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101 MASKS: False Faces and Make-up for All Ages, All Occasions by Richard Cummings

101 MASKS: False Faces and Make-up for All Ages, All Occasions

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Pub Date: May 6th, 1968
Publisher: McKay

Disguised by the jacket and title and publisher's designation (j) is a technically sophisticated manual of instructions for making masks, most of which are properly designated ""professional."" In the beginning are variously simple constructions; some of them rely on unusual resources (a fur piece for a beard, a gas mask (!) for a monkey's face) and none are particularly imaginative. However, the professional examples, performance-oriented, might be useful for high school and community productions; they include such folk characters as Harlequin, Rumpelstiltskin. Snow White (and the seven dwarfs, from Disney): caricatures (Chaplin, Brando, the Beatles): Japanese No masks; and some of Alice's Wonderland. How to apply straight, character and monster make-up is described in detail, with an appended list of theatrical supply houses. Other features: a life mask; replicas of tribal masks for decoration; ambitious novelties (robot, walking bush, two-man horse, Great Dragon of China). A final chapter summarizes the history of masks; earlier chapters include the scripts of a harlequinade, a scene from Alice, and a masque, but these are incidental and obtainable elsewhere. Consider this primarily as an adjunct to costuming for adults who are interested in plasticene verisimilitude rather, than plastic creativity.