Re: Vaudeville
Diego Dell'Era (dellerad@sinectis.com.ar)
Fri, 08 May 1998 15:52:33 -0700
In digest 325, Mattis said about child actors:
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Though I do not see their participation in it as "phony", rather that
all the children involved did their best to be themselves.
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I agree. I was goint to say the same thing when I read Camille's
definition of
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a *performance* - how much is said and done specifically for others'
benefit
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The mass media are a perfect way to symbolize the interference, the
interrupted messages. We, the audience, turn on the radio -to obtain-
something from others' performances (most probably making time, or easy
entertainment). Not that the radio implies easy entertainment (you know
that, Camille, you wrote for the radio, haven't you?), but that the
reception of radio programmes tends to be less critical in average. And
thus child actors are made to sound phony, even when they are Franny or
Zooey.
However, I don't really think JDS was trying to make this sociological
point. Perhaps what JDS was trying to show was how difficult it is in
our age to communicate one's true self. Remember that line Seymour said
about defective telephone communications? It sounds to me that the lines
about the radio programme and its reception are a variation of the
problem of the lack of sensitivy in our exchanges: people shouting back
"What?" at the actor saying "I love you".
--
diego dell'era (dellerad@sinectis.com.ar)