The Performer
‘A Dance to the Music of Time’ by Nicolas Poussin, courtesy Wallace Collection, London
In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, first published in 1956 and regarded as a classic in the field of sociology, Erving Goffman examines the ways and means we use to communicate with each other, demonstrating that our behaviour in social situations, shaped by how we want to be perceived and accepted, is surprisingly similar to a theatrical performance. One aspect of Goffman's theory is that as we interact in social settings we are constantly engaged in the process of ‘impression management’, behaving in a manner we hope will prevent embarrassment both to ourselves and others. Other facets of our social behaviour, however, are less considerate; it is startling, and often disconcerting, to discover how many of our interpersonal attitudes and actions are fundamentally self-serving. Although Goffman’s ideas are not discussed in Richard Sennett’s new The Performer - Art, Life, Politics, they undoubtedly form a precedent, for as Sennett explains in his preface, when he started to write the book ‘a cluster of demagogues had come to dominate the public realm’, with individuals such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson engaged in ‘malign performances’ that make use of a wide range of theatrical tropes and techniques.
Richard Sennett began his career as a professional cellist and later became a sociologist whose work has dealt with urban design, public culture and art, and how they influence each other and us. As Rowan Moore wrote in his review in ‘The Observer’, The Performer combines, as in Sennett’s previous books, erudite knowledge with personal experience, making wide-ranging references to major cultural figures such as Aristotle, the Renaissance philosopher Pico della Mirandola, Machiavelli, Diderot, Sigmund Freud, Roland Barthes, and Hannah Arendt. His idea of ‘the performer’ includes ordinary people going about their daily lives, as well as artists, actors, and musicians; he tells, for instance, of Dirty Dick’s Foc’sle Bar in Greenwich Village in the 1960s, a place he knew well because he lived above it, which he says was mainly frequented by artists, ‘gay men of colour”, and unemployed dock workers. In the same expansive spirit, he traces the history of theatrical spaces from the open-air auditoriums of ancient Greece to Shakespeare’s Globe and Wagner’s opera house in Bayreuth, dwelling at length on the 16th century Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, the first fully roofed and enclosed theatre in Europe. He also explores the gradual enclosure of theatres and their retreat from the streets around them, adding vivid stories about the shifting relationships between performers and audiences, both within and outside conventional theatrical spaces.
Sennett draws no firm conclusions in The Performer, but it is clear that he sees ‘performance’, both literal and metaphorical, as a vital force that withers if it is used to express malevolent or simplistic moral messages. By implication, readers are allowed, even encouraged, to take what they will from its copious historical allusions and speculative musings. From my own perspective, the beginning of the fifth chapter, on ’How Art Opens’, is especially resonant. ’Arts administrators (a dismal tribe) talk about making art accessible, which is one form of ‘open’, he begins. ‘What they mean is that, if paintings are attractively labelled, if performers make little speeches about ‘what it means to me’ before playing each piece of music, if choreographers provide dance classes after people watch it done professionally, the art becomes enticing and so swells audience numbers (administrators live and die by audience numbers). Rather than being democratic, this measure is condescending, as though without the packaging people won’t get it’.
The real challenge in art, love, and work is the same, Sennett goes on; it is how to ‘de-idealize’ what you are doing but still try to do it well. He is old-fashioned enough to believe that skill in playing, making, and performing is more important in art than either ideation or casual improvisation. ‘Impulse art is usually bad art’, he says; the reverse is true because ‘naturalness requires artifice’. This is not always easy to achieve, and he follows one of the lessons of Eugen Herrigel’s classic Zen in the Art of Archery in suggesting that an artist who encounters a difficulty should adopt ‘kyudo’, the Japanese ‘way of the bow’, which is to relax, stop and do nothing for a moment rather than attack the problem directly. As Herrigel wrote, ‘The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconsciousness is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art’. Similarly, adding to his mistrust of explanations and overt ‘accessibility’, and based on his own experience as a musician, Sennett emphasises the value of wordless cooperation and the use of non-verbal signs such as physically relaxed expressive gestures to mediate between fellow performers, both equal and unequal. There is little benefit to anyone, he says, in prolonged discussions about intentions, cultural conditions, or meaning.
In the final chapter, Sennett considers the importance of what he calls ‘civility’, a form of behaviour that respects others, and he reflects on how performance can become more compassionate and congenial. In doing so, he is inspired by the insightful and often overlooked Art as Experience by the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey, which was first published in 1934. Dewey wanted to ‘restore the continuity between the refined and intensified forms of experience that are works of art and the everyday events, doings, and sufferings’ of human life, which both makers and consumers share; the former are distinguished from the latter only because they have developed the skills and craftsmanship with which to communicate their thoughts and feelings. Dewey and Sennett consider good art to be a shared and unified experience, one that encourages people to be more open and civil to one another. At best - and this, perhaps, strays outside Sennett’s already broad parameters - it moves beyond the sociological, transactional, and performative into a metaphysical realm, somewhere deep, affectionate, and intimate.
For Further exploration:
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life: https://exploresociology.com/key-thinker/erving-goffman/the-presentation-of-self-in-everyday-life-1959/
A review of The Performer: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/03/the-performer-art-life-politics-by-richard-sennett-review-all-the-worlds-a-stage-for-better-or-worse
A reassessment of John Deweys’ legacy: https://hyperallergic.com/67081/reconsidering-john-deweys-art-as-experience/
Image on index page: Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza
Current listening:
We invited Jake Xerxes Fussell to play at the Douglas Hyde Gallery almost a decade ago, but unfortunately he wasn’t planning to tour at the time. This new album, comprising interpretations of old and traditional songs, dwells on themes of wandering and uncertainty; his quiet, graceful music remains a comfort and pleasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VjwlMrJehw
Review: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/jake-xerxes-fussell-when-im-called/