Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2006 - 42

that could be found throughout many disciplines that study the
form and function of masks." Not surprisingly, his decision to
include a Ku Klux Klan hooded mask caused the most controversy within the academic community and provoked a range of
comments from the public.
The impressive conference catalogue, co-edited by
Hernandez and Linda Smith, highlights the mask exhibit and
papers presented during the conference. The papers explored
international mask-related issues such as the traditional transformational functions of masks, the Southeast Asian origins of
an archetypal female mask character Ni Waloe, cultural language clues found in African masks, drama therapy using
masks for diagnosing stages of mental illness, and the huge
"walking sculpture" mask creations of Trinidadian Carnival
mask makers.
Appropriately, the conference began with Joan Schirle of
Dell'Arte International and Ralph Hall of the University of Iowa
introducing ways that masks can affect basic training in performance as well as in masked performance. Considered two of
the top master teachers of masked performance today, Schirle
and Hall have probably influenced mask performers as profoundly as their Italian predecessors Carlo Clementi and
Amleto and Donato Sartori did several decades ago.
Conference participants undoubtedly displayed their
greatest enthusiasm for the masked performances presented
by performers held particularly in high regard by aficionados
of the world of masks. One of the most provocative pieces entitled Margie, created and performed by Rob Faust, looked at
memories of his childhood nanny, Margie, while growing up in
a privileged environment in New Orleans. The conference took
place only a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina, so the audience found itself with double reflections on the losses of the
city as well as Faust's loss of childhood innocence. "After more
than thirty years of having no contact with my childhood nanny,
Margie, I called her on the phone. We'd talked for a mere
three or four minutes when she told me she still loved me and
was still proud of all her four white children," explained Faust.
"The stage piece in which I relive that phone call, both as myself and as Margie, was originally entitled For True, which is
what she exclaimed when I said into the phone, 'Hello Margie
this is Robbie.' The performance story is my attempt to get at a
deep truth. Growing up white, with a conscience, in uptown
New Orleans in the 1950s and '60s, you couldn't help but feel
the contradictions of face-to-face versus race-to-race," he
continued. "In spite of the legacy of slavery, the many power
imbalances, and the tilted playing field (recently shown so
clearly by hurricane Katrina) white and black people in the
deep south get along and even love each other. Imagine that."
On stage Rob Faust transformed himself into the largebosomed, African-American, flamboyant Margie by seemingly
effortlessly donning a fat suit on stage and then wrapping himself in a large rectangular white and black print dress topped
with a red bolero jacket and beaming, rosy cheeked mask-
all set to New Orleans' jazz. "Performing Margie and actually

becoming Margie onstage was a way for me to acknowledge
and to explore, with both humor and utter seriousness, the relationship I had with a black woman-a surrogate mother-
without having to dwell on, figure out, the gargantuan past and
present issues of racial inequality. Of all the work I perform,
Margie is the deepest-felt, the most personal, and perhaps the
most satisfying. Ironically, it disturbs the political sensibilities
of some audience members while causing others to both laugh

Larry Hunt performing in This World, the Next and Then the Peach Orchard.

THEATRE
SPRING

2006

DESIGN

&

TECHNOLOGY

41
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2006
