All The World's A Stage...

What I found most interesting about this week’s readings was the correlation of topics shared between the two. In the Schechner chapter two selections, the idea of ‘where exactly does a performance take place’, is discussed. It is concluded that, “a performance only takes place in action, interaction, and relation.” Therefor, a performances foundation is based mainly on circumstances shared between two or more persons. I found this theory reflected in Jaques’s speech within Act II of As You Like It. In the second scene, beginning with line 140, Jaques launches into his monologue set in motion by the famous line, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women are merely players.” When I read this, I immediately thought back to Schechner’s idea of a performance being something we carry out through our whole lives. In the reading, Schechner goes even further and gives us an example of the common person’s earliest performance. When your mother first taught you how to eat from a spoon, she demonstrated how to properly bring the food to ones mouth with the spoon so you could see the correct way to go about it. You would then mimic her performance, and carry out your own performance of bringing the spoon to your mouth. Schechner argues that this process of observing and carrying out performances happens to us several times a day, and therefor making ‘all the world a stage’.