This semester I’m taking a very interesting and enjoyable class: Drama 111 – Introduction to Theatre Design. It turns out, the class is pretty much an art class where the students have to design sets, costumes, and occasionally lighting and sound cues. It is taught by Professor Healey who happens to be a professional puppet and costume designer.
For the first assignment, the class had to read Carlo Goldoni’s “The Liar: a Comedy in Three Acts.” Written in the mid-18th century, this play was considered part of the genre called Commedia del’Arte. The actors in these plays wore masks to identify them as certain characters. Going off of this tradition, Professor Healey asked the class to create a mask while keeping the following in mind.
- Remember that your emotional response must be a three dimensional object.
- The mask does not have to represent any kind of actual costume that you would use in the play. It is an expression of your feelings about the play. That being said you could be inspired by your favorite or least favorite character when creating the mask.
- Think about images from the text that stand out in your mind, try to incorporate those into your mask.
- What are some of the prominent themes from the play? How can you express those themes using images? How do you incorporate those into your mask?
Being the literal person that I am, I really stuck to bullet #3 – “images from the text.” I was inspired mainly by quotes from the text, one being the title of this blog. I picked this quote specifically because it had strong imagery as well as symbolic meaning. The wolf represents Lelio, the character in the play that would be categorized as “THE LIAR.” I also picked out a scene in the play having to do with lace – to me a symbol of purity, honesty, and chastity. The contrast between lace and wolf seemed interesting to me and I decided to play with that.
In the end, my mask turned out to be a wolf wearing a mask. The wolf, Lelio, pretends to be honest and to have pure intentions (the lace mask), but really is not to be trusted.
Marina B. Nebro
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Interested in taking Queens College’s Theatre Design class, or a similar course on a different campus? Read about my experiences!
-Marina B. Nebro