Everyday performance

Yesterday’s interesting encounter with “social street theatre” got me thinking — how much of our everyday, moment to moment experience of life is actually a kind of theatre? When people laugh, or act surprised, or share an moment in a social situation, how much of it is actually a performance of a laugh, or of a gesture of surprise, or of a “shared moment”?

We are such social creatures, interacting with other people day in and day out, that we might not actually notice when our behavior has slipped into performance. After all, our interactions over the course of a day are bound up in many rituals — saying good morning, going to get a coffee, ordering at a restaurant, queuing up for a movie.

In many social situations, too much spontaneity would actually break the social contract. If our dinner companion were to suddenly sing their order to the waiter in a loud opera buffa baritone, we might start to consider looking for other dinner companions. Similarly, we might not be happy if a coworker were to respond to our innocent “How are you doing?” with a detailed play-by-play of their recent gall bladder operation.

In this sense, all of our social interactions are a finely calibrated balance between the genuine and the performed. Being able to function in society is a matter of negotiating the path between — and having a good sense of where the curb is on either side.