The Art of Illusion with Robin Volsky

“Five minutes to curtain!” Backstage, Robin Volsky relaxes as he begins to cap pots of paint and clean brushes. For the last two hours, the skilled makeup artist has transformed actors into the characters they play on stage. A teenage girl morphed into a matronly servant, a curly-haired fellow in his mid-20s became a bald baron, and a beautiful woman turned into a witch with a wart on the tip of her bulbous nose.

“Most folks I’ve made up look in a mirror after I’ve finished and respond with a smile, even if the illusion includes a few missing teeth,” says Volsky, the go-to makeup guy for the Vero Beach Theatre Guild and beyond. “They’ll say ‘Wow. Amazing.’ Some have even screamed. They can’t believe it’s them. Something clicks in and they suddenly transform into the character they’re playing onstage. The transformation becomes so complete that they begin to do things they wouldn’t do as themselves. In fact, ‘self’ disappears.”

An actor as well, Volsky is well aware of the impact theatrical makeup can have. That’s why he regularly offers tutorials to performers as well as community workshops. He loves what he does and thanks his mother, a commercial artist and prolific painter, for steering him on an artistic path.

“I was raised with the smell of turpentine in my nostrils,” Volsky grins, as he recalls growing up in the small town of Windsor, Massachusetts. “When my mother would hold art classes in the basement of our house, I was provided with a drawer full of paper and tons of pencils to occupy my time. As is typical of most 8-year-olds, I had a predilection for dinosaurs and creepy cartoon faces.”

Over the years the dinosaurs disappeared and creepy cartoon faces were replaced with sketches of recognizable people. During Volsky’s time as a theater major at the University of Massachusetts, it became obvious that he was the only one interested in painting faces, so he ended up doing everyone’s makeup. Since UMass didn’t offer a makeup class, arrangements were made for him to enroll in one at Smith College. He never missed a class; he was hooked.

Then came a call from his mother, who told him about a television talk show she was watching that featured the famous Westmore makeup family and the book they had written about their work at major Hollywood film studios. Volsky not only found the book, he found the Westmores.

“After Marvin Westmore audited the theatrical makeup class I was teaching at a local community college, he offered me a position as head creative director at the newly formed Westmore Academy of Cosmetic Arts. My job was to create and teach an intensive theatrical makeup class to prepare students to pass their makeup union exams. I was in teaching heaven!” Volsky exclaims.

However, as often happens, the road of life can take a jog in a different direction. Volsky’s led him to a position with the United States Postal Service. After his day job he continued sketching and painting faces, perfecting the use of shadow and light to emphasize distinguishing facial features.

When he relocated to Vero Beach in 1992, he began looking around for opportunities to utilize his craft. He has friends from church to thank for telling him about the Theatre Guild, where he began volunteering as both a makeup artist and an occasional performer.

After retiring from the postal service in 2011, Volsky had more time to become further involved with the guild. “As a board member I helped grow our outreach efforts into the community,” he says. “Part of these efforts led to mutual collaborations with Riverside Theatre, Vero Beach High School, Indian River Charter High School, and Vero Beach Opera. I’ve also helped with local fashion shows, beauty schools, commercials, independent films, and regional theaters as a makeup artist and instructor.”

Volsky also made it his mission to develop a dedicated space at the guild that followed the templates of professional makeup and hair departments he had seen at movie studios and in college theater departments.

He explains, “My goal as the makeup and hair department head in 2012 was to replace the original 1950s pitted and chipped mirrors and tiny rooms with a larger space, individual stations with adjustable front lighting, fresh large mirrors, overhead wig shelves for storage, rolling chairs, and options to expand for larger casts.

“It’s been a gradual adoption, and just last year we added a dedicated hair styling corner with overhead LED lighting, a stylist’s station, mirror, and a salon chair, which was greatly appreciated by our hair and wig specialist and resident hair genius, Clara McCarthy.”

When he’s not backstage working his makeup magic, Volsky can often be found in the guild’s scene shop fabricating special effects such as the cow head used in the dance scene in Gypsy, or Thing, the disembodied hand that is a major character in the Addams Family musical. In March he created four commedia dell’arte masks for Vero Beach Opera.

When it comes to his acting resume, Volsky has portrayed a wolf, a prince, and an Irish historian. Yet his all-time favorite character is Curly from Oklahoma!.

“Curly has it all,” says Volsky. “He gets to sing five songs, shoot a gun, spin a rope, fight a crazy guy with a knife onstage, dance in a dream sequence, and he gets to stage kiss a former Miss Alabama (Leigh Seirafi). What could be better?”

Volsky answers the question himself when he puts his magical makeup hat back on.

“Creating a character for someone else can be equally satisfying yet less stressful,” he admits. “With great care, I’ve applied the prosthetic beast mask to each of the three performers who played the part of the Beast in Beauty and the Beast over the years. The transformation, with face and hands, took about 40 minutes to apply and 20 to remove!

“In Cats, so many performers were unrecognizable onstage that we included a before-and-after shot of them in the program. The extra pages were well worth the printing cost, and tons of personal photos were taken afterwards in the reception line. This, of course, made our makeup team, listening from the wings and sneaking out after to join them, glow with pride. Cats is all about the choreography, the music, the costumes, and especially the makeup.

“For me, the performance is complete when, after altering the looks of 30 performers, doing touch-ups, and handling any potential emergencies, I sit down, the endorphins kick in, and I peacefully clean brushes. It’s then that the game face relaxes, the intensity subsides, and I smile.”

On a personal note, some years ago Volsky did the makeup for my husband, who played the part of a bobby (police officer) in The Pirates of Penzance. With the mustache, long sideburns, and ruddy cheeks, I didn’t recognize the quiet, conservative fellow I’d married, up on the stage dancing and singing. My guy not only looked like the character he was playing, he acted like him. Kudos, Robin Volsky!