the face mask of el publico
Federico Garcia Lorca titled his “un-performable” perform that “belonged to the future” El Generalizado. This term could indicate two things: este publico, the group, or el publico, he who is community. Both meanings are two sides of the identical coin, the beating heart of Lorca’s play in addition to naming this kind of work, Lorca points to the connection between the audience and the creator, and the theatre that looms in between all of them. The play itself takes advantage of her very personal themes in Lorca’s existence, such as gay love as well as the hypocrisy of pretending, but is written very obscurely, in a style and sculpt that none of his other functions carry. This way, the form on its own plays with this theme of un publico and el sabido Lorca steps on stage to expose his undressed soul, yet covers his meanings with translucent terms to defend his artwork from the criticizing eyes from the public.
The mask is also one common motif that is presented through the play. Inside the third picture, the character in the Director speaks on the make use of masks, saying “In the middle of the street, the mask switches us up and allows us to avoid that indiscreet rose which at times rises to the cheeks. At sex, when we stick our hands in our nasal area or delicately explore the rear, the plaster with the mask pushes down thus heavily upon our drag that we are going to barely capable to lie down on the bed” (26). Here Lorca talks about how a mask is used even more frequently in life than in the theatre, in the cinema, however , for least people know that what exactly they are seeing is definitely something built. The mask, though that conveniently permits us to protect yourself from the judgments of others, becomes an oppressive shell, by which we are all stuck by the layers of our own hypocrisies. Also, in the initial scene, the Director echoes again within the motif in the mask, reacting to the concept of presenting the audience with true, uncensored cinema. He yowls, “What could I do together with the audience? What would I really do with the market if I taken off the handrails from the connect? The face mask would come and devour me. We once saw a man devoured by the mask. The best youths in the city rammed large tennis balls of thrown-away newspaper up his backside with bloodied pickaxes, and once in America there were a boy which the hide hung by his personal intestines” (4). Here Lorca again talks about the dual nature of the mask, as well as volatile capacity to guard or overwhelm. The mask serves as a safety barrier involving the artist plus the audience members, who, blinded by spectacle, see without seeing. The public cannot handle the presentation of the theatre in its rawest form, without the cover of illusion most likely because such a revelation of truth will penetrate through their own face masks, casting aside pretense and fusing the darkest regions of their spirits with the darkest parts of others, so that almost all is known amongst all.
Lorca likewise places special significance inside the costumes of his character types, sometimes even using them to act as entities per. In the third scene, Juliet (of the infamous Romeo and Juliet duo) guards herself in her burial place, against several horses and men who wish to have sex with her. Tired of her level of resistance, one of the males “undresses her violently, embodying the her shorts [and] her wig” (29). In the first Shakespearean perform, Juliet takes on at loss of life by sleeping a sleep like fatality which foreshadows her own death to come. Through this play, the character of Juliet (sporting, very notably, pajamas for sleeping) dies too, killed by disapproving public for taking her incredibly real pain into the movie theater by “moaning like a cat under the seats. ” The horses need to “pass through her” in order to restore themselves, here Lorca shows the connection between life and death, plus the way it is enacted and carried out in the theater. Moments later in the same field, a “Pajamas costume with poppies looks. The face with this character can be smooth, white-colored and curled like an ostrich egg¦ [it] sits down on the steps and slowly visitors his smooth face along with his hands, until the end in the scene” (29-30). In Greek mythology, Morpheus, the god of dreams, is said to sleep in a dimly-lit cave of poppies, which will put human beings to sleep therefore, the costume and its decoration of poppies support Lorca’s theme on sleep and death. As a flower, the poppy as well serves as synonymous with nature, militant life, and beauty. By simply imbuing the costume with representations of both sleep/death and lifestyle, Lorca contrasts the two when showing the connection between the organic cycle of life and death. The Pajamas outfit also has a smooth, blank, expressionless face, which in turn signifies it is lack of thoughts and id. By being like an egg, the mask provides with this the connotation of the probability of a yet-unborn life, but also imitates the hard surface of a covering that defends and divides. The costume beats its face, a task that communicates inner tormenthere Lorca gives a contrast between the character’s unexpressive, identity-less confront and the thoughts it seems to carry, and by relating the outfit to the poppy, death, plus the egg, this individual suggests that being without identification and putting on masks is yet another form of silent death.
In El Generalizado there are also a number of instances of characters changing forms, for example moving by flip screens to be of a diverse gender, or removing their very own costumes for being other character types entirely. Inside the second landscape, at a Roman ruin, an Chief and two characters dressed in bells and vine leaves argue about the existence of two, and one particular always getting one certainly nothing more. The Character in Vine Leaves “strips off the grape vine leaves, and a plastsorter white naked appears” (15). The Emperor then chooses this personality and embraces him internet marketing always a single. Lorca supplies a humorous compare between precisely what is saidthat the first is always oneand what is done, as when the Character in Vine Leaves strips him self he turns into another figure entirely. The revealing with the plaster white nude suggests a maneuver from the all-natural (the vines) to the abnormal (plaster), and since he embodies both, this individual represents the text between both sides that is created in the impression and skill of theater. The environment of the Roman ruins, the Emperor, plus the plaster naked themselves connote ties to old Ancient greek and Both roman tradition of plays, through which parts for ladies were always played by men one more duality of one. In the initially scene, Man 1 moves opens a door behind the level, inviting people to can be found in and saying that all include a part inside the drama. Two other males push the Director behind a flip-style screen and “appearing on the reverse side is a young man dressed in white colored satin which has a white ruff. He must be played simply by an actress. She is transporting a little black guitar” (7). Man one particular, opening the doorway at the back of the stage, is definitely symbolically welcoming the audience to onto the stage, deteriorating the barrier that holds the face mask up between artists plus the audience. Becoming on stage, people would virtually be part of the drama, offered as if these were actors themselves and who may be to say that they will be not? The doorway being at your back of the stage hints at some thing clandestine and secretive, recommending that this can be described as move that is certainly forbidden or not remaining with the tradition. The Representative changes in a boy/girl mix and match, an identity characterized by androgyny and intimate ambiguity. S/he moves coming from being an old man to a much young boy, and wears the colors of white and black, classic indicators of good and evil as a result, the character in a single entity embodies many contrasts. In doing so , Lorca talks about the fluidity of illusion and presentation in the cinema, perhaps recommending that the uncooked emotions that theater encourages is rather at the core of its experience.
Finally, Lorca is exploring the nature of performance and the connection with the stage versus truth. In the 6th scene, several characters go over the innovation of the cinema and the homicide of Juliet. One boy reflects on the last scene in the play in Juliet’s tomb, saying that it was “prodigiously created, ” and two pupils then claim over the rioting, and 1 says that “People forget about the costumes during performances, plus the revolution shattered out if they found the actual Juliet beneath the seats and covered with cotton tennis balls so the lady wouldn’t scream” (35). By having such heroes reflect on the tomb scene, Lorca represents the audience members symbolically, because characters, onstage. He remarks about the public’s wish for reality, however, not reality that is too actual denouncing all their preference of the comfort from the mask. Nevertheless by making the population characters onstage, he shows them to be actors in the theater of life, and tears over the walls regarding proper ideas of what theater really is. Further, first and end of El Publico are exactly the same, ending the play on a cyclical note in the beginning, a Servant explains to the Overseer that “there is the general public, ” plus the Director instructs the servant to “show them in”four horses enter into. At the incredibly end, these kinds of lines happen to be repeated, but as voices offstage, and on the set, we have a “large horse’s head positioned on the floor. ” The mounts serve as a connection to the strong natural and therefore are said to be responsible for the trend of the movie theater that occurs inside the play. Together with the death of those horses, Lorca suggests that the natural in theater is dead and this it consists only of artifice the horse’s brain almost is a warning to others who attempt to make an effort the same. The characters’ voices being offstage show that after the writing of the revolution, theater is now even fewer real this can be a mere indicate of what it used to always be. With the cyclical ending and beginning, Lorca shows that regardless of the tried revolution things are still similar to they were.
In El Publico Federico Garcia Lorca explores the relationship between the target audience, the movie theater, and those who have breathe your life into the theatre. He draws connections between the theater, lifestyle, and appreciate, playing between showing and telling, concealing and revealing. And in accomplishing this, he elevates a multitude of inquiries who is most significant, the musician, the audience, the theater by itself? And who will be the theater really for? Can the slim illusion of theater ever be chopped up away to expose what is authentic, or can it be what is onstage that is the just reality in the entire experience? Lorca urges the public shed their face masks and liberate themselves by simply freeing themselves of conformed, false personality yet in the own enjoy, teases and confuses with words that form sectors instead of direct lines by A to B. This way, it can be noticed that the constant struggle to locate truth and rip away illusion is just that an neverending war against others and oneself in the hope of discovering, can it be better to become el generalizado, the passive-aggressive audience, or perhaps el generalizado, he who may be stripped bare for the judgments of others’ eye?
