Teller, audience, performance, and story

Terri said some fascinating things about “performing” while telling a story. When she is doing, what she thinks, may be too much performance:

It looks like I’m not just talking to friends.

It looks like –

what it looks is that

I’m out here watching me do this.

Rather than just

being relaxed and

I’m not in observer mode

at all

when I’m not performing.

“Observer mode” being observing herself, paying attention to what she is doing. She continued:

when I delight in my own story,

as if it’s not me,

it’s the story

being told,

and I’m just,

I’m just the mouthpiece.

Then,

it’s good.

When the story’s more important than

me and how I’m coming across,

then I’m not performing.

This brings up some interesting dynamics between teller, audience, and story. Arguably, the performance could be seen as part of the story. The way a storyteller performs will certainly impact the meaning the audience will take away from the story. So, to differentiate the story from the performance is a little problematic. However, I do understand what Terri is talking about. In social situations, I can feel when I am doing more “performing” and when I am “being myself.” Performing takes more of my attention and it is harder to give myself to what I am saying. If Terri loses herself and becomes just a mouthpiece for the story, this implies that the audience will then have a relationship with the story and not with Terri. However, if, in not performing, she is being more herself, perhaps the audience can actually feel a greater connection to her as well. Maybe she and the story are truly one and it is overperformance that creates distance.

Overperformance is associated (in the Carapace community and beyond) with inauthenticity. I have to tread carefully here, because performance theory suggests that we are actually all performing on some level during all social interactions. So to say that to perform is to be inauthentic would mean that none of us are ever being authentic. But there are different levels of performance. Terri’s measure of self-awareness could be helpful here. When you are devoting enough mental power to the performance that it takes you out of what you are doing you may be reaching a level of performance that creates distance between you and your listeners.