About Trestle masks and working process
The Trestle masks were founded in 1981 in Middlesex university by a group of students: Sally Cook, Alan Riley, Toby Wilsher and their tutor John Wright. All of them established a creative way to represent the trestle mask, using physical theatre, puppets and music. It is more important, that the words are not used throughout the performance, just the miming and presentation of the Trestle mask emotion. The Company soon found it`s way to the stars and took over the Britain`s stage. Moreover, in 2002 the company moved to Trestle Arts Base in St Albans.
The whole new era started when the Toby Wilsher, last remaining member of the founders, left the company and passed it to Emily Gray who aimed to make the physical storytelling, using Trestle masks.
Between 2007-2009 the company collaborated with 3 different companies to share their techniques:
- Little India. The whole attention was concentrated on the rhythm techniques, Mudras(gestures), Vedic Chant (the oral tradition of the Vedas, being composed of Pathas. (Pathas is the perfect memorization of the text, using the Vedic pitch accent.) and teh Raga (melodic modes used in traditional South Asian music).
- Lola. The Spanish dance company, focusing on flamenco dance skills of the famous 19th centuri dancer Lola Montez.
- The Glass Mountain. The Polish theatre company, exploring the physical and vocal techniques, particularly the singing-storytelling technique.
They had a partnership with the following:
- York Theatre Royal. A 250 years building, outputting house in their two auditoriums.
- Small Nose Productions. A theatre company, specialising on clown and mask performances.
- VIDEOfeet. Film, graphic designs illustrations, sound and web design
The idea of performing with Trestle mask on, is that the face emotion (happy, sad, confused) should be introduced to the audience through the body language. So again, the hardest part goes to teh actors, learning what would that emotion act like. Let`s is the Trestle mask is happy, the actor more likely will be jumping in the air, dancing, exploring everything around, whilst is the mask portrays the evil emotion, the actor should keep his arms crossed, doing villain, creepy movements in order to match the emotion. Also throughout the performance the masks shouldn`t be touched throughout the performance. Once the actor puts the mask on she/he becomes that mask.
Today everyone was writing an evaluation about yesterday`s performance with masks. I didn`t have a chance to perform yesterday as I wasn`t ready for it because of my absence in college due to championship and illness(sinusitis). However, today, me, Ria and Matthew discussed what we could do for our performance with masks, as they neither didn`t perform yesterday.
We wrote down a long list what we should include in our performance.
- Sound effects
- Lifts/weight taking
- Very physical
- Put on/off mask facing the wall, not the audience!!!
- Do not touch the mask
- Slow motion
- Props (fan, maybe torch, necklace, chairs)
- Different levels
- The use of projector for images
Ria came up with idea of using a giant clock as the symbol of time machine. She also suggested using props that symbolizes different times. For example, tutu skirts symbolizes 80s, fans were used in roaring 20s.
Matthew suggested that we could use the music as background of each years.
On Tuesday 17th May we have finally finished with Trestle Masks performance. We started working on it since early February on our free time and I came up with idea of using the time machine to travel through times. As it was only 3 of us : Matthew, Ria and I, Ria came up with idea that everything should start from the classroom. Then, she suggested, that we could use totally opposite characters: such as sad and happy, or evil and angel. Matthew suggested that he could be a teacher and Ria can play the evil character as she really wanted to get play the evil movements and body language as she researched a lot about it and I could play the `dump` one, who always flops and creates the difficult situations out of no where.
As we started working on it, I suggested that we could use only two different times: World War 1 and future as that would be more than enough to fit into 5 minutes piece as we rehearsed before with 3 times. including 80`s, our piece was about 9 minutes long, which is way too long.
On our last rehearsals we started thinking about props, costumes and set. Costumes and set was quite easy, as for me and Ria - secondary school student we would be using a white shirt and black trousers, whilst Matthew as a teacher will be wearing all black (smart) clothes. Set struggled little bit with set as we did not know how to portray the time machine for audience to understand it clearly. We tried to put 3 chairs and then sitting down on them and shaking like during the earthquake but that didn`t work as it was too messy. In that case, I came up with idea using the posters with titles on it. For example, as we went to the museum, Matthew picked up the poster, on which was written "WELCOME TO THE MUSEUM", whilst me and Ria moved the chairs away from the stage after the first scene, which was classroom. We didn`t want to make the stage look crowded with the `museum objects` so we decided to mime it, which worked wonders as we had enough space to move and did not need to worry about flipping on something.
Props was the hardest part as we didn`t know how to portray different times without changing too many clothes and props. For example, how clearly transfer the scene from World War 1 to the future. Then Ria and Matthew suggested using the sound effects for each scene, which was taken from YouTube and Carlos helped us out, controlling it. Carlos did a great job, just played some of the sound effects too early which made a bit mess in science but we tried to not to show that. So for the first classroom scene we used the school bell to show the audience that the lesson has started, then for the second scene in museum we used the original sound track from the movie Night At The Museum, followed up by the shutting gun and war sound effect for the WW1 scene and futuristic/robot sound effects for the future scene. I believe, that we could have used more of the sound effects for the end bit, where the time machine explodes and me and Ria (students) try to run away.
What worked?
What could have been better?
I noticed that I my mask/face wasn`t facing the audience all the time, as it supposed to be that is a tiny mistake because we don`t use the words so audience needs to see the mask emotion all the time in order to understand what`s going on.
Clearer transactions between the scenes. For example, when we are going back to machine from WW1 maybe we should have used freeze frames instead of going back to time machine out of nowhere, same with the robots scene.
As I mentioned above we could have included lifts and weighting but we were not able because of health problems. At least we tried.
What have you learnt working with mask? And how will this work help me as an actress?
As an actress I learnt how important the body language is in the theater. I noticed that before when I got to play Caliban in the Shakespeare`s play The Tempest but then I had also lines to say. It is a completely different thing when the mask covers all of the face, and you can see through the tiny holes - eyes. Moreover, it is very hard to breath as the mask is very close to the face and all the air seems to be circulating in the same space. For me it was really disturbing because I was not get used to wearing something on my face, especially when performing. Also, it was always going down and hampering my eyelashes so I had to displace my jaw in front in order to make the mask stay a bit further from my face.
Another important thing I learnt when performing with Trestle masks is that once you put the mask on you not supposed to touch it until the end of the performance, when you turn around, count to 3 and take the mask off. it also should not be wore on the top of the forehead.
The final thing would be different physical theater skills. Especially, when playing different emotion. I did not notice before how important is to thing about the emotion of the playing character. Because it affects the way character moves and uses it`s body language. For instance, if the character is happy, is more likely to be jumping around or energetically spreading the energy around the stage and audience, whilst a sad one will hold it`s hands down, will be moving slowly, angry or evil will have hands crossed on chest, rubbing palms as planning something bad, etc.
To sum up, next time I will be preparing to get under the skin of my character I will analyze what emotion it`s feeling, thinking about the character`s background and how it affected it`s mood. Then trying to apply the right body language skills to match the playing emotion.
Evaluation
On Tuesday 17th May we have finally finished with Trestle Masks performance. We started working on it since early February on our free time and I came up with idea of using the time machine to travel through times. As it was only 3 of us : Matthew, Ria and I, Ria came up with idea that everything should start from the classroom. Then, she suggested, that we could use totally opposite characters: such as sad and happy, or evil and angel. Matthew suggested that he could be a teacher and Ria can play the evil character as she really wanted to get play the evil movements and body language as she researched a lot about it and I could play the `dump` one, who always flops and creates the difficult situations out of no where.
As we started working on it, I suggested that we could use only two different times: World War 1 and future as that would be more than enough to fit into 5 minutes piece as we rehearsed before with 3 times. including 80`s, our piece was about 9 minutes long, which is way too long.
On our last rehearsals we started thinking about props, costumes and set. Costumes and set was quite easy, as for me and Ria - secondary school student we would be using a white shirt and black trousers, whilst Matthew as a teacher will be wearing all black (smart) clothes. Set struggled little bit with set as we did not know how to portray the time machine for audience to understand it clearly. We tried to put 3 chairs and then sitting down on them and shaking like during the earthquake but that didn`t work as it was too messy. In that case, I came up with idea using the posters with titles on it. For example, as we went to the museum, Matthew picked up the poster, on which was written "WELCOME TO THE MUSEUM", whilst me and Ria moved the chairs away from the stage after the first scene, which was classroom. We didn`t want to make the stage look crowded with the `museum objects` so we decided to mime it, which worked wonders as we had enough space to move and did not need to worry about flipping on something.
Props was the hardest part as we didn`t know how to portray different times without changing too many clothes and props. For example, how clearly transfer the scene from World War 1 to the future. Then Ria and Matthew suggested using the sound effects for each scene, which was taken from YouTube and Carlos helped us out, controlling it. Carlos did a great job, just played some of the sound effects too early which made a bit mess in science but we tried to not to show that. So for the first classroom scene we used the school bell to show the audience that the lesson has started, then for the second scene in museum we used the original sound track from the movie Night At The Museum, followed up by the shutting gun and war sound effect for the WW1 scene and futuristic/robot sound effects for the future scene. I believe, that we could have used more of the sound effects for the end bit, where the time machine explodes and me and Ria (students) try to run away.
What worked?
- Physical theater. I noticed that our body language was quite strong, knowing that we did not use any words. That developed our physical theater skills.
- Miming. We used quite a lot of miming skills in order to make the piece funnier and clearer.
- Levels. We were thinking what else we could use writing the list of physical theater skills that doesn`t include talking and levels was a good idea to insert in our performance. For most of the times we were standing up but there were moments where we were sitting on the chair or lying on the floor as in the WW1 scene which counts as using different levels.
- We couldn`t include lifting or weighting because Matthew got problems with his back and I have problems with my knee and me and Ria couldn`t lift each other even though we wanted to. We wanted to include that as we enter the time machine.
- Stylized movement. Ria`s body language was evil as she played the emotion which was on the masks, my body language was like the person who iss always lost and doesn`t know what`s going on around, messy and weird movements, Matthew used a smart, strong and suprosed body language in order to impart his character.
What could have been better?
I noticed that I my mask/face wasn`t facing the audience all the time, as it supposed to be that is a tiny mistake because we don`t use the words so audience needs to see the mask emotion all the time in order to understand what`s going on.
Clearer transactions between the scenes. For example, when we are going back to machine from WW1 maybe we should have used freeze frames instead of going back to time machine out of nowhere, same with the robots scene.
As I mentioned above we could have included lifts and weighting but we were not able because of health problems. At least we tried.
What have you learnt working with mask? And how will this work help me as an actress?
As an actress I learnt how important the body language is in the theater. I noticed that before when I got to play Caliban in the Shakespeare`s play The Tempest but then I had also lines to say. It is a completely different thing when the mask covers all of the face, and you can see through the tiny holes - eyes. Moreover, it is very hard to breath as the mask is very close to the face and all the air seems to be circulating in the same space. For me it was really disturbing because I was not get used to wearing something on my face, especially when performing. Also, it was always going down and hampering my eyelashes so I had to displace my jaw in front in order to make the mask stay a bit further from my face.
Another important thing I learnt when performing with Trestle masks is that once you put the mask on you not supposed to touch it until the end of the performance, when you turn around, count to 3 and take the mask off. it also should not be wore on the top of the forehead.
The final thing would be different physical theater skills. Especially, when playing different emotion. I did not notice before how important is to thing about the emotion of the playing character. Because it affects the way character moves and uses it`s body language. For instance, if the character is happy, is more likely to be jumping around or energetically spreading the energy around the stage and audience, whilst a sad one will hold it`s hands down, will be moving slowly, angry or evil will have hands crossed on chest, rubbing palms as planning something bad, etc.
To sum up, next time I will be preparing to get under the skin of my character I will analyze what emotion it`s feeling, thinking about the character`s background and how it affected it`s mood. Then trying to apply the right body language skills to match the playing emotion.
