Theatrical Masks: Symbols of Transformation and Empathy in Glorious Exploits

In Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits, the theatrical masks from Alekto’s workshop are far more than props. They are the engine of the story’s central experiment: staging Euripides’ plays in a Syracusan quarry with starving Athenian prisoners. The masks allow the captives to step out of their condemned identities and into the skins of heroes, queens, and children. They become vehicles for empathy, grief, and survival, shifting in meaning as the novel progresses from comic adventure to a meditation on art’s power to transcend violence.

What the Masks Literally Are

The masks described in the novel are handcrafted objects, typically made of ash wood and linen, painted and varnished to represent specific character types. In Chapter 8, Lampo visits the workshop of Alekto, a maker of theatrical costumes and masks, to commission pieces for the quarry production. He observes three Libyan slaves – bought as children by Alekto’s husband – carving and painting the masks. One of the slaves explains the materials: “Ash, sir. Amongst other things. Linen too. It depends on the character.” The workers have soft hands from “delicate work of masking” but red, irritated eyes from sawdust and paint fumes, highlighting the labour behind the art.

Alekto’s stock includes masks for queens, heroes, monsters, gods, and even a “little boy” mask, which she warns is “tricky to get right. It’s much easier to do a monster or a god. Childhood is subtle.” This observation hints at the emotional weight the masks will carry. The masks are not generic; they are crafted with care and intended to evoke specific responses from an audience.

Where and How the Masks Recur

The masks first appear in Chapter 8 when Gelon and Lampo visit Alekto’s shop to secure supplies for their quarry theatre. Gelon selects a single mask – a small one for a boy – and holds it “gently as if afraid to damage the wood or scratch the paint.” He whispers “Helios,” his dead son’s name, establishing the mask as a personal artifact of grief. This same mask is later seen in Chapter 9 on the ship of the eccentric collector, where Gelon keeps it on his lap. It reappears in Chapter 22 when Gelon polishes it on the morning of the performance – “rubbing the cloth along the mask, polishing it so that bits of the glossy wood flicker with each movement.” It is loaded onto a wagon alongside other masks and costumes, brought to the quarry for the production.

During the performance itself (Chapter 23), the masks are worn by the chorus and leads. When one actor stumbles and his mask comes off, revealing his “gaunt, panicked face,” the audience erupts in laughter. The mask had been the membrane separating the performer from his suffering; its removal collapses the illusion. The laughter is cruel, but it also signals the audience’s investment in the fiction. Later, when the play regains its footing, the masks allow the audience to forget the prisoners’ reality and see only Medea, Jason, and the chorus.

How the Masks’ Meaning Changes

Initially, the masks are purely practical – tools for a makeshift theatre project born from drunken ambition. Lampo and Gelon see them as essential for their “proper” production: “Masks and music. Like in Athens.” But from the moment Gelon picks the boy’s mask, the objects take on personal, grief-laden significance. That mask becomes a substitute for his lost son, a way to hold Helios in his hands. The mask is no longer just a prop; it is a relic.

For the prisoners, the masks offer a metamorphosis. In Chapter 4, Lampo renames the Athenian Paches as “Jason” and insists he is no longer a prisoner but a character. The mask completes this transformation – when worn, it allows the wearer to speak and move as someone else. The prisoners, starved and doomed, become for a few hours the heroes of Euripides. The mask is a shield against their helplessness. As the performance in Chapter 23 unfolds, the masks enable the actors to access a “frenzy most remarkable,” as Gelon had hoped, citing the plague-era performances of Hippolytus.

Later, in the final chapters, the masks return as memory. Lampo, now an old man, recalls the quarry theatre and all the people from his past. The masks are linked to that fleeting moment when art turned a place of death into a stage. Their meaning matures from theatrical tool to symbol of empathy across enemy lines: Athenian captives and Syracusan citizens share the same grief and wonder through the masks.

Character Connections to the Masks

Gelon: The boy’s mask is his most intimate connection to the symbol. It represents his dead son Helios and his unresolved grief. Gelon holds it, polishes it, and whispers his son’s name over it. The mask becomes a focus for his desire to create something that defies the war’s meaninglessness.
Lampo: The narrator is more pragmatic about the masks – he sees them as necessary for the show – but he is nevertheless moved by Gelon’s attachment. Lampo’s own limp and lower-class origins make him an outsider, and the masks help him become a “director,” a role that briefly elevates him.
Alekto: The mask-maker is a maternal figure who supplies the tools of transformation. She understands the subtlety of childhood masks and extends credit to the two potters. Her character bridges the commercial and the artistic.
The Libyan mask-slaves: These anonymous craftsmen live their whole lives making masks for others’ stories. Their own identities are erased (they don’t even know if they are brothers), yet they create the faces of gods and heroes.
Paches: As Jason, he finds new dignity. The mask allows him to shed his prisoner identity and become a cocksure hero, even if temporarily.
The Athenian prisoners: The masks allow them to become a chorus, speaking with one voice despite their individual suffering.

Thematic Significance (with Internal Links)

The masks tie directly to the novel’s exploration of theatre as survival. By putting on a mask, a starving prisoner can forget hunger and perform. The quarry becomes a theatre, and the audience – Syracusan civilians – sees the humanity of their enemies, feeding the theme of empathy across enemy lines. The masks are also at the heart of the tension between art and violence: the same limestone walls that trap the prisoners become an amphitheatre. Gelon’s grief over Helios, embodied in the little boy’s mask, connects to grief and reconciliation. And Lampo’s partnership with Gelon, despite their different social stations, reflects class and friendship.

Four Study Questions with Answers

1. Why does Gelon choose the boy’s mask rather than a queen’s or hero’s mask for the production?
Answer: Gelon chooses the boy’s mask because it reminds him of his dead son, Helios, as evidenced when he whispers the name while holding it. The mask is not for a specific role in Medea or Trojan Women – it becomes a personal talisman of grief. Alekto’s comment that “childhood is subtle” foreshadows that this mask will carry emotional weight beyond its theatrical utility.

2. How do the masks help the Athenian prisoners escape their identities?
Answer: The masks allow the prisoners to become characters from Euripides – Paches becomes Jason, others become the chorus, and later children become Astyanax. When they wear the masks, they are no longer defeated enemies starving in a quarry; they are actors performing a tragedy. This transformation is reinforced by Lampo’s insistence on referring to Paches only as “Jason” during rehearsals. The masks create a fiction that, for a time, overwrites their real-life powerlessness.

3. What happens when an actor’s mask falls off during the performance, and why is this significant?
Answer: In Chapter 23, a chorus member trips and his mask comes off, revealing his “gaunt, panicked face.” The audience laughs because the illusion breaks and the reality of the prisoner’s suffering intrudes. This moment is significant because it shows how fragile the theatrical transformation is. The mask is the boundary between art and reality; when it falls, the audience sees not Medea’s handmaid but a condemned man. The laughter is cruel but also nervous, a reminder that the “play” is built on real agony.

4. In what way do the masks connect Gelon’s personal grief to the larger theme of theatre as survival?
Answer: Gelon’s selection of the boy’s mask for Helios shows that his grief is the private engine driving the public theatre project. By staging the plays, he tries to keep something beautiful alive in the face of death – both his son’s and the prisoners’. The masks become the physical link between his mourning and the act of creation. In the final chapter, when Lampo tends Gelon’s grave and remembers the quarry theatre, the masks are part of that memory. They survive as symbols of the attempt to resist oblivion through art.