Erving Goffm The Front Stage

In his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman (1959) focuses on the self as a staged production in which people actively present themselves to different audiences one encounters. To bolster his conceptualization, Goffman used an interesting metaphor of “all the world’s a stage” (1959, 254). This, he terms as a “dramaturgical approach” (Goffman 1959, 240) in which an actor puts on a show for others; drawing analogies between human behaviors and the theater. Goffman (1959) likens the individual to an actor on stage performing for and with other individuals involved in the situation. Three types of space exist for the actor to perform on, to enact the self, and to interact with others: the front stage, the backstage, the outer region. Goffman (1959) utilizes specific dramaturgical terms such as performance, teams, front and back regions, sign-vehicles, and highlights the process of dramatic realization. These terms will be discussed in the following sections.

The sociological concept ‘dramaturgy’, developed by Irving Goffman (1922 – 1982), was initially used in his book The Presentation of the Self (1959). Dramaturgy uses the theatre as an extended metaphor to explain social interaction and social roles. Like actors in a play, people play roles, working together to up hold various social realities and functional institutions such as work, school, home, medical, legal or leisure. Key components of this theory are ‘front and back’ and ‘impression management’, which enable analysis of how identities are presented and understood through symbols, and the differing ways people behave when they are in and out of role: enabling preparation and reflection, and ability to

The front stage is where we are able to control what someone may see. Whereas the back stage is where we are able to let our guard down. Both front and back stage is something we are able to control, how people perceive us is something we can not control.

During the analyzed performance between Anthony and Sandy, both of them are focused on maintaining their identity, through their appearance, manner, and setting. What we use through personal decoration is known as appearance. Goffman explains this characteristic as stable and unchanging for a person’s identity. For instance, while Sandy is speaking so highly of just receiving her Real Estate License she is wearing an elegant woman’s business suit, carrying an affluent designer bag. Based off of her appearance she is displaying a self-made successful woman front. The next physical characteristic aiding to an individual’s front is manner. Goffman claims this aspect is unstable and can change depending on your mood, but ultimately is how the person says or does things. Proceeding to carry herself in such an egocentric manner, Sandy’s conceited attitude indicates her front as a know it all because she continuously monopolizes every conversation back to herself. Sandy truly believes she has the right advice for every detail Anthony brings to her attention. Anthony’s manner on the other hand, is more of the opposite. From his point of view, he has a good prediction for what his mother is going to say based off of her mannerisms and signals given and given off, explaining why he is short and subtle to his mother’s statements. The final aspect to maintaining a person’s front is known as setting. Within setting, there are presence signs, orientation placement

In The Presentation of Everyday Life, Goffman lays out the seven elements that create a performance: belief in the role that is being played, the front or ‘mask’, dramatic realization, idealization, maintenance of expressive control, misrepresentation, and deception/mystification. Using the simple description of someone interviewing for a job, we can see that “As he seeks to assume the role of an ideal employee (idealization), he tries (in his performance) to convey a certain image about himself through his dress, his speech, and his expressions (his front), emphasizing those things that he wants the interviewers to know (dramatic realization). He has to maintain control over these expressions throughout the interview (maintenance of expressive control). Any lapse in his performance in that role (misrepresentation) may lead to him revealing those things that he has been trying to conceal (mystification).” (Corbin, 2012)

The first chapter, “The Art of Staging” claims “Staging in fiction involves putting characters in specific strategic positions in the scene so that some unvoiced nuance is revealed.” (Baxter 13) This includes the character’s standing positions, their proximity to each other, specific gestures and facial expressions, which give the reader more insight to the scene and the characters without explicitly saying so. This goes hand in hand with the setting of the atmosphere where atmosphere sets the dominant tone or the mood of a story. The atmosphere can be in reference to the setting or the characters themselves. Here, the reader is to read between the lines. The key to this is using a lot of detail which is crucial to providing the information.

In his preface, Roach says: When an actor takes his place on a stage…and his audience begins to respond to his performance, together they concentrate the complex values of a culture with an intensity that less immediate transactions cannot rival. They embody its shared language of spoken words and expressive gestures, its social expectations and psychological commonplaces, its conventions of truth and beauty, its nuances of prejudice and fear… Whenever this isn’t so, the actor will fail. (Roach 11)

In the words of Gay McAuley, “for an activity to be regarded as a performance, it must involve the live presence of the performers and those witnessing it…” (McAuley, 2009, cited in Schechner, 2013, pp.38). This statement recognises the importance of both the actor and the audience for something to truly function as a performance. In addition, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones highlights the significance of the theatrical space and how it can influence an audience stating that “on entering a theatre of any kind, a spectator walks into a specific space, one that is designed to produce a certain reaction or series of responses” (Llewellyn-Jones, 2002, pp.3). The relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space is no less important today than it was at the time of theatre during the Spanish Golden Age and the creation of Commedia dell’arte in Italy. Despite being very close geographically with theatre thriving for both in the same era, sources that explore the social, cultural and historical context of these countries and the theatre styles will bring to light the similarities and differences. This essay will analyse the staging, the behaviour of the audience as well as the challenges the actors faced, and how this directly influenced the relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space.

The above example illustrates not only how the theatrical performance affects the audience, but also how the audience influences its dynamics, development and the characters within it. The actors feel a certain level of acceptance from the viewer, who demands a certain way of depicting the character. Theatre is not just entertainment, itís something much more than that ñ itís education. Theatre should always represent things, rather than

The back stage is a comfortable setting for actors to vent feelings and styles of behavior they keep in check when on the front stage. (Gidden, 1991)

Erving Goffman developed the concept that made us understand that life is like play(drama) which has a never-ending and it involves entities of actors, props, writers etc. which involve scripts where individual acts. He further made us understands that our socialization is full of learning how to play a role that has been assigned from other people. In fact, he has brought to our understanding of a life where people act and socialize which consist of our assigned role from other people. Goffman believes that whatever we do, we are playing out some role on the on the stage of life and that comprises of behind the scenes actions and how people are being guided and directed by other individual and he named it front stage and back stage.

The front stage is the area where the performers are in front of an audience. The individual’s performance defines the situation (Goffman,1959, p.13). Majority of our time is spent in the position of front stage where we enact our roles. (Goffman,1959, p.14). Almost any place where we are in the presence of others we are in the position of front stage. The back stage is where individuals can be themselves without having to take on a specific role.(Goffman,1959, p.14) This is also a place where one can arrange themselves for the front stage. Off stage is when one is no longer performing and specific performances may be given to explicit audiences.

Erving Goffman sees self-presentation in six aspects, which are all related to the idea of life as a drama; persona, performance, staging, teams, role, personal style. According to Goffman, a persona is when someone wears various personality ‘masks’ depending on which roles they are undertaking, for example, when someone is with their friends the mask they wear defines them as a kind, friendly person whereas when they are with the family the mask will come off and their personality will change. I wear a mask when I’m with my friends and this portrays me as a friendly, outgoing character, whereas the mask I wear at home is loud, moody and unproductive.

Ever since I took drama classes in high school I felt that we always put on an act. A show almost, that we put out for the people we interact with daily. Erving Goffman, “Canadian-American Sociologist” (Encyclopedia In., 2017) also believed this, he compared social interactions to the theater, where individuals take a particular role. According to Goffman this “theatrical metaphor consists of a stage, actors, and an audience” (Crossman, 2014). It also consists of the onstage, backstage and offstage. These three stages show different behavior on a person.

Stage directions are used as way of allowing playwrights to give direction as to what is supposed to be happening on the stage, and is used to enhance the audience’s experience and involvement in the play. Stage direction is used to great effect by both Arthur Miller and Brian Friel in their plays. In A View From the Bridge, Arthur Miller’s stage directions are very intricate, and detailed to the point of sounding strange at times, “After a moment of watching her face Eddie breaks into a smile, but it almost seems that tears will form in his eyes”. Brian Friel’s stage directions are very similar, as they too involve a considerable