ABSTRACT
Playing, like ritual, is at the heart of performance. In fact, performance may be defined as ritualized behavior conditioned/permeated by play. How and why this is so is the subject of this chapter. Ritual has seriousness to it, the hammerhead of authority. Play is looser, more permissive – forgiving in precisely those areas where ritual is enforcing, flexible where ritual is rigid.To put it another way: restored behavior is playful; it has a quality of not being entirely “real” or “serious.” Restored behavior is conditional; it can be revised. Playing is double-edged, ambiguous, moving in several directions simultaneously. People often mix bits of play – a wisecrack, a joke, a flirtatious smile – with serious activities in order to lighten, subvert, or even deny what is apparently being communicated. “I was just kidding” reflexively claims that the “for real” action was in fact a performance. This claim in favor of playing points to the kind of performing associated with the arts, with creativity, with childhood. It is not a claim that stands up well to the technical or business applications of performance.
