Synopsis
Playing the Mask - Acting Without Bullshit
Published by Nick Hern Books
++ 25% DISCOUNT ++
"Masks are empowering They enable you to take risks. They provoke you into working with the reckless logic of a six-year-old or the enigmatic stillness of someone wiser than you'll ever be. But above all, masks let you be you without your habitual limitations"
Award-winning theatre-maker and teacher John Wright explores and demystifies mask-work:
What masks do
How they do it
And - above all - what they can teach us about acting
This book is a wonderfully accessible introduction to a fresh and innovative acting technique for actors, theatre-makers and teachers to use in training and rehearsal
A mask releases the actor to be playful, and playfulness generates ideas, finds meaning, develops characterisation
And is infinitely more fun than traditional training
Rather than a dry guide to making masked theatre, it is about, for instance, playing Lady Macbeth in Red Nose
Or Hamlet in the mask of The Victim, The Ogre or The Fool
Or even Romeo and Juliet in grotesque half-masks
All in the name of liberating your creativity
And, ultimately, improving your performance
Extensively illustrated with a rich variety of masks, this inventive and pragmatic book is full of invaluable games and exercises drawn from the author's own workshops
John Wright is co-founder of both Trestle and Told by an Idiot, and his pioneering mask and clown work has been used in many professional productions
REVIEWS
"Brilliant, entertaining and accessible" ~ Paul Hunter from his Foreword