ABSTRACT
Were we to look for a slogan or epigraph for Craig’s work the above phrase would serve quite aptly. Re-writing Shakespeare’s ‘words, words, words’, the work of Craig proposes a non-literary view of theatre with the mask as both its medium and its emblem. Craig’s notion of the Ubermarionette, his formulations of the role of the director, his underlining of the concept of performance at the expense of the literary text, are all ideas which can be read as embodying, extending, ramifying the concept of the mask. The periodical that was to carry all this Craigiana could have the same name: The Mask. The title of the publication not only acts as an indicator of its content, but also provides a paradigm of its procedures. For The Mask symbolizes Craigian notions of theatricality through its very physicality and the way it ‘narrates’ these notions. The title of Craig’s periodical is not merely a transference of meaning but a generator of meaning as well. In this way Craig, as the voice behind The Mask, both shapes and is shaped by it. It provides Craig with an arena where his ideas can be analyzed, exemplified and eventually enacted. In its turn, this arena is not merely a neutral medium carrying and transferring meaning. It sets up its own parameters. The author of such a project has to assume the guise of the mask himself. Eventually this guise overtakes its subject and the author becomes a mask. Craig as the author of the periodical turns himself or is turned into a mask.
