrumental

and changeable character of masks even in the para-ritualistic stratum.