Rehearsing Atossa

I realize "Rehearsing Atossa" sounds like the name of a really dreadful romantic comedy (starring, maybe, Anne Hathaway and D.B. Sweeney) about two actors who meet in rehearsals of this, the oldest of plays, and can't stand each other at first but gradually learn to see past each other's masks--literally and figuratively! But I can't think of a better title for the post about rehearsing the role of Atossa, so it stays.

I don't have the mask yet; it's still being finished. The person who's finishing it has apprenticed with Familie Flöz; I knew that all along, but now that I've seen how fantastic their masks are the knowledge has become quite a bit more exciting.

I'm impatient. The mask is a giant part of the character, of course, but there are also matters of physical and vocal endurance to be considered; mask work just asks more from your muscles, and there's no way to do it in performance if you haven't been doing it steadily in rehearsals. Specifically, vocal volume has to be a bit stronger, and articulation has to be even more precise, because you're losing most of the tiny unconscious bits of facial motion that might clue an audience into your meaning even if they miss a word. And what might, maskless, consist of darting your eyes sideways becomes, with the mask, a gesture that involves the whole head. So your shoulders and neck work much harder than usual, which in turn can introduce tension into your vocal apparatus if you're not careful.

So for the sake of getting used to all that, I've been rehearsing with a commedia mask of roughly the same proportions as the Atossa mask: Columbina.

She's not at all like the other commedia masks I've worked with (I tend to be a Dottore, but I also played around a bit with the Capitano and Arlecchino). With the exception of the Strega (witch), female masks traditionally aren't grotesque. It was only in the later years of commedia that actresses wore masks at all--for the purely practical reason that if you were performing in the street, you got more attention when you had pretty women on your stage.

This Columbina wasn't molded to my face, of course, and she doesn't fit perfectly. Columbina is also something of a soubrette, so she's not the most accurate match for Atossa. But for a week's rehearsals she'll do. I've used the mask for two rehearsals now, and there's just no comparison between working barefaced and working with the actual physical mask reminding your body and voice of what to do.

Even though we did several weeks of rigorous commedia mask work, this feels different, as though mask technique is finally settling in and becoming something I can use without a constant, nervous awareness of what I'm doing. I suppose that's because, as Simon Callow says, it's only the lessons of true performance that really stick. I feel as though I learned a lot from the Flöz show too. Anyway, it's good to have a production in which to use all these new ideas.