Painted Skin

My daughter is studying theatre design and art at the University of Iowa. She hopes to become a prop designer for theatre and movies. Yesterday I went to see the latest play she has been working on.

The play,Painted Skin, was written by a grad student at the university and was quite interesting. He has created a brief YouTube video of it. The video doesn't really give you an idea of what the play was like, but you might find it interesting. By the way, if you look quick at 1:09 minutes into the video, that's my daughter standing at the table in back with a green top on.



As an old college history major the play was particularly interesting to me as it was set in World War I. Much of the war was fought in trenches that seemed to literally cover Europe at the time. The trenches provided a tragic setting, creating untold facial injuries (in addition to those that always occur in battle) as soldiers stuck their heads out of the trenches, only to be shot in the face.

As often happens in times of war, these injuries led to dramatic advances in medical care. In this case the advances came in the area of plastic surgery. However, even with those advances there were countless numbers of soldiers who still could not have their faces repaired.

For them, artists created masks to cover the soldiers' faces. They took great effort in making the masks resemble the soldiers own face. The masks were attached to the soldiers' eye glasses.

The play used the masks as its theme but really was more about the manner in which those caught up in a war react to the horrors that they encounter.

It's unfortunate that, as a student play, the chances are slim that anyone will have the opportunity to see it again.

If you would like to learn more about the masks there's a good story about it in a past issue of Smithsonian magazine.