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.