2
Inih A. Ebong
Anthropos 79. 1984
forms of the mask idiom to recapture their grim
imaginations of hell, Lucifer, the demons, and
anti-religious agencies. The Commedia dell’arte
and the Court Masques were largely mask-
oriented in conception and execution. The artists
were quick to discover and exploit the infinite
capacity of the mask for boisterous humour and
poignant satire - a universal aesthetic principle
common even among communities where the
socio-aesthetic encapsulation of the mask is pre
dicated upon and dictated by ritual, religious,
metaphysical, and cosmogonic primacy.
2. Theories and Functions of Mask
In her definitive study of West African masks,
Elizabeth Tonkin observes, for example, that “the
‘dramatic’ masquerade is especially satiric; the
closer to the human, the more is that humanity
criticised or ridiculed” (1979: 17). This is especi
ally true of Efik-Ibibio-Annang culture. Utuek-
pef for example, directs its mask energies towards
poignant criticisms of social, in particular sexual,
vices, even to the point of daring to call individual
members of the society by name. I dip Akpan
Adiama is an equally delightful example of
penetrating social commentary; a delightful cre
ation of the paradoxical synthesis of comedy and
tragedy, the bizarre and the sublime; a symbolic
form by which modes of feelings are held before
us for contemplation; a masquerade the perfor
mance of which is the continual inversion of
orthodox views of wisdom and foolishness (see
Ita 1975: 12).
Similar usage has been made of the mask
idiom in Europe, America, and the East. Bertolt
Brecht, O’Neill, Shakespeare, and many others
have used masks in their times to create and
sustain diversely contrived emotional and psy
chological effects on their audiences. Eminent
directors, actors, and theatre theoreticians have
similarly used the mask idiom in their work.
Stanislavski probably adapted the mask motif to
propound his famous theories about acting. In
fact, throughout all times, the mask has been used
for the serious and the farcical, the tragic and the
1 Annang puppetry and masquerade drama. Also the
subject of current Ph. D. work.
comic and humorous, the exotic and the com
monplace, the metaphysical and the mundane, the
picturesque and the bizarre, the profound and the
sordid, etc. And, these are also to be found in the
theatre of speech, of mime, and of musicals.
Because of the diversity of its usage and
application, theatre practitioners throughout the
world, especially directors and actors, are cogni
zant of, as well as they have fully acknowledged
and accepted, the theatrical importance and signi
ficance of the mask idiom, which they have
inevitably exploited to astoundingly successful
and brilliant actualizations of their artistic and
creative dreams. Jacques Copeau, Brecht, Wole
Soyinka, Jerzy Grotowski, are only a few of such
practitioners. In fact, a considerable number of
them have accepted the pre-eminent and symbolic
configuration of the mask idiom as the probable
primordial lingua franca of the theatre.
The modern theatre was, probably, drawn to
this awareness by Jacques Copeau, himself a
formidable influence on the modern theatre,
especially in Europe and America. His extensive
and relentless experimentations with, and applica
tions of, the mask motifs for ramified psycho-
aesthetic vantages have had varying degrees of
profound impact on modern theatre practitioners:
Grotowski, for example. While this may hold
very true for modern Europe and America, Africa
remains an exception; chiefly because the use of
mask in contemporary African theatre derives not
from Copeau’s influence, but directly from the
cultural and metaphysical roots of African aesthe
tic thought and mind. Nevertheless, whether it is
African or not, it is important to note that
wherever the mask has been used as a theatrical
device, there is always the consciousness (to
borrow the words of J. S. Boston [1960: 59] in a
different but related context) of using it to
“heighten the atmosphere of alarm and excite
ment.”
Several views have been held to the fact that
masks are profound universal statements on the
metaphysical paradox of being and existence. “At
its most fundamental,” says Tonkin (1979: 1),
“the act of masking is an embodied paradox: the
wearer has a face and a not-face, he is transformed
by that which dehumanizes him.” Jon Baisch
(1977: 18) contends that masks are the artistic
creations of “universal duality.” That is, they are