On Ambiguity: Towards a Post-Modern Performance Theory

Abstract

The challenge and the excitement of expanding both the focus of our research and the field of our praxis beyond Theatre (or Film, Pop or Video) to Performance is to identify phenomena which transcend one medium and may enable us to know something about acting as such, spectating as such and thus ‘being’ as such: performance, not as a second-hand version of some more primary reality, but as a ‘realm’ in its own right.

I am because you are

“…All binaries are really hidden -and dynamic -triads… the crucial factor here is not how many ways two different units can relate to each other, but recognition that this 'third element' is not a unit but an axis, not an entity but a state of being, less a relationship than an act of relating'. (George 1988: 78-80 cited in Williams 1996 I am because you are, is not about closing but opening a gap between us, a gap of dialogic creativity. As Williams delineates (1996), many writers name this third space.…”

Over the Ropes: Boundary Play in Professional Wrestling

“…I argue that professional wrestling is a unique, and also marginalized, genre of performance because it challenges the very definition of what a performance is. We think of performances in terms of their boundaries-discrete, explicit, and rigid separations of space, time, and contextualized behavior that displace their practice from daily life ( George 1989;Remshardt 2004). As we establish these boundaries, we also form a distance between the "real" experience of the audience and the spectacle on display.…”

“…The conceptual and cognitive importance of the "fourth wall" in performance derives from this allowance for the suspension of disbelief. Theatre necessarily presents a problem for its audience in the division between the actions of characters and narratives being portrayed through performance and the "real" human beings acting alongside and through these characters-a problem that theatre scholar David George terms "ambiguity" (George 1989;Remshardt 2004).…”

“…Nippert-Eng highlights an equivalent problem occurring through play: the ultimate social risk from those who play is the ambiguity in their actions and intentions, and so "play time" is produced as a distinct sectioning of time (and space) in order to constrain this risk to a particular social setting and social role for the players (Goffman 1961;Nippert-Eng 2004). Boundary play, then, is particularly dangerous (2004) and thrilling because it allows for a challenging of the fundamental boundaries of performance (George 1989). Through boundary play, the lines between the audience's reality and the reality constructed through performance is blurred.…”

“…Other scholars have described it as a fundamentally "liminal" form (Levi 2008), displaying attributes of many other social and performance forms-theatre, sport, ritual, dance, etc.-but not fitting neatly into any one specific category. Thus, a strict consideration of wrestling as theatre neglects a key characteristic of the medium: whereas theatre is defined by its separation of factual and fictive worlds (George 1989), in professional wrestling a neatly defined "fourth wall" simply doesn't exist. The agreement of performers and audience members to uphold kayfabe allows the wrestling fiction to be sustained the beyond the expected and necessary boundaries of theatrical performance.…”