Raye brought a guest instructor into class on Monday: Thomas Prattki. He was a student of LeCoq and founder of the London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA). He had us for about two hours, during which time, we did some introductory mask work and explored the idea of tapping our id, our most basic and immediate self, in performance. Naturally, being rooted in LeCoq, it’s very much about freedom to play and using your body.

When we perform, we depict a character’s psychology in our outward behaviors, which is of course necessary, but what an audience truly responds to on a deeper level is when they can see a performer openly and viscerally experience something universal and how that manifests itself in the performer’s body.

Wearing neutral, expressionless masks, we attempted to penetrate beneath the ego, our psychology and conditioned behavioral responses, and simply observe experiencing something in a purely present and accepting state.  Watching others engage in this, I noticed that the person underneath really radiates through the neutral mask.

[This is the female neutral mask. The male has a slightly different brow.]

It’s really about openness to experience. We’re so used to thinking of acting in terms of our specific responses to stimuli, but we tend to neglect what it means to actually receive that stimuli, which really makes for a more impactful, truthful performance.

Case in point: Thomas gave us the very simple and specific task of walking out onto a pier to say goodbye (worldlessly) to a friend (forever), but finding that we’re too late and can only wave at the boat far on the horizon, not sure if the friend can even see us. Then, having said goodbye, we turn and leave.

One by one, we donned a mask and followed the instructions, but we all had one thing in common: We engaged in psychologically motivated behaviors in response to the goodbye, which are ways a person refuses to accept the goodbye. The point of this approach, however, is to throw that away and open yourself to the pure experience to which you’re responding. To just take it in, experience the goodbye, and not deflect it or avoid it or get emotionally demonstrative in combatting the goodbye.

This was my first real experience with specifically this kind of work, and I loved it. I want more. It feels like just the kind of stimulation I’ve been craving as an actor. I’ll be on the lookout for more classes and workshops in mask work and movement, for sure. This is precisely the type of thing I wish I’d gotten in college, and one of the things that makes me consider graduate school.