>>PREVIEW
THE MASK MESSENGER
January 27 and 28
Faustwork Mask Theatre
International Festival of Animated Objects
Vertigo Studio (Tower Centre)
From his home in Toronto, Robert Faust begins by taking a piece from his Mask Messenger show, waxing philosophical about the idea of two people sharing a connection over the literal connection of the phone line. For a moment, he’s a wide-eyed hippy cliché, boggled by the complexities of technology, and then he’s returned to himself just as fast.
As a child growing up amid New Orleans’s annual Mardi Gras festival, Faust began his life surrounded by masks. It wasn’t until he began training as a dancer, however, that a class on traditional Bali masks reminded him of the masks from his childhood.
"The image of the human body – you put a mask on and it’s the same as putting a megaphone on the voice. Things come into high relief," says Faust.
Now, Faust’s Faustwork Mask Theatre tours internationally, still using one of his earliest shows, Mask Messenger. Opening as a co-production between the International Festival of Animated Objects and Vertigo Mystery Theatre’s Y-Stage series, the one-man, 18-character production has endured precisely because it continues to instil enchantment in almost any audience.
"I do it for fourth graders, I do it for guys in suits," he says. "Subtract a few characters, change a bit of the text and vocabulary, but it’s the same show working for eight year olds and executives from Apple or Valvoline Motor Oil."
One of the festival’s other presenters, the 'Ksan Performing Arts Group, also focuses on mask work. Through its mainstage show, Our Traditions, a month-long exhibition at the Stride Gallery and Carbon Media and a lecture titled Art and History of ‘Ksan, the group will demonstrate the traditions of the native Gitxsan people. But where ‘Ksan is able to draw on a long history of mask performance as an important part of ritual, most North Americans have little to no experience with masks outside of its dwindling number of trick or treaters. Aside from the success of Swedish troupe Mummenschanz, a mask company whose Broadway runs brought masks to the mainstream, North America’s exposure to mask theatre remains limited.
"We don’t see those native masks in their context, we don’t see them worn by the fire three nights in a row, in altered states," says Faust. "We see them behind glass in museums."
Faust believes that unfamiliarity ultimately attracts people to his shows. There’s alchemy in combining leather, wooden, rubber and plastic masks with a human being to create an entirely new creature. With characters ranging from his wide-eyed hippie to a four-legged mask creature, it’s a chemistry Faust exploits to maintain the energy of a show that relies solely on his presence and the backdrop of his masks to build a performance.
"They see me talking to them as Rob, then I turn around and they see someone else right there, and if I’m doing a good job it’s a bit of a jaw dropping experience," he says. "No film editing, no magic tricks other than the magic of mask.
"I think an actor wearing a mask is a bit like a meat puppet," he adds. "There’s a heightened reality, there’s a frozen face, or with half-mask, the jaw moves like a puppet."
As the traditional work of ‘Ksan proves, the power of masks to change their wearers has made them inseparable parts of cultural ritual, even if North America has largely lost these tribal connections. Now, notes Faust, "masks" have become the figurative ones we put on in our daily lives, or the literal masking effects of makeup, clothing and body modification.
"The big thing is that the show is fun and people don’t think they’re going to watch something, some esoteric ritual from another culture," says Faust. "It’s North American humour where we see characters we recognize: our phys-ed coach, a French artiste. We get to laugh about ourselves and our friends and family, we see ourselves reflected in the show."
Faust will also be teaching a workshop on mask making, Masks on Stage: Serious Fun on Thursday, January 25 at 6 p.m., at The Triangle Gallery. |
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