PUBLIC PLAY AS THEATER
I had to bite my cheek some years ago, at least figuratively speaking, when I read a letter on a local e-list from a woman who said that she did not go to the local dungeon to be seen but rather just to play. Now, if I had really been up for a fight I would have asked her that if that were the case, why did she wear that outfit which a woman of her girth and years should not be seen in public in, but, as I know her and we are sort of friends, I did not say anything. I sure wanted to, though!
This is something that I have never really been able to understand. Does this person wear her costume when she goes grocery shopping? Of course not. No more than I wear my Steve Canyon helmet. And the reason is that when we are in the play space we are taking on a stage persona, something different from our everyday life. We are playing out a character we have created.
Let me explain.
Consider the nature of the space itself. It is, in a very real sense, a theater. From the choice of furniture, lighting and music it is designed as a type of theater with the stage being replaced by the working space of the players, much as takes place at a Renaissance Faire. It is a place where performance takes place in front of an audience and everyone who plays in such an environment knows that there is going to be an audience. And there is, in large measure, a demarcation between the audience and the players even in the lounge. You can tell it by their actions, their demeanor. It is a very subtle thing, but the signs are there for those with the experience to see them. Now, the line may be crossed on occasion, as when someone arrives not expecting to play and suddenly finds herself bound buck naked on the cross, but that is the exception.
As in all theater, the players take on characters. Some of them even change their names for the occasion and the scene name is not always a disguise for marital infidelity. Of course we may make fun of the poor yutz who insists on being called Master Beeswax or Mistress Thumbelina (especially when Mistress Thumbelina weighs 600 pounds!) but we must recognize that in assuming an identity, no matter how silly, the person is entering into the drama of the evening.
There are a few theatrical conventions. While the sort of nonsense that one associates with the Obsolete Guard have long passed by the wayside in most civilized regions, it is still fairly safe to assume that someone who is naked is probably a submissive even if she is not tied to anything at the moment. Likewise, someone with a weapon, usually a blade (I’m not the only one who wears them) strapped to his hip is probably a dominant. Ok, these things are not always true, but it is the way to bet.
Once the character is chosen, the players perform their roles as the character, their daily lives left behind in the dressing room as it were. The bank president crawling naked behind her master on a leash is not worrying about mortgage rates. And viewing these characters, this dramatis personae of the theater of BDSM is the audience, the people who do not intend to play that night but have come to be with their friends and, even though they may be unwilling to admit it, enjoy the show.
And the players, the cast of this site-specific performance, use the furniture as props for their individual mummeries, doing things they would not do at home because they do not have the energy of the audience to feed them as well as things they cannot simply because they may not have the room or the equipment. They are the show, the reason for everyone being there. They are, in a very real sense, the entertainment. A dungeon is like the old, three-ring circus, with several acts going on at the same time and the audience moving its attention between them if interested or waiting for the lion tamers if they are not.
And when the play is done, the cast changes out of their costumes and departs, as if by the stage door, their roles put aside until the next performance with the same, or maybe even a new audience.
I had to bite my cheek some years ago, at least figuratively speaking, when I read a letter on a local e-list from a woman who said that she did not go to the local dungeon to be seen but rather just to play. Now, if I had really been up for a fight I would have asked her that if that were the case, why did she wear that outfit which a woman of her girth and years should not be seen in public in, but, as I know her and we are sort of friends, I did not say anything. I sure wanted to, though!
This is something that I have never really been able to understand. Does this person wear her costume when she goes grocery shopping? Of course not. No more than I wear my Steve Canyon helmet. And the reason is that when we are in the play space we are taking on a stage persona, something different from our everyday life. We are playing out a character we have created.
Let me explain.
Consider the nature of the space itself. It is, in a very real sense, a theater. From the choice of furniture, lighting and music it is designed as a type of theater with the stage being replaced by the working space of the players, much as takes place at a Renaissance Faire. It is a place where performance takes place in front of an audience and everyone who plays in such an environment knows that there is going to be an audience. And there is, in large measure, a demarcation between the audience and the players even in the lounge. You can tell it by their actions, their demeanor. It is a very subtle thing, but the signs are there for those with the experience to see them. Now, the line may be crossed on occasion, as when someone arrives not expecting to play and suddenly finds herself bound buck naked on the cross, but that is the exception.
As in all theater, the players take on characters. Some of them even change their names for the occasion and the scene name is not always a disguise for marital infidelity. Of course we may make fun of the poor yutz who insists on being called Master Beeswax or Mistress Thumbelina (especially when Mistress Thumbelina weighs 600 pounds!) but we must recognize that in assuming an identity, no matter how silly, the person is entering into the drama of the evening.
There are a few theatrical conventions. While the sort of nonsense that one associates with the Obsolete Guard have long passed by the wayside in most civilized regions, it is still fairly safe to assume that someone who is naked is probably a submissive even if she is not tied to anything at the moment. Likewise, someone with a weapon, usually a blade (I’m not the only one who wears them) strapped to his hip is probably a dominant. Ok, these things are not always true, but it is the way to bet.
Once the character is chosen, the players perform their roles as the character, their daily lives left behind in the dressing room as it were. The bank president crawling naked behind her master on a leash is not worrying about mortgage rates. And viewing these characters, this dramatis personae of the theater of BDSM is the audience, the people who do not intend to play that night but have come to be with their friends and, even though they may be unwilling to admit it, enjoy the show.
And the players, the cast of this site-specific performance, use the furniture as props for their individual mummeries, doing things they would not do at home because they do not have the energy of the audience to feed them as well as things they cannot simply because they may not have the room or the equipment. They are the show, the reason for everyone being there. They are, in a very real sense, the entertainment. A dungeon is like the old, three-ring circus, with several acts going on at the same time and the audience moving its attention between them if interested or waiting for the lion tamers if they are not.
And when the play is done, the cast changes out of their costumes and departs, as if by the stage door, their roles put aside until the next performance with the same, or maybe even a new audience.