Playing the Mask

Award-winning theatre-maker and teacher John Wright explores and demystifies mask-work: what masks do, how they do it, and, above all, what they can teach us about acting.

This book is a wonderfully accessible introduction to a fresh and innovative acting technique for actors, theatre-makers and teachers to use in training and rehearsal. A mask releases the actor to be playful, and playfulness generates ideas, finds meaning, develops characterisation – and is infinitely more fun than traditional training.

Extensively illustrated with a rich variety of masks, this inventive and pragmatic book is full of invaluable games and exercises drawn from the author’s own workshops, his experience as co-founder of both Trestle and Told by an Idiot, and his pioneering mask and clown work in many professional productions.