ABSTRACT
The action of theatrical masks, both metaphorical and literal, highlights the extraordinarily complex relationship between forced masks and free masks in the meaning-making process. Demands made on actors by the C. Stanislavsky approach to their roles and their relationship to the other characters involve the assumption of a mask, which wholly “covers” their face, a total dedication to embracing the “truth” of their role and becoming possessed by it. As for therapeutic approaches where the therapist relies less on his/her soul and more on theoretically based interventions, there is an analogous theatrical mask. While the “Stanislavsky” therapist wears his/her mask over her face to enable communion and shared free association, the second kind of therapist holds his/her mask beside her face, like Bertolt Brecht’s actors who are required to remain detached from their roles. For the therapist’s primary protective mask is furnished by those identical conditions that would allow Pinter to perform Pinter.
