I will discuss the main strategies used by the “invisible” actors to voice the identities of the characters in ancient Greek theatre, and in Wayang Kulit, Balinese shadow puppet theatre. Of course, these two traditions are very different. A Greek actor, covered by a costume and a mask, acted directly in front of the audience and moved his whole body while voicing the character. Balinese puppet master has to act from behind the screen and he moves only his hands. The Greek actor gave voice to one mask at a time; the Balinese puppeteer produces voices of each of the many characters in the play. But there is something the Greeks and the Balinese may have in common: in both performative traditions voice seems to be separated from the physical person. I will argue that it is this separation that enhances and problematizes the construction of gender as well as stimulates the audience to emotionally participate in the performance.
PL
W artykule omawiam sposoby używania głosu do konstruowania tożsamości osoby dramatu przez „niewidzialnych” aktorów w antycznym teatrze greckim i balijskim teatrze lalki i cienia, Wayang Kulit. Tradycje te są oczywiście bardzo odmienne. Artysta grecki, ukryty pod kostiumem i maską, działał bezpośrednio na oczach olbrzymiej widowni i użyczał swój głos jednej tylko postaci. Artysta balijski siedzi po turecku oddzielony od widzów ekranem i sam jeden użycza głosu każdej lalce animowanej przez siebie w scenie. W obu tych tradycjach głos zdaje się być oddzielony od fizycznej osoby performera. Postaram się dowieść, że to oddzielenie pogłębia i problematyzuje konstrukcje płci, a zarazem stymuluje publiczność do bardziej emocjonalnego uczestniczenia w performansie.
Instead of a typical review of a research monograph, this article proposes deliberations on selected motifs from Wojciech Dudzik’s book Maska w kulturze współczesnej Europy: Teorie i praktyka [The Mask in Contemporary European Culture: Theories and Practice] (Warsaw, 2020). Although this subjective choice of themes only partially reflects the variety of problems discussed by Dudzik, thise article situates a number of issues in broader contexts: (1) Recent research has shown a surprising ambivalence towards the pandemic face mask as a protection against infection. (2) Present-day devil masks seem to continue the ancient tradition of the mask as a fear-inducing object. (3) European performative practices ignore the insides of masks, unlike in the East, where they are important to actors, stimulating spiritual contact with previous wearers. (4) Sight bimodality is crucial for performing in a mask. (5) In the digital world, the biometric mask takes power over the individual’s bodily identity.
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