Acting on the Stage of Life

“Life is a stage and we are all actors on the stage of life” is a correct interpretation of our lives. Every day we are faced with situations, in which we “act” to make an impression, we have to act differently depending on whom we want to impress with our acting. Sociologist Erving Goffman who developed the idea of Dramaturgical Perspective uses theatrical terminology to describe actions in our lives. Everyone in their life puts up a performance, not necessarily everyday, but it does happen fairly often. In fact, next week I will be putting up a “performance” in my theology class.

One of our assignments for the class is a group presentation on one of the Saints. My group will be presenting Saint Thomas More, an English philosopher and thinker. It will be a ten minute long spectacle where everyone in my group will have a role to play. We are responsible for the job of both the directors and actors. All of us got together a couple times throughout last week in order to work on our show. The first step that we took was discovering who our audience will really be. Will it be the rest of our class or our theology professor? We all agreed that it will be a performance for both the students as well as our professor. We have been researching the information and preparing the script for our big day. I am personally responsible for the technical aspect of the show; I will be in charge of the computer and our power point presentation. Another person will be the leading character in our show; she will be presenting the earlier prepared information on our saint. She has an incredibly difficult job since all the eyes on audience will be focused on her for the most of the show. She will have to put on a mask and leave the stress at home. Our theatre will be a fairly small classroom, our stage will only be about ten feet long and three feet wide, our space will be limited, but it is more than enough for our needs. The spectacle itself will be a one act presentation, there will not be any intermission; probably just a short session with a series of questions from the audience to the actors.

Every play requires its actors to have a certain dress code, our play is no different. The whole group has agreed on our costumes. We all believe that the scenery and our serious play demand of us to present ourselves in a professional manner. We all have to rehearse our individual scripts along with our outfits and the whole play altogether. It is a crucial part of the preparation process and it has to be rehearsed to perfection, until every single detail is mastered.

My “performance” that is scheduled for next week’s theology class definitely qualifies in the category of Dramaturgical Perspective. All of us have been working really hard to prepare to the best of our ability. We all believe we have been doing everything in our power to do put on an interesting act and hopefully our audience will appreciate us. Stage is a test for an actor, it verifies our ability to perform and it is an opportunity to become known the way we want people to know us.