changes College
into Wonderland
Story by Shelley Ball
Photos by Duane Hiersche
The College’s Community Center was
temporarily captivated Feb. 16, when during
lunch a trio of oversized frogs were seen
hopping and croaking about the area.
The frogs were one of several pieces that
were put on by the Theater Masque Ensemble,
a mime group that specializes in using various
masks, costumes and props in conjunction with
their performances.
The three ensemble players included
Theater Masque Ensemble Director Jerry
Monawad, Carol Uselman and Mark
Opshinsky. The four-year-old group is Portland
based, and tour through the Western United
States from Arizona to Alaska.
The group is unique in that they combine
masks with the art of mime, a mixture that
Monawad says “presents an image, but allows
the audience to look at an illusion and play
along with it.”
The masks used in the College’s
performance included original works by
Monawad, as well as copies of masks originally
made in Switzerland.
The masks are divided into three main
types: familiar characters, such as the frog
mask (see photo, bottom right) and costume
piece presented at the start of the ensemble;
human caricatures, or cartoon-like masks,
which were displayed in a piece titled “The
Flower;” and abstract masks, masks that
Monawad said are more movement oriented
than the other masks. A ceremonial mask of
the Kwakutl Indians was also displayed during
the ensemble.
A piece titled “Metamorphosis” featured
the abstract masks. Monawad said that by
placing these masks on top of the players’
heads, and then bending their bodies over,
helped them resemble images of “insects,
anteaters, or things from another world,” he
said. Blake French, a student at the College,
volunteered to demonstrate this procedure (see
photo, upper right).
In addition to the mime pieces, dances
were performed and time was set aside for
audience participation, in which members of
the audience volunteered to go on stage and
learn how to perform as mimes. Volunteer
mimes were given white, “doughy” masks,
which Monawad said are used for beginners
because of the simple, “pure state” emotions
that the masks are used to convey. Monawad
said that a mime achieving a pure state of
emotion is going back to the time when he was
a baby, because it was a time when things
were first experienced, which creates a new
and fresh outlook towards something as
opposed to the learned experiences and
expectations of adults.
Wednesday February 23, 1983