Comedy & Tragedy

Tragedy and Comedy are classic symbols of theatre, and metaphors as well for the duality of human emotional experience. Like Yin and Yang, they exist within each other.

The theatrical masks of classical Greece, specifically those of Tragedy and Comedy, were used in their sacred dramas. Actors in early drama were not meant to show their faces; instead, bronze or leather masks were used to convey the right emotions for the course of the story or play.

Throughout the world, and in contemporary indigenous cultures, masks are used to display the attributes of deities and convey sacred stories, as seen in the use of masks in Hindu Bali. Masks are often regarded as a vessel for the Gods to enter this order of existence, indwelling or even possessing the actor/dancer during the length of the ritual drama. The old German word for mask was “grim”, which was also a word that occurred in the names of deities and heroes; hence, the idea that divine beings were, in some measure, indwelling in the masks. The church may have been fearful that the old pagan gods would thus manifest again, and forbade the wearing of masks. However, the practice persisted in celebrations of Halloween and Carnival, as well as among mummer troupes and in country festivals that still honored such archetypal beings as the Green man.

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