Representing Gender/Representing Self: A Reflection on Role Playing in Performance Theory and Practice

Abstract

Waiting on the queue (or in my own lingo, ‘on line’) at the book-shop of the National Theatre in one of the first weeks of the new year 1996, I glanced up and caught the eye of the man in front of me. It was a familiar face: Tom Stoppard’s. The visage was immediately recognizable, and the associated impulse to act was unconscious and instantaneous. I smiled and opened my mouth, about to say Hello (or in my lingo, ‘Hi’). By the strange split-second timing that separates the role-playing of everyday life from that of theatre, something stopped me from speaking (or reacting), just in time. It wasn’t that I wanted to be unfriendly; it was, rather, the sudden realization that he did not know me, would not recognize my face as I did his. So, I met Tom Stoppard, but he did not meet me. We both went off to see some ‘real’ theatre.