Day 13:
Mask:
Although I cringe to admit it, in the early 1970s, I was obsessed with Theatre del Arte, improvisational performance, and (cringe) mime. I studied at the very prestigious, pretentious, and fascinating “Le Centre du Silence” in Boulder, Colorado. One day a week we were required to dawn the “Mask of Silence” and inconveniently and solemnly refrain from speaking for 24 hours, still continuing with business as usual. Of course, the day we were to make Death Masks fell on my weekly day of silence. I was selected to arrive at the home of two of the director’s minions and experience having my face covered in plaster. For several hours I was a prisoner of the World of Silence, breathing the home’s scent through two drinking straws. Ceremoniously, I was blindly led around the room, a minion at each elbow, to fully experience the process. SQUISH! Plaster-faced, straws protruding, I step right in a fresh pile of dog shit! Forgetting the sacred oath of silence, I belched out a stream of my own fish monger’s daughter’s vows. So much for that Mask of Silence.
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