The   neutral mask is a training tool for actors that was developed by the acting
teacher Jacques Lecoq at his school in Paris France.  The
aims of the mask are many. It is to for the actors or students discover more
about themselves, to loose inhibitions and in doing so extend themselves
physically emotionally and creatively, by playing the mask.   
 
The  Neutral Mask has no expression. It is a full mask with no open mouth, thus it
does not speak. An actor wears the mask they stand on stage in a state of  relaxed readiness. The mask demands a sense of stage presence.
This is termed as   playing the mask  In  other-words one cannot  walk about stage with the mask on as if they are wondering around their living
room. The mask demands focus for an actor.  Every gesture an actor makes on stage  becomes significant  
 
Early exercises are how to present you on stage.  Actors with the mask on   look ahead. That is their action. We ask them to do nothing else. We observe
them, that is, how they stand. Do they stand with their weight forward or back?    We look for signs of how they may be feeling. Do they feel nervous or happy? Do
they look scary or sad?       

They start on a journey of discovery. It is a journey about their feelings, their emotions and how they present themselves to an audience. 
Through their stillness in wearing the mask students are feeling exposed,  and their feelings are revealed. Their uniqueness is opened up.  
 
Other early exercises in self- discovery include 

Waking   up and seeing the sea for first time. How do you feel when you see something,  i.e. the sea for the very first time? In playing the mask actors cannot act out
feelings simply play the moment?  
Meeting   another person for the first time. The  main philosophy in these exercises is   less is more. That is the less you and try and explain through gesture as you
  have a mask on the more you tell. It is a joyous experience watching   participants discover the mask.  
 We  than use the mask to explore, through movement, the elements. In other words
they move as water fire earth and air.   The students do not try and show  us the elements. We are much more interested in   the imaginative, physical and emotional
reactions of the students when moving as the elements colours, materials,  objects and finally animals.  
 This is the   key for an actor to create characters and imaginative situations. The mask is a  strong starting point in the creative life of the actor.  

The  commedia dell’ arte tradition dates back to 16th Century Italy. 
It has had a significant influence upon clowns, circus, physical comedy
puppetry, comic theatre and then film and television. It has influenced writers
from Shakespeare Moliere and Goldoni. 

Commedia  was improvised around a tight structure of stock characters.  They
included Harlequin Pantalone La Capitaine and Brigella. 
The scenes were on themes of everyone’s concerns including money, love
and death. They were about the hierarchy  that mirrored society at the time  time. It was satirical mocking the upper classes including doctors 
landowners and soldiers.

The Characters
Harlequin was the hero of commedia. He was very much the everyman
that audiences could identify with . He was the servant class character, who would always try to
do their best, but always failing. However he would not dwell sentimentally,  but would be ready to meet another day with purpose. 
 

Brigella   is Harlequin’s portly friend who  hates working loves eating and would always get into to trouble,   and tells  outlandish  stories to get out of trouble and blame
others.   
  Pantelone   is very, very  old but highly energetic. He is a very rich master of the house who is paranoid  that his money may be stolen. He is also very fond of young women who he would  love to bed, but of course the detest him.  The servants would always be hatching plans to steel his money.

La   Capitaine. He was a soldier to claimed to be a hero at war , where he fought of   the enemy army single handed, But would really be frightened 
of the smallest  thing. He would believe that everyone   especially women would love him but no one did and would often mock him.  

There were many other characters are many variations of them all. 
 

To play  these roles actors wore half masks. In wearing the masks actors have to
improvise with a strong physical passion. It was played facing the audience,
there was no attempted at having a fourth wall.   

Actors  have to be much more aware of how their body moves when working with masks.
There no extraneous  movement when working with masks.   
There is  no complex motivational journey for the characters to follow their wants and
desires are very black and white.  
It was very theatrical in style and    incorporated many theatrical
disciplines, including mime, acrobatics and slapstick. 
  
We don’t   need to learn commedia for the sake of it, but it reminds us of our roots and
traditions and what work well in theatre. When  I worked on this 
form of theatre of theatre I always been reminded of a number of all
slapstick vaudeville routines, the puppets of Punch and Judy  and
the silent comic films of Chaplin   Buster Keaton  and others.
Not that any one of these brilliant actors studied commedia, but it is in our
European theatre culture, it is part of us.    

In   having commedia as part of an actor’s training, it is an opportunity for
students to loose inhibitions, play big passions with and strong archetype
characters, whose motivations are clear and simple. By having an understanding
of commedia helps when rehearsing a farce or a Shakespearean comedy.