Between mask, body and scene.

Unmasking the birth of a play

Abstract

The text thoughtfully explores the progress of meanings rhizomatically expanded throughout the rehearsals of a project, “Opaque and Neutral Masks: from the self-cognitive training to the composition of scenic material”. The aim of this work is to look into the ways ideas and emotions that are part of the play in process were twisted and turned. It exposes the dialogue between the apparent expressive rigidity of mask and incitement on a stage that oscillates between what is to be expected and what is alarming, what is banal and what is spectacular, what is human and what is animal, what is permanent and what is ephemeral. More than a review, in this text we inquire into the creative process of a theatrical event that overflows the standards of stage and verbal languages, the idea of direction as something omnipotent, the script as a complete fact that must be closely followed, the work as a product of a creative genius, someone inspired and in solitude, and the mask as a concealing device. Here, the writing process does not have the purpose of establishing a completed knowledge, being witness of a concluded subjectivity. It follows the trail of an experimentation that finds in its threshold a porous and productive limit into which the meanings that seemed unmutable can be poured.