Acts: Theater, Philosophy, and the Performing Self

The Theatricalization of Death

193 The Theatricalization of Death As I stepped on the cold scale, the metal parts clanged and I acted surprised as I moved the small arrow down to zero. . . . My dad reached over my shoulder. . . . “Ninety-­ two pounds, Cherry. Why? Did you know this already? Is that why you didn’t want me to weigh you?” . . . I had no answers. Sheepishly I stepped down from the scale’s platform—­ the miniature stage on which I had performed so admirably. It was now being reset for a new drama, with the same cast but with strangers vying for the role of director. This would be the scene of a battle of wills unparalleled in any previous production in the Boone family’s Beverly Hills theatre. Cherry O’Neill, Starving for Attention1 Like nineteenth-­ century hunger artists who starved themselves and then displayed themselves as living skeletons, gawped at by people who paid to see these miraculous figures on show, I made my body into a performance. Grace Bowman, Thin2 Anorexia is a prolonged unfolding of a theatrical suicidal gesture.3 Such will be the contention of this chapter. Bewildered relatives, friends, therapists , colleagues, teachers, strangers casually met in the street—­ all make up the anorectic’s audience. The audience also includes the anorectic herself , engaged in complex self-­spectating of her acting body’s response to her own directing mind. Theorists have already discussed the external audience-­ directed dimension of anorexia as performed spectacle and communicative act.4 But recent attempts within feminist literature to de-­ emphasize the anorectic body as an image taken in by others, as nothing more than a performed duplication of culturally-­ prized body images, invite a shifting of focus: rather than stress other-­ oriented communication, dramatic acting theory can illuminate the anorectic’s inner experience as a performer.5 More than yet 194 acts 194 acts another metaphor for acts of display, theatrical acting is an experience that is both keenly responsive to external perception, but is simultaneously also an absorbing, deeply personal, and self-­ directed form of attention which has nothing to do with the audience. Acting theory thus provides a potent vocabulary through which some of the enigmas of anorectic experience may be articulated. Given the resistance of anorectics to the very idea of “therapy,” of theirs as a “condition” that needs to be “treated,” employing non-­ medical/clinical conceptualizations through which anorectic experience can be internally articulated, externally expressed, and interpersonally discussed, may even ultimately facilitate meaningful help. Before entering the theatrical specifics of this suicidal gesture, four prior clarifications should be made. Firstly, the emphasis on theatricality as a key constituent in the apprehension of anorexia should not be understood as a denial of the importance of numerous other factors. A cautious attitude—­ similar to Jean Améry’s with regard to well-­ ordered causal explanations of suicide—­ should be adopted here too: at some stage, one enters an inexplicable zone—­ itself an outcome of reasons, but one that can no longer be exhaustively accounted for by them.6 Secondly, the aesthetic terms that I will impose upon a destructive condition will not, I hope, be perceived as cerebral and cold, or as a capitalization on someone’s pain aimed at generating a defensible thesis. The motivation behind the use of the interpretative tools of the humanities stems from a desire to render more intelligible the anorectic’s inner world, a process that will hopefully contribute to enabling a more effective intervention mediated through a non-­patronizing framework. Thirdly, I assume that some of what follows is applicable to other eating disorders beside anorexia. The distinction between bulimia and anorexia is, for many authorities, a blurry one at best—­ DSM-­ IV distinguishes between the two, but explicitly states that their symptoms may overlap—­ and is, in any case, not overly important to my purposes. My subject matter is an eating disorder that causes a life-­threatening condition due to self-­induced weightloss and its accompanying symptoms. Fourthly, I will intentionally use the term “anorectic,” rather than the morally-­ sensitive construction “person with anorexia.” While in a therapeutic context “anorectic ” is sometimes perceived as disempowering, this chapter suggests that the attempt to dissociate anorexia from its subject—­ in the manner through which one can discuss, say, cancer or depression—­ is not merely artificial, but is importantly misleading. Boldly stated, once the anorectic progresses into a person-­ with-­ anorexia, she is, in many ways, cured. [18.191.181.231] Project MUSE (2024-04-25...