For students who may find the traditional drama classrooms challenging, Honor Hoskins suggests that mask theatre might be the great equaliser.
There are many reasons why students might not flourish in a drama classroom. If they are shy or self-conscious, if English is not a first language, if they are a neurodivergent student that finds words on the page overwhelming, if they are deaf or hard of hearing – the list is long, and there will be plenty more.
For the last 15 years, I've worked as Creative Producer for Vamos Theatre, the UK's leading full mask theatre. From the wide range of schools and settings in which we work, I've seen in practice how working with masks and non-verbal theatre is a great equaliser, creating a (more) level playing field for students of all abilities, confidences and skills to flourish in a drama setting.
Over time, I've seen how liberating non-verbal mask work can be for so many of the young people we meet. Working without words means we can speak in a common language that transcends any barriers to engagement.
There is a beauty in watching a child quietly grow a couple of inches when they take off the mask and their peers (the audience) tell them that they completely embodied the character, that they disappeared, that they were funny, moving and understood.
As well as being an accessible way into drama, devising in mask lays the groundwork for producing thoughtful, creative, and well-conceived work at KS4-5. We all know those Year 10 performances in which a bus explodes, there is a suicide, and someone is pregnant! Mask performance is not about epic plot, and at Vamos Theatre we devise all our shows from lived experience and events. We don't shy away from these big ‘epic’ themes – quite the opposite, in fact. We take a big topic, such as dementia, end of life, post-traumatic stress, or being a teenager living with ADHD, for example, and we look at them through the microdetails of relationships and human interactions.
In schools, we create playful ways to devise character-driven work that hone in on minute detail of day-to-day life. It is work that challenges students to always have clarity and intention as an actor and asks them to react truthfully to a situation on stage. And as this truth is non-verbal, expressed physically, and students have a mask covering their face, it allows so much more freedom to ‘be’ the character, to be brave and to express themselves without fear.