Performatised Secrets, Performatised Selves

This paper will be comprised of some comments on the act of writing for performance. In so doing, it will chart something of the distinctions – even divisions – between performance writing and dramatic writing. This dialogue will explore some of the ways in which much performance writing manifests a concentration on the performative self: a self that is articulated as being at once realistically transparent and overtly artificial. This paper’s primary concern is with the tracing of links between certain fine art practices and performance writing – rather than with rehearsing a concern with Auslanderesque critiques of representation per se. Notwithstanding this, Auslander’s writings provide a frame within which the following words will jostle for space.