Deconstructing performances

Photo by Gavin Whitner.

I grew up in a family of musicians and we would regularly go see all sorts of musical and dramatic performances. Always on the trips back home we would deconstruct whatever it was that we had just seen or heard, a particularly powerful performance or a flubbed line. We had been trained to see things with a critical eye and this was our opportunity to participate ourselves in the performance and show off for each other. I used to love giving some insight that would elicit praise and agreement from my parents and siblings. I was proud to have discriminating taste. But I also enjoyed hearing others' opinions. They were teaching me to look for things I wouldn't have otherwise seen, listen for things I wouldn't otherwise have heard. Once I became a performer myself, these sessions were doubly interesting to me because they would validate my own performance choices, or point out areas for improvement -- pricking my pride and feeding the flame of my ambition. And that's what made any of these performances interesting to me -- my own engagement with them during, but especially being able to savor them after.

It's funny, I have always had the impulse to "dish" with people after things. That's one of the few truly worthwhile things about having at least a few friends who are gossipy fishwives.

In my relationships I always have this moment of "big reveal," where I feel like it is suddenly ok to rehash all initial encounters, at the time fraught with uncertainty and intrigue, and give the backstories and internal monologues that were hidden at the time ("I was so worried when you found out about X, but luckily I had the idea to play it off as Y"). I love to brag about things -- how I seduced them, or marked them as a target long before I was even on their radar. The actual dance steps of a relationship are an ok distraction for me, but the true pleasure is getting to deconstruct it all with the person months or years later.

Last night, coming home from a performance with someone I am currently engaged with, I realized the parallel between my childhood performance critiques and my adult relationship rehashings -- I am performing in relationships. I guess everybody does, but my main interest is not just to acquire the other person, but to perform the process beautifully. Without the promise of having an audience (even of only one or two), I don't think I would care to engage.