THE YOUNG IDEA

Southland Times, Issue 20491, 19 May 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

THE YOUNG IDEA

FANATIC ECSTASY

(By

Susan Lee.)

“What a relief it will be to be able to wear a mask for a whole week,” the Very Young Person said to me on Monday, with my obvious reply signalling from her by no means unattactive eyes. But because I was of her own sex I felt no call to make the reply courteous, and indicated merely by a slightly lifted left eye-brow that 1 would like her to elucidate the statement. “No matter i how ugly the masks are,” she continued j almost lamely, “they can only be laughted | at, or shuddered at; they are never treated with that distaste, that pity, that superb disregard that we plain people have to suffer throughout our drab and eventless lives. Now, in a mask,” her voice dreamed ever so softly, “there is always Adventure just round the corner,” (I knew by that peculiar resonance in her voice that she was spelling it with a capital) “with shining eyes and parted lips—” “Young Person,” I said, “say no more. Lips are disappointing equerries if you expect them to bring you adventure. Regard them, if you like, as attractive gateways; but always remember that they do not bear close inspection —not even framed vaguely, alluringly, by a mask. It is much better to keep your eye fixed on the mask.” “But what is the use of donning a mask if you are not in the quest of adventure,?” she demurred. “Ah, what!” I replied, and drew a deep breath. She has quite good points about her, my Young Person, despite her overwhelming desire to talk about herself. Take this almost unfailing habit of hers of asking the questions she is expected to ask. I was ready for her. I had spent many hours and perused many mighty tomes in the preparation thereof. Blessed are those who know and are given the opportunity of letting others know that they know! “False faces have not always been a symbol of the spirit of carnival. In the earliest times hideous masks were ceremoniously used to ward off demons, to express totemistic ideas and to scare away enemies. In Africa in the Far East, occasionally in Japan, in China, in Siam, in the South Seas, and in Central America they have been known and used from time immemorial. The reasons why the frightfully ugly and repulsive death masks with which the Egyptians covered their mumuies were so different from the other artistic creations of ancient Egypt were because these false faces were to frighten and deceive the keepers of the gates in the underworld; to deceive with the meaningless ones and to frighten with the hideous, and so avoid molestation by evil spirits.

“For their connections you must go back to the beginning of history.” I was warming to the subject. Recently acquired knowledge has all the sweetness of nuts on the palate. “When the Carefree Greeks celebrated their festivals in abandoned orgies, they painted themselves with wine-dregs—-a sort of war-paint of joy. Later they preferred the use of red lead; then they covered their faces with vine leaves; still later they chose, in place of these, a covering of linen which was painted and had slits for the eyes and mouth. The linen, in turn, made way for leather, which was occasionally gilded. Finally, these estatic symbols which had developed into masks, were made of wood, carved, or of baked clay. This antique hellenic mask was called Prosopon, and gradually it assumed individual proportions, and became an important factor in the presentation of drama, the actor wearing a mask suited to the character he personified. To Thespis of Icaria, who as early as the year 5358. C. disguised the actor’s face by means of a pigment which later became a mask, credit is given for this important innovation. Later the Prosopon came to be made of bronze or copper, enamelled or painted, and designed to add power to the voice so that the actor could be heard at the farthest limit of the vast theatre. This was effected by fastening the mask to the head with a kind of periwig, which covered the head and left only a circular passage for the voice to sound through whence was derived the Latin word for a mask, ‘persona,’ from the verb ‘personare’ meaning ‘to sound through.’ ” My Young Person’s nose was giving an excellent example of this. The deep, even breathing which sounded through it may have been the result of slumber; it may also have been the result of stern concentration. I have always been an optimist, with such questions at stake, so that I continued my remarkable discourse without a tremor. I have already said I was warming to the subject. By this time I had passed the tepid stage, and was enjoying myself immensely. So (I hope) was the Young Person, who is very lucky (although I wouldn’t dream of being the one to say it) to have such funds of learning at her disposal.

“Dr. Georg Jacob Wolf, whom I quote, in an interesting article on the historic use and abuse of the mask, says:

The Alpine people, who have preserved the tradition and customs of their forefathers religiously, have in the Salzkammergut and Tyrol, continued the use of masks in their Perchten dances in which they have incidentally handed down to us relics of heathen performances. They particularly use a devil’s mask of red hideousness, horned and many coloured; also a double mask which covers two dancers in the Perchten dance, and still another, where the wearer appears to have a Janus head. The museums have valuable mask collections of this type, and one is astonished at the expressions of individual masks, the carnival ones in particular being worth seeing. It is well-known that in certain villages, including Oberhammergan, the wood-carver is not only the maker of holy statues, but also of grotesque caricature carnival masks. Many of these are 100 and 200 years old, and remain in the family as heirlooms from generation to generation, as a sort of household god. One knows, for instance that the house of Grassegger has a squinting one, that the Blasirgl has a whistler, another one with a crooked mouth. “Somewhere about the middle of the sixteenth century masked comedy originated in Italy, the action of which was chiefly

carried on by certain typical figures in masks, speaking in local dialects. This became immediately popular with the Italians, and they clung to it tenaciously. The use of the mask was due, it is supposed, to the actor’s appearing in the open air, and at a distance from most of the spectators, its several species being elaborated with great care and adapted to the different types of theatre characters. It lent the actor appropriate expression. In Shakespeare’s time ladies commonly wore black masks to conceal their identity in public and almost invariably did this at the theatre. Hence, if a theatrical company had no male actor physically well adapted to impersonate a woman, he could don a mask and yet not be absurdly out of the picture. In “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” when Flute begs not to play a woman’s part because he has a beard coming, Quince retorts, “That’s all one: You shall play it in a mask, and you make speak as small as you will.” “In these days,” I told my Young Person in such a tone as to make her jump, whether from being impressed or awakened I know not, / “in these days masks had

been practically abolished from the stage, except incongruously in pantomime, until Mr. Eugene O’Neill wrote that amazing play of masks and emotions, “The Great God Brown,” a few years ago. In this he used the putting on and taking off of the masks as the revelation of the outer and inner selves of his characters. The idea might easily have come from the Latin derivation of our word ‘person’. The mask, ‘persona’ (from ‘personare,’ to sound through, you remember) which at first meant mask, gradually came to mean the wearer of the mask, the character itself, and was finally identified with the individual. All people are persons, and so, within the meaning of the Latin tongue, each person, no matter what his walk in life, wore a mask. In his latest play, in which, one is told, ‘the character pauses while the facial muscles are held static and the soul’s thoughts are poured forth in level tones,’ Mr. O’Neill employs masks which have to be imagined. Perhaps ‘strange interlude’ signifies a second step in the return of the mask to the stage. It is a matter which at the present time is extremely debatable, certainly doubtful.

“In short,” I added, the effectiveness of which was consideraly diminished by the Young Person’s murmured “I have always noticed that you w'ere the very soul of wit” which I saw fit to ignore. “In short. I can do no better than be the mouthpiece of Mr. Wolf for a second time;

The basic reason for the wearing of all masks is that man wishes to be other than he is, usually mightier or more powerful. It is immaterial whether or not the mask is donned at an East Asiatic court trial or in the Bavarian Haberfield chase in order to appear strange and awe-inspiring l>efore the culprit. Whether man makes himself more imposing with a temple or a demon mask; whetheron the highly cultured Japanese stage in the No Dances; or the negro in Africa, the Malays, the inhabitants of the South Seas in their religious dances, at death feasts or at flower festivals, whenever the mask is worn the wearers work themselves up to a fanatic ecstasy. The fundamental idea is this: escape from oneself to an imaginary indivuality, a sort of reincarnation here on earth, all brought about by the small object which we place in front of our real face at carnival without giving so much as a single thought to the cultural meaning of the mask and the thousand years of its development.” “And I wonder.” said my Young Person presently, so softly that her voice may have been a thin trickle of smoke wavering among the house-tops, “I wonder what sort of mask you are wearing at present ?” And with that she had clapped on her Columbine screen of lace and silk, and was halfway down the stairs before it dawned on me that there were many forms of fanatic ecstasy—the minx!