Neutral Mask Workshops

Alasdair Satchel, known throughout Argyll and the Isles for his work as Education Officer with Mull Theatre and for his writing and drama work with Argyll College, is running workshops in Glasgow on the neutral mask.

So – apart from what you can see on the left – what is a neutral mask’?

The Neutral Mask is one of the most dynamic actor training tools in existence, allowing a performer to communicate clearly from the body. It’s the corner stone of the approach to making theatre pioneered by Jacques Lecoq.

As the man said, it is ‘… a perfectly balanced mask which produces a physical sensation of calm.  This object, when placed on the face, should enable one to experience the state of neutrality prior to action, a state of receptiveness to everything around us, with no inner conflict’.

The Neutral Mask is a means of starting to create a physical vocabulary for performance, opening up the performer’s confidence, creativity and spontaneity.

British – and Scottish theatre, has long been almost irretrievably word-bound, often little more than talking heads. While the words can be glorious, this is not theatre. It’s more like an animated text.

Theatre has so many other languages to speak – of movement, of sound, of image, of object, of light and dark, of colour – so many other ways of generating power.

In almost any society, the mask has been one of the earliest ways of summoning the presence of something else. It is potent beyond reason.

Working with masks in thier various aspects is a key to theatre itself and a major skills for a performer.

The workshops will run from Monday 29th March until Friday the 2nd of April. They involve 3 hours each day, each day progressively building on the outcomes from the previous day.

Alasdair Satchel hopes to run two groups, one in the morning and one in the afternoon over the period.

They will be practical in nature, building on the participants’ own physicality and based around their own stamina.  Together, each group will work through a process of improvisation & movement analysis.

The cost of the workshops is £75 for the week.

Everyone interested in this and wanting more information should contact Alasdair Satchel direct – by email: alsatch@hotmail.com and have a look at his website.