Understanding Derrida: presence on stage

Dealing with performer’s presence on stage, one major problem comes into play. In Derrida's approach, presence is not reality but a reality effect, one that can be associated with charisma, a main tool in constructing systems of domination. By invoking actor's presence as a major tool in relating audiences, you are inevitably linked to a repressive status-quo. That was bothering me for a while and I couldn't see a way out. The answer arrived surprisingly from my last performance, through Jeanne Hamilton’s special being-on-stage. I realized it quite late and thanks to her I understood Derrida's point. Here it is: in order to cut the links with existing systems of dominance that are enforced by performance mechanism, a performance must find ways to deconstruct performer's presence. This is how we did it: in highly intense scenes where the performer’s self was "stretched and exposed" what we were involving was an explicit refusal of the performer to make a greater investment of the self in one procedure or another. By using the good old alienating effect, the emotional commitment in acting was distanced and demystified. The presence of the realist actor that comes from inside was left behind. What was still there was the intensity of the moment that was showed and not lived.


rehearsing what we called "the confession scene", Jeanne with one of her self portraits