Performance or Theatre: It's Not Not Either?

When I "performed" my devised Vocal History for my professor and my class at the beginning of my graduate school experience, I included a moment in which I talked about all the different ways I used my voice depending on the different roles in my life. There was my hospitality voice, my teacher voice, my friends voice, my family voice, my actor voice, my real voice, etc. Though perhaps I was unaware of it at the time, this part of my vocal history implied that I was aware of "performing" different versions of myself depending on my surrounding environment. 

This personal experience causes me to be drawn to the connection between theatre, performance, and Carlson's idea of the fact that "[p]erformance is always performance for someone." When you think about the idea of “performing” gender or “performing” a power dynamic, it is worth considering whether or not that performance would still be taking place if the only audience present is the self (which, Carlson points out, is occasionally the case). I cannot think of a moment in my life when I have been truly alone and had the same sense of performance as I have had in the instances I mentioned above. Therefore I believe this idea of audience or of a specific location determining one’s behavior is essential in defining when a performance is taking place.

Things get a little murkier when you begin to attempt to delineate the boundaries between theatre and performance. Can it truly even be done? Initially, my instinct is to differentiate the two by saying that part of what makes theatre theatre is the formality of the space, the costumes, the lights, etc. However, not only does that exclude all of the theatre that is performed in parks and street corners and basements but it also casts a wide umbrella in which courtroom law and church rituals and sporting events and a whole host of other things may be qualified as theatre as well. Which, perhaps, is not incorrect.

I don’t really believe it is possible to confine theatre to one tiny, little box and say ‘this is theatre and this is not.’ I would even go so far as to say that by attempting to do so, we contradict what we as theatre artists strive to do. If we are tasked with representing the human condition, how can we exclude any part of it? If our aim is to recreate seemingly insignificant events that certain people go through every day in the hope of sharing that experience with a wider, more diverse audience, how can we deny the most naturally theatrical parts of human life?

Perhaps that is why theatre is so relatable. If people watching a theatrical performance (which I recognize I have not clearly defined, but let’s just say it has something to do with the recreation of an extraordinary human experience in everyday life) recognize something in the performance that reminds them of their own life, they may be able to take away more from the performance. They recognize the need to tell stories, to pass on wisdom through the spoken word. Perhaps they also recognize the sacred experience of sitting in a room full of their peers watching the same story being told while understanding that those around them might appreciate the story in different ways. Regardless, there is no denying that performance and theatre are deeply rooted in our culture, society, and even, I would say, our DNA.