ABSTRACT
George Devine gave a Mask class to the Royal Court writers’ group in 1958. He arrived with a box full of dusty Masks that had last been used some years before at the Old Vic Theatre School. I didn’t like the look of them: they reminded me of surgical prostheses, and I didn’t like what he was saying either. Already I was feeling threatened. George talked to us for about forty minutes, and then gave us a demonstration. He retired to the far end of the long, shadowy room, put a Mask on, looked in a mirror, and turned to face us—or rather ‘it’, ‘the Mask’, turned to face us. We saw a ‘toad-god’ who laughed and laughed as if we were funny and despicable. I don’t know how long the ‘scene’ lasted, it was timeless. Then George removed the Mask and suggested that we try.
