From Mask to Flesh and Back: A Semiotic Analysis of the Actor’s Face Between Theatre and Cinema

Abstract

We aim to focus on the mimic gestures intentionally produced to be “monstrate” to others (expressive gestures), thus attempting to propose a semiotic analysis on the actor’s face. We shall attempt to outline the extent to which, (i) since the rise of cinema, the actor’s face has gained a foreground role as compared to the full-figured body, and (ii) the legacy of the nineteenth-century handbooks of scenic postures was crucial in this context, especially those of Antonio Morrocchesi and Alemanno Morelli. To deal with the actor’s body as an instrument, means to make it a blank page to be used to re-design the character’s body, including the face. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the method of the pedagogue Jacques Lecoq—one of the greatest teachers of contemporary theatre—which consists in the use of a special mask during the training process: the so-called neutral mask.