Keith Johnstone Teaches: Trance Masks (DVD)

Trance Masks is a unique look at the theory of mask acting according to Keith Johnstone, world renowned Theatre pedagogue, playwright, director, teacher, and improvisation expert. This DVD documents Johnstone teaching the technique that relates to and is the inspiration for his theories on acting and improvisation for the theatre.

Trance Masks is a unique look at the theory of mask acting according to Keith Johnstone, world renowned Theatre pedagogue, playwright, director, teacher, and improvisation expert. This DVD documents Johnstone teaching the technique that relates to and is the inspiration for his theories on acting and improvisation for the theatre.

Keith Johnstone writes: “In 1957, George Devine - director of the Royal Court Theatre, in London - gave a class to the Royal Court Writer’s Group on the Half-Mask (sometimes called the Comic Mask or Character Mask).

As a demonstration he withdrew to a far corner of the fire-lit room and put on a Mask while facing away from us. Then he became a monstrous and frightening ‘God’ who laughed at us as if we were puny, worthless, despicable creatures. He was like something out of pre-history - a spirit from ‘darkest Africa’.

We were young, so we liked anything that was dangerous or weird. What amazed us was that the transformation was huge and instantaneous. This contradicted everything that we knew about theories of acting.

There is a seemingly improbable chapter on Masks and Trance in my book Impro (Faber and Faber and Methuen). I hope that these extracts from two classes on how to teach Masks at my July 2007 Impro Summer School will show that I was not exaggerating.”

Contact Keith Johnstone Workshops at www.keithjohnstone.com Stay tuned for the development of this series. This first programme, Trance Masks will be followed with more teaching and entertainment DVD’s from Keith Johnstone.