Having read the articles by States and Carlson, we are left to ponder and question the difference between performance and theatre. I think it’s best to start with the idea that “performance” is a much broader term, applicable to almost every aspect of life and society. Indeed, Richard Schechner, in the introduction to his Performance Studies textbook, outlines eight separate areas where performance occurs:
1) jn everyday life
2) in the arts
3) in sports and other popular entertainments
4) in business
5) in technology
6) in sex
7) in ritual — sacred and popular
8) in play
If we accept that he’s right, and that we might be performing in many different ways throughout our daily lives, then we can say that “theatre” is a more specific term. And it’s precisely in that specificity that this conversation gets interesting. And I apologize for letting my brain wander, but…isn’t that the point?
One might be performing in different ways almost constantly. The way you perform on the phone when having the obligatory conversation with a parent; the performance you give your boss when explaining why you are late; the acrobatic performer you become when caught in a lie you don’t want to explain to a lover. Yet the performance you give in the theatre will almost always be with one overarching aim: to tell a story. It makes the brain go to jelly a bit, because those theatrical stories you tell will include all eight of Schechner’s overlapping situations, yet there is undeniably a difference. You are not employed to perform for your family or co-workers in the way an artist feels employed to tell a story in the theatre. Plays, movies, performance art…these things are specifically designed in a way that makes them theatrical. There is some kind of producer who commissions the story to be told, there is an author who crafts the story, and there is an actor who interprets that story for an audience. Sometimes all of these can be the same person. Including, I suppose, the audience. But it is that deliberate agency of creation that makes it theatre, as opposed to an everyday performance you create as a means of navigating the ups and downs of daily life.
To take it a step further, I would argue one could also delve into the difference between theatre with an -RE, and theater with an -ER. To me, the former is the artistic endeavor, and the latter is the physical space the endeavor occurs in. A theater can be everything from a Broadway proscenium to a collegiate black box, an open green space in a park, or even a street corner. And you can perform theatre in all of those spaces as well. As long as it is done with artistic intent and a desire to tell a story you are a theatre artist performing in a theater.
At the end of the day, I don’t really believe it’s necessary to draw a distinction between these ideas. Actors and writers and directors are probably the ones who would concern themselves most with making sure they are labeled correctly. I think what is important is to make sure that the necessity of the theatre doesn’t get swept under the rug with the large vastness of what constitutes performance. Yes, there are many ways all of us perform in our daily lives. But this doesn’t make all of us artists of the theatre. That distinction should be reserved for, again, those with the intention of telling a story so as to affect an audience.
This is a very comprehensive and concise collection of the thoughts we have been challenged to mull over. I especially commend the extensive examples given under the label of performance, and the detail pointed out in the two possible last letters of the word "theatre".
ReplyDeleteI do however, have a query concerning the "story" element in the performance of everyday life. I drew a similarity between the various creative heads in the theatre and the many hats that human beings don as they navigate their way through life. Isn't it possible that one can simultaneously produce, write, and act in order to perform the life they live? Jerry for example, pays for a new suite, writes out an apologetic speech and takes on an aura of humility in order to apologize for not creating a blog post. In doing so, he has produced, scripted and acted at the very least, that particular segment of his life. Even when human beings are not preparing for a significant event in their lives, isn't it possible that their negotiation of shared space and time and social context is laden with an overarching story? Could it be destiny? Or re-incarnation? Or perhaps just the basic survival instinct which propels humanity to "perform" in such a way that they insure survival of their species?
Another query I had surrounded the theat(re/er) observation. Is artistic intent a perquisite for a space to be referred to as a theater? Take an operating theater for example, is it possible for the plan of action set in motion by a group of surgeons performing an emergency heart transplant, to automatically turn the space into a performance space? On the other end of the spectrum, wouldn't it be possible for a street fight turn a street corner into a theater? Picture the gathered crowds, the bets taken on who will win, the intervening police...This has the potential for movie-magic, but the fight did not originate with the intention of becoming a story.
I do not know the answers to these questions, but I extend many thanks to you for providing me the opportunity to ask them.