Course Reader: Reading #1
What is Performance?
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Excerpts from:
Johan Huizinga, Peggy Phelan, Erving Goffman,
Marvin Carlson, and Judith Butler
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #1
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #1
THE PERFORMANCE STUDIES READER
Edited by Henry Bia}
I~ ~~o~!!~n~~~up LONDON AND NEW YORK
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #2
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #2
First published 2004 by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Routledoc is an imprint rd’the Taxlor &..Frands Group
© 2004 selection and editorial matter: Henry Bial; individual chapters: the contributors
Typeset in Perpetu. by Reline Catch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by
TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
All rights rc”served, No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now kuown or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers,
Library ~rCongress Cataloging in Publication Data The performance studies reader / Henry BiaL
1. Theater – Anthropological aspects, 2, Performing arts, L Bial, Henry, 1970- PN2041.AS7P49 2003 791-dc21 2003005708
British Library Cata signifies. For Derrida, utterance of the prom tive is important to independence froIn II performative enacts II
Tania Modleski
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #12
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #12
nonreproductive. It is this : the litter of contemporary , of reproductive represen Perhaps nowhere was the ld art made more manifest :x>lides for the National g both photography and tght to prevent endorsing : by these art forms. ~ presence of living bodies. element of consumption: lUst try to take everything ges into viSibility – in a lto memory, into the realm ::Ies regulation and control. f finance. It saves nothing; .e to charges of counterfeit le to charges of valueless \e possibility of revaluing ~s performance art its dis
lble event of performance mt and thereby alter the d that macro-instruments t transforming those par e that the labor to write
it) is also a labor that ood, however, to simply tis inescapable transform :laims of performance for ssibilities of writing itself. er than the act of writing after-effect of disappear-
Camera Lucida and Roland in Empire of Signs, but in .ch he no longer is, a city or the search for a disap that script is the meeting bjectivity is possible for same Impossible. To live ~ible is both a humbling
The ontology of performance 149
project and an exceedingly ambitious one, for it seeks to find connection only in that which is no longer there. Memory. Sight. Love. It must involve a full seeing of the Other’s absence (the ambitious part), a seeing which also entails the acknowledgment of the Other’s presence (the humbling part). For to acknowledge the Other’s (always partial) pres ence is to acknowledge one’s own (always partial) absence.
In the field of linguistics, the performative speech act shares with the ontology of performance the inability to be reproduced or repeated. “Being an individual and historical act, a performative utterance cannot be repeated. Each reproduction is a new act performed by someone who is qualified. Otherwise, the reproduction of the performative utterance by someone else necessarily transforms it into a constative utterance. ,,4
Writing, an activity which relies on the reproduction of the Same (the three letters cat will repeatedly signify the four-legged furry animal with whiskers) for the production of meaning, can broach the frame of performance but cannot mimic an art that is nonreproductive. The mimicry of speech and writing, the strange process by which we put words in each other’s mouths and others’ words in our own, relies on a substitutional economy in which equivalencies are assumed and re established. Performance refuses this system of exchange and resists the circulatory economy fundamental to it. Performance honors the idea that a limited number of people in a specific time/space frame can have an experience of value which leaves no visible trace afterward. Writing about it necessarily cancels the “tracelessness” inaugurated within this perfor mative promise. Performance’s independence from mass reproduction, technologically, economically, and linguistically, is its greatest strength. But buffeted by the encroaching ideologies of capital and reproduction, it frequently devalues this strength. Writing about performance often, unwittingly, encourages this weakness and falls in behind the drive of the documentlary. Performance’s challenge to writing is to discover a way for repeated words to become performative utterances, rather than, as Benveniste warned, constative utterances.
The distinction between performative and constative utterances was proposed by J. L. Austin in How To Do Things With Words. s Austin argued that speech had both a constative element (describing things in the world) and a performative element (to say something is to do or make something, e.g. “I promise,” “I bet,” “I beg”). Performative speech acts refer only to themselves, they enact the activity the speech signifies. For Derrida, performative writing promises fidelity only to the utterance of the promise: I promise to utter this promise.6 The performa tive is important to Derrida precisely because it displays language’s independence from the referent outside of itself. Thus, for Derrida the performative enacts the now of writing in the present time?
Tania Modieski h “;h”~’O Austin and a<gues
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #13
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #13
THE PERFORMANCE STUDIES READER
Edited by Henry Bia}
I~ ~~~;~~n~R~up LONDON AND NEW YORK
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #14
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #14
I To
First published 2004 by Routledge
29 West 3Sth Street, New York , NY 10001
Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge
II New Fette r Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Routledae is an imprint of the Taylor &..Francis Croup
© 2004 selection and editorial matter: Henry Bial ; individual chapters: the contributors
Typeset in Perpetu. by Refin e Catch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by
TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any elecrronic, mechanical , or other means, now known or hereafter invemed, including
phOLOCOp)’ing and re.cording. or in any inrormation storage or retrieval system , without
permission in writing from the pubUshers.
Library of Conares.s CoroloBinO in Publianion Data The performance studies read er / Icompiled by) Henry Bial.
I . Theater – Anthropological aspects. 2. Performing arts. I. Bial, Henry, 1970- PN2041 .A57P49 2003 791 – dc21 2003005708
Bri lh’h Library CatalOlJuino in PublicaUon Data A catalogue rccord for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0–415-30240–4 (hbk) ISBN 0–4IS- 30241-2 (pbk)
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #15
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #15
6
PERFORMANCES
Belief in the part one is playing
Erving G1fman
When an individual plays a part he implicitly requests his observers to take seriously the
impression th~at is fostered before them. They are asked to believe that the character they
see actually possesses the attributes he appears to possess, that the task he performs will
have the consequences that are implicitly claimed for it, and that, in general, matters are
what they appear to be. In line with this@ere is the popular view that the individual offers
his performance and puts on his show “for the benefit of other people.” It will be convenient
to begin a consideration of performances by turning the question around and looking ~
the individual’s own belief in the impression of reality that he attempts to engender in those
among w~ he finds himseU . ) At one extreme, one finds that the performer can be fully taken in by his own act; he can
be sincerely convinced that the impression of reality which he stages is the real reality.
When his audience is also convinced in this way about the show he puts on – and this seems
to be the typical case – then, for the moment at least, only the SOciologist or the socially
disgruntled will have any doubts about the “realness” of what is presented.
At the other extreme, we find that the performer may not be taken in at all by his own
routine. This possibility is understandable, since no one is in quite as good an observational
position to see through the act as the person who puts it on. Coupled with this, the
performer may be moved to guide the conviction of his audience only as a means to other
ends, having no ultimate concern in the conception that they have of him or of the situation.
When the individual has no belief in his own act and no ultimate concern with the beliefs
of his audience, we may call him cynical, reserving the term “sincere” for individuals who
believe in the impression fostered by their~rror~manc’9 It should be understood that the cynic, with all his professional disinvolvement, may obtain unprofessional pleasures from
his masquerade, experiencing a kind of gleeful spiritual aggression from the fact that he can
toy at will with something his audience must take seriously. I
It is not assumed, of course, that all cynical performers are interested in deluding their
audiences for purposes of what is called “self~interest” or private gain. A cynical individual
may delude his audience for what he considers to be their own good, or for the good of the
community, etc. For illustrations of this we need not appeal to sadly enlightened showmen
59
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #16
Intro to Theater: What is Performance? Page #16
ERVING GOFFMAN
such as Marcus Aurelius or Hsun Tzu . We know that in service occupations practitioners
who may otherwise be sincere are sometimes forced to delude their customers because
their customers show such a heartfelt demand for it. Doctors who are led into giving
placebos, filling station attendants who resignedly check and recheck tire pressures for
anxious women motorists, shoe clerks who sell a shoe that fits but tell the customers it is the
size she wants to hear – these are cynical performers whose audiences will not allow them
to be sincere. Similarly, it seems that sympathetic patients in mental wards will sometimes
feign bizarre symptoms so that student nurses will not be subjected to a disappointingly
sane performance. 2
So also, when inferiors extend their most lavish reception for visiting
superiors, the selfish desire to win favor may not be the chief motive; the inferior may be
tactfully attempting to put the superior at ease by simulating the kind of world the superior
is thought to take for granted .
I have suggested two extremes: an individual may be taken in by his own act or be cynical
about it. These extremes are something a little more than just the ends of a continuum.
Each provides the individual with a position which has its own particular securities and
defenses, so there will be a tendency for those who have traveled close to one of these poles
to complete the voyage. Starting with lack of inward belief in one’s role, the individual may
follow the natural movement described by Park:
It is probably no mere historical accident that the word person in its first meaning,
is a mask. It is rather a recognition of the fact that everyone is always and every
where, more or less consciously, playing a role . . . it is in these roles that we know
each other; it is in these roles that we know ourselves. 3
In a sense , and in so far as this mask represents the conception we have formed
of ourselves – the role we are striving to live up to – this mask is our truer self,
the self we would like to be. In the end, our conception of our role becomes
second nature and an integral part of our personality . We come into the world as
individuals, achieve character, and become persons.’
This may be ill ustrated from the community Ufe of Shetland. 5 For the last four or five years
the island’s tourist hotel has been owned and operated by a married couple of crofter
origins. From the beginning, the owners were forced to set aside their own conceptions as
to how life ought to be led, displaying in the hotel a full round of middle-class services and
amenities. Lately, however, it appears that the managers have become less cynical about the
performance that they stage; they themselves are becoming middle class and more and more
enamored of the selves their clients impute to them.
Another illustration may be found in the raw recruit who initially follows army etiquette
in order to avoid physical punishment and eventually comes to follow the rules so that his
organization will not be shamed and his officers and fellow soldiers will respect him.
As suggested, the cycle of disbelief-to-belief can be followed in the other direction,
starting with conviction or insecure aspiration and ending in cynicism. Professions which
the public holds in religious awe often allow their recruits to follow the cycle in this
60
PERFO
direction, and oftel
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