In my trip to the Metropolitan museum of art, these marble theater masks caught my eyes. Masks reminded me of one of the class lectures we had in the beginning of the semester when we were reading either Antigone or Medea. We talked about, how wearing masks changed the theatrical performance, and how an only limited number of actors were allowed on stage not to confuse the audience. Initially, only one performer was allowed on the stage. Through the use of masks, different emotions and different characters were established during plays, which eventually led to allowing three people on the stage. According to the www.greektheatre.wordpress.com, there were no women actors in greek theater, so men had to wear female masks to perform female roles.

According to the information display mask with long hair(middle)  represents a tragic character, one on the left side  shows a comedic servant type, and the third one represents a young girl from comedy. On almost all of the mask’s the mouths were largely cut-out or carved, openings helped actors to speak loudly. The way they carved out the mouth basically served as a megaphone, so audience sitting in the back of a big theater could hear what actors were saying.

Hey class

While reading Sakuntala and the ring of recollection, I have noticed a lot of foreshadowings. I believe these lines could be the  foreshadowing for Sakuntalas and kings separation later on the play. “The moon sets over the western mountain as the sun rises in dawn’s red trail rising and setting, these two bright powers portend the rise and fall of men. When the moon disappears, night lotuses are but dull souvenirs of its beauty when her lover disappears, the sorrow is too painful for a frail girl to bear.”(ACT IV, lines 65-73). In class, we also discussed how play itself began with foreshadowing when actress sang a song and stunned the director, which was a foreshadowing of king falling in love with Sakuntala.

Also, I found very interesting how each act shows a specific emotion. In the overview, author talks about how Kalidasa takes us through the entire range of most basic emotions such as love, joy, pity, anger, peace and etc. Play starts off with emotions of love and excitement when Sakuntala and king first met and acts 2 and 3  emphasize love and joy. Act 4 mostly focuses on love under separation. That’s when Sakuntala couldn’t stop thinking about her husband. Act 5 focuses on pity, anger. When Sakuntala came over to the city for her husband but he rejects her. Act 6 is mostly about sadness and tears. That’s when king tried to paint Sakuntalas image but his tears would mess up the painting. “Smudges from my sweating fingers stain the edges of the picture and a tear fallen from my cheek has raised a wrinkle in the paint.” (ACT VI, lines 286-289). In Act 7 they both find each other and emotions return back to love and peace.

After reading this play, I noticed how the whole story returned back its original start which was very different from what we read in the past. I think this play is more for like entertainment purposes rather than educational. What do you guys think about this, is there something you learned by reading this play?