Narrative |
The power of the myth and narrative has given rise to a bewildering variety of artistic expression in literary and theatrical arts. It is widely recognized that myths provide the social, cultural, and natural foundations of reality, and that they have the power to evoke and (sometimes) to shape destinies. Above all, narratives organize the way we perceive and understand our selves. The multidimensional appeal of myths has often inspired the creation of masked theatre; storylines and thematic elements of masked performances have drawn from the vast corpus of myths and legends. Popular among these are the age-old myths of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, known throughout India and Southeast Asia. A vast number of specific forms and styles have evolved, shaping and reshaping these stories.
Also in India, there are numerous plays linked to Tantric narratives surrounding Shakti as reflected in the personifications of Durga, Kali, Chandi, and numerous local variants of a powerful mother goddess, sometimes terrifying and bloodthirsty and other times beautiful and benign. The legends of Vishnu’s 10 avatars as set down in the Bhagavata Purana have likewise spawned forms ranging from the Sahi Jatra of Orrisa, to the Bhagavatamela of Tamil Nadu, to the Krishnattam of Kerala – all with a rich vocabulary of masks. The legends of the great guru Padmasambhava are enacted in masked Cham dance throughout Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayan ranges–in Bhutan, Ladakh, and Sikkim. Christian myths centering around the birth and passion of Christ have been staged deploying masks from medieval times in Europe and this narrative re-emerges in the celebratory Pastorela performances of Michoacan, Mexico and even in the contemporary, Marx-influenced passion plays of Peter Schumann’s Bread and Puppet Theater in the USA. Ancient Athenian drama, as evidenced in the extant plays of Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Euripides used masks to work ad rework well known legends of kings and queens and gods, just as the improvisatory Topeng performances of Bali do to this day. New myths continue be generated from more recent history and these, too, have found the mask – and the puppet – to be instrumental; witness the theatrical treatment of Mahatma Gandhi in Indis. |
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Known by many distinct names and forms, the goddesses of Hindu tradition are regarded to be the manifestation of a unifying principle, known as Shakti or Cosmic Energy, characterized as active and powerful. The power and sovereignty of the Shakti principle, personified as goddess Durga, is recounted in one of her celebrated myths in the text of the Devi-mahatmya. Born of the energies of the gods, the great goddess Durga is described as an unconquerable warrior queen, a peace-maker and vanquisher of evil, who slays the buffalo-demon, Mahishasura. The myth describes the fierce battle, narrated in three episodes. When the battle with the demons becomes uncontrollable, Durga creates her fierce form as Kali, the Power of Time. In contrast to the Golden-hued Durga, Kali is black, wide-mouthed, lolling-tongued, with deep sunken eyes. In this form, she represents the condensed fury of the benign goddess Durga. In her terrible form, as Kali, she slays Mahishasura. The army of the demons is laid low and the balance of the cosmos is restored. In the closing scene, the gods hail her as the supreme energy of the cosmos, and praise her victory over dark and destructive forces.
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The episode of Durga as Mahishasura-mardini, the slayer of Mahisha, is performed with great gusto and dramatic effect in masked performances ranging from the Purulia Chho in West Bengal to the Kaliattam of Kerala. The dance generally concludes in a tableau-like freezing of the main characters, resembling the popular image of the goddess Durga worshipped during her autumnal festival. |
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The core epics of India – the Ramayana and the Mahabharata – have given rise to an astonishing variety of masks and theatrical traditions throughout the subcontinent and beyond, generating numerous distinct traditions in which masks define and highlight actions of characters so well known that they provide a referencing grid for human behaviour. The narrative pitting Rama against the rakshasa Ravana – a narrative that is traceable to the pre-Christian Era and which, with its reliance on animal helpers, shows the influence of shamanic themes – has been especially conducive to masked performance. This is hardly surprising, since while the Mahabharata enacts its complex plot (for the most part) through human conflict, Rama’s story – in addition to noble princes (at least one of which is the avatar of a god) and a wronged princess – involves monkeys, bears, a mythical bird, and a great many demons. This is a living narrative tradition, still being reworked in several parts of India, and still popular in a cultural band the extends across Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, and Indonesia in Southeast Asia, while variants may be found in Indic-influenced cultures extending from Iran to Japan. It is even enacted in Sri Lanka (Ravana’s putative home).
The most famous and, arguably, most complex of the numerous theatrical depictions of the Ramayana in India is the Ramlila of Ramnagar, performed on the outskirts of Varanasi under the patronage of that city’s Rajaof Varanasi. Using Tulsidas’s medieval Ramcharitmanas as a textual guide, the town is transformed during Dussehra into a commemorative space, with episodes from Rama’s life enacted at various locations prepared specifically for the occasion for throngs of people who make a pilgrimage to attend. Local versions of the narrative can be found throughout, India, and the text has frequently served a vehicle for Hinduization of tribal populations. Thus, the Gambhira tradition of Dinajpur district in West Bengal features solo dances of characters from Ram Banabas Pala, Purulia Chho features in its repertoire dance versions of key encounters of the Ramayana distinguished by a highly structured and vigorous style, and a particularly vivid version is formed as Bhavada in Thane, Maharashtra. Frequently, the focus and import of the story is adapted to engage contemporary social concerns.
There is historical evidence for masked performances of the Ramayana narrative in Java and Bali from at least 1085 CE. Based on Yogeshvara’s tenth-century adaptations of earlier Sanskrit texts, these masked dramas have developed side by side with shadow plays – also inspired by Indian examples. The Balinese Wayang Wong, a courtly mask dance/drama, is a particularly rich version of the Ramayana, featuring elaborate processions of the monkey army.
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In Thailand, the story of Rama was adapted and rewritten as the Ramakien. The most important masked version of this epic is called Khon and features helmet masks with elaborate superstructures. Scholars believe that Khon was founded during the early Ayuthya period, around fifteenth century CE and that it developed in a complex rivalry between the courts of Cambodia and Thailand that featured the capture of entire palace troupes with the result that now the Thai Khon uses masks that are virtually identical with those of Cambodia Khol. For many centuries, the Thai and Cambodia artists developed their distinctive choreographic formsemployingmusic, dialogue, character back stories, and dramatic tableaus that distinguish these forms from those of India and other nations that have been drawn to Rama’s story. |
Throughout the monasteries in the Himalayan ranges – in Tibet, Ladakh, Bhutan, Darjeeling, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim – lamasand (sometimes) laypeople perform mask dances known as Cham. The power of the sacred dance comes from its use of masks, which, in Tibet, Bhutan, and Himalayan India alike, are intricately designed to represent a wide variety of threatening forces, fierce protectors, animal spirits, and figures from the world of the dead – terrible and comic. The Cham can take many forms, but one of its most popular themes is the commemoration of the great guru Padmasambhava. It is believed that Padmasamabhava descends as anincarnate representative of all the Buddhas in order to bestow grace and improve the conditions of the living. The enactment of the Cham provides a vehicle for depicting root narratives that propound the history and philosophy a Tantric strain of Buddhism that has come to dominate the religious life of this area and to share these depictions with laymen who assemble for the festivals. The masked dances usually consist of two parts. The first pays homage to the eight aspects of Padmasambhava (or, sometimes, Guru Jungey). The second part shows Maha Dongchen, a horned masked figure, slaying and putting an end to the demonic forces that obstruct enlightenment, symbolized in the form of a small effigy made of dough. Once the sacrificial effigy of adharma is done with, peace is restored. |
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Christian myths around the birth of Christ have been a rich source of masked performances. Soon after the Spanish conquered the Aztec empire in the sixteenth century, Spanish monks (hermitaños) introduced religious plays, frequently adapting the skill of native mask-makers. One of the plays transported from Spain was the popular Pastorela, or Shepherd’s Play. The story tells of a group of shepherds who hear of the birth of Jesus and set out to see the Christ child. They are thwarted in their journey by devils, who see the birth of Christ as the immanent end to their control of mankind, and they are aided by a Christian monk and the devils are finally defeated by St Michael. In Mexico, as in Spain, this play is performed during the period between Christmas eve (December 24) and the day of Epiphany (January 6). Though versions of this imported play are performed all over Mexico, the Native American Purepechapeople of Michoacan, have evolved a particularly lively variant, weaving in other festival and mask traditions, some of them pre-Christian in origin, adding new texts and dances (often performed independently of the narrative text), and elaborating the masks of the devils with indigenous motifs. |
Greek |
In Hellenic cultures, the earliest extant masks (prosopan) are of a funerary kind. Gold masks from royal graves at Mycenae (ca.1600 BC) preserved facial likenesses in strikingly realistic detail. Ritual masks, surviving from the cult of Dionysus as seen in vase painting of fifth century BC, show conventional satyr faces. In the Dionysian cult, masks had a ritual function and they were depicted in reliefs, vases, and other objects for decorative purposes. Besides Dionysus, his companions, the sileni and satyrs, were represented with wooden masks and, other deities, including Zeus, Hera, and Oceanus, are also known to have mask representations. Masks were also used to depicthorrific Gorgon heads – horrific images of dangerous female powers who bear some similarities to aspects of Shakti. There is some evidence, however, that the narrative basis for Greek tragedy, may well have been found in stories celebrating the deeds foundational heroes of Greek’s city-states as much as in the celebration of Greek religion. A popular Athenian saying held it that the theatre of Dionysus had nothing to do with its titular god. Indeed, the only extant play that con.
As theatre developed from these precedents in Athens, Thespis is credited with introducing masks made of made of paste and linen to help present historical characters draw from commonly held myths. Developing into striking helmet mask made of more durable materials, these theatrical masks indicated a variety of emotional states in tragedies, comedies, and satyr plays. While the comedies tended be formed around newly constructed satiric fantasies with fantastic characters, the tragedies presented new versions of old tales of kings, queens, and commoners in relation to each other and, often, to divine forces. These same semi-historical tales were told and retold from new points of view and with different points of emphasis and plot deveopments. In the few plays that survive, there are four radically different versions of the matricidal slaying of Queen Clytemnestra’s, and there is clear evidence that the events of the Trojan War and the lives of the Theban Kings – Oedipus being the most famous) – were similarly dealt with very different ways by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides as they tweaked the possibility of these narratives to suit their own political and philosophical interests and beliefs.
Masks continued to be used prominently in revivals of these plays during the 4th Century BCE and in staged versions of new Roman versions by playwrights such as Seneca, as well as in comedies by later playwrights in Greece and Rome, such as Menander, Plautus and Terence. The mask in the Classical period amplified the characters’ most characteristic features, so that they could be appreciated by a large audience seated some distance from the actors, amplified emotions, and allowed one actor to convincingly play several parts. It is said that these masks revealed the “true face” of a character – a strategy also used, for example, in Balinese topeng. With the advent of Christianity, the mask was challenged as a tool deception, though it was sometimes used as a device in Christian miracle and mystery plays, being used to represent both God and devils, and it frequently found use in the emergent pre-lenten carnival traditions, where the Devil and Witch, representing all that is corporeal, sinful, and forbidden, take on the temporary status of anti-heroes. |
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