ABSTRACT
While the scales of production in professional wrestling differ from events at the local gym with a couple dozen in attendance to the arena with 20,000, the basic event is designed along the same lines – a promoter gathers a handful of wrestlers, each with a gimmick, ensuring a number of good guys and bad guys, a referee, an announcer, and a script dictating the winners and losers according to serial narrative. These performers “work” the attendants to craft an entertaining evening. Professional wrestling’s playful qualities are a means of engaging the senses and intervening in the fan’s responses to scripted provocations and athletic acrobatics. It makes use of spectacle as a means of affecting fans who are actively attendant to the action by way of the visual stimulation of lighting, pyrotechnics, costume, and choreography; the aural stimulation of noise, music, scripted dialog, call and response, and the amplified thumps and knocks of the ring; and the touches and tastes of the shared experience of the venue and its offerings. Responses from the attendant masses, who are more than passive audiences but rather active participants, are as important as the athletics. The event sets the scene for active playful engagement for the purposes of generating visceral responses to the action in the ring and beyond as well as inviting active participation by the attendants. An examination of the performance design of a typical match reveals professional wrestling to be a form of play that exercises our desire to transgress the bounds of social etiquette.
