When man, way back when in Africa, first took a stone and bashed it against another stone breaking it in two... he thought to himself, someone can do that to me. He looked up to the sky, afraid... The Gods... and tragedy is born. The idea that there is something much bigger than you that can wipe you out. It was in this way that Matteo (our mask and movement teacher) described tragedy to us. The fight with the Gods. The inevitable. The hero who knows he is going to die... and bravely sets foot on that journey. The other way he described it was by asking... What is the most tragic room in the house? The answer... The Kitchen. Imagine if the carrot knew its destiny. Or the knife knew its job. Or the hot oil understood what it had to do to the egg. A conscious kitchen. Tragedy right there. Everybody knows... and continues anyway. The opening title sequence to Dexter. Mn.
At the same time that we were studying tragedy... the second years were studying the dramatic - and often tragic - silence of full mask. An interesting parallel because in the end it is all mask... we were just working with a hero and a tragic chorus to amplify emotions and reveal subtext... they were working with a physical mask in a poetic silence that carries exquisite subtext and drama. How? I don't really know. It's a miracle.
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Puja, Marisol and Vicky in masks made by Matteo Destro
Photo by Stefano Borghi |
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