Under Cover Larry Hunt Perpetuates An Ancient Theater Tradition - The Are Of The Mask

The Italian Renaissance actors used them.

The Greeks used them.

The Stone Age people around campfires used them.

And now Larry Hunt is one of the few performers in America to keep the art of the mask alive.

“It is one of the oldest performing art forms in existence, stretching all the way back to the cave people,” said Hunt, who brings his mask performance “Animan” to The Met tonight. “Paintings have been found on cave walls, showing people telling stories in a mask.”

Yet Hunt is not solely interested in perpetuating a tradition.

“I do it because of the freedom of it,” said Hunt, an Eastern Washington University graduate who now lives and works in Connecticut. “We call it a freeing device. It’s a freedom of perspective, and of performing capability. This way, I can shed my personality and hide out.”

For instance, he can perform all of the characters in “The Taming of the Shrew” - from Petruchio to Katherine - simply by switching masks. In “Animan,” he uses his own masks to create 20 different animal and human characters.

This is exactly what the ancient Greeks used masks for at the beginning of Western theater: to allow two or three actors to become many different characters, instantly recognizable even from the far rows of the amphitheater.

“The masks could represent gods and heroes,” said Hunt. “They were bigger than life - exaggerated.”

Mask-making and mask-performing faded out after the Renaissance, replaced by other performing forms, such as dance, ballet and opera. Today, the mask survives only in the image of the “comedy and tragedy” masks - the very symbol of theater.

And through Hunt. After growing up in Montana and various parts of Washington, he graduated from Eastern Washington University in 1971 as a theater major. About five years later, while exploring different performance possibilities, he discovered the mask. He has made his living as a full-time mask-maker and performer ever since.

He has performed all around the country, mostly at schools and theater festivals, and he has been featured in the New York Times.

He makes all of his own masks after first sculpting them in clay and making plaster molds. The mask itself is then made using neoprene, “a cousin to latex.”

He can do “Animan” by himself - he has done it hundreds of times - but at The Met he will be accompanied by his wife Jennifer and their three children - Alex, Simon and Phoebe. They are all in Spokane on a performance trip combined with a homecoming - Hunt’s parents still live in Spokane.

He said “Animan” is suitable for adult audiences and for children - he often performs it for school groups.

“Kids are amazed by these things,” Hunt said.

The show has been described as “part primal magic, part illusion and always funny and dramatic.” It is a series of vignettes with myriad themes, centered around man’s relationship with nature.

“Threaded throughout is the wonder of the mask itself, which this country does not see much of,” said Hunt.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “Animan,” 7 p.m. tonight, The Met, $8 adults, $5 youths, available through all G&B Select-a-Seat outlets, or by calling 325-SEAT or 1-800-325-SEAT.

Hunt will also conduct a mask-making workshop today at 10 a.m. at the Spokane Civic Theatre, open to ages 9 and up. Cost is $5 per person; register at the door.