William Butler Yeats and the Mask

        One of the greatest 20th century poets, Wlliam Butler Yeats yearned for theatre to become a vehicle for his symbolist poetry and plays. Although he lost control of the theatre to the pervading style of Realism at the time, his focus on more than just daily life was exemplified through his focus on masks. Yeats stressed the use of mask in theatre in order to allow a different persona to come in to view. The mask represented a character's robust emotions and repressed the real self of the actor. The self, in turn, represented the continual process throughout life of individual growth and transformation it endures. It is evident that Yeats creates a dichotomy between mask and self in this understanding, but one that allows for a more realistic expression of eternity and real life. In his attempts to separate symbolism from realism, Yeats inherently combines the two by allowing using the traditional style of Noh to look at a more spiritualized reality while incorporating the mask and its symbolism to represent realities the human self goes through throughout life. 

        As previously noted, even though Yeats tried to separate his theatre from that of realism, I couldn't help but understand his concept of the mask in the most realistic and human sense. It represents a human process in society that everyone goes through. Psychologically proven, we are constantly transforming our "selfs" in order to fit the expectations of ourselves, others, and society at large. We identify a certain image as one that we must have or fit and then we in turn live up to that identity, adopting all of the characteristics of that identity to ourselves. In sociology, this process is called the "labeling theory." Personally, I know that I have an "ideal" self, who I want to be, an "actual" self, who I really am, and an "ought" self, who I should be, among many others. When these selfs manifest themselves, I adopt the traits that characterize them and become somewhat of a different person. In the same way, in Asian theatre when the actor puts on the mask, it creates an identity for the actor and one that he lives up to. Yeates believed that the performance was a real and authentic one, an expression of the actor's real self on stage. In this understanding, his theory of masks in the context of Noh theatre represents a much more human and real/natural process in the world. 

        Regardless of what Yeates was trying to do with symbolism and Noh theatre in opposition to Realism of the West, his idea of the mask-self theory is not only remarkable, but exemplary of the intrinsic unification of theatre taking place. Whether or not different parts of the world want to stress a more spiritual understanding of human life or a realistic one, it is clear that natural human processes are always represented. Yeats, in my opinion, began to show that theatre must be at least loosely rooted in Realism because even a spiritual or symbolic focus in theatre represents specific aspects of the natural human life.