Dramaturgical Traditions. Performance and Interaction

The Oxford Handbook of Symbolic Interactionism
Wayne H. Brekhus (ed.) et al.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190082161.001.0001
Published: 2021 Online ISBN: 9780190082178 Print ISBN: 9780190082161
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CHAPTER
Dramaturgical Traditions: Performance and Interaction 

Susie Scott
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190082161.013.6
Published: 14 February 2022
Abstract
This chapter considers the ways in which social actors construct, display, and perform the scenes in
which they appear. Together, they cooperate to de ne situations with an interpretative frame, drawing
upon shared repertoires of tacit knowledge. Focusing on Go man’s dramaturgy as a branch of
symbolic interactionism, the chapter begins with the metaphor of the theatre as a representation of
social life. Individuals perform situation-based roles as if they were characters, scripted and rehearsed
to meet the normative demands of each context and audience. This self-presentation involves
techniques of impression management, such as facework, concealment, dramaturgical
circumspection, and movement between the frontstage and backstage regions. Identity performances
can therefore seem relatively sincere (authentic) or cynical (contrived). Collectively, dramaturgical
loyalty is practiced through social processes of teamwork, supportive interchange, and remedial ritual.
These mechanisms contribute to the display of normal appearances that serves to uphold the
interaction order.
Keywords: performance, dramaturgy, identity work, self-presentation, interaction order

Subject: Social Theory, Sociology
Series: Oxford Handbooks
Collection: Oxford Handbooks Online
Introduction
Symbolic Interactionism is always concerned with the “how” of social process: the micro-level mechanisms
and techniques through which order is achieved. Performance is a key dimension of this and refers to how
the appearance of harmonious cooperation is constructed and displayed. Regardless of what is going on
beneath the surface—con ict, confusion, challenge, competition—all that matters is that social life keeps
running smoothly and the view seems convincingly real. Performances are given both by individuals, who
present their self-identities, and by groups, whose ritual practices symbolize their common values. Social

situations therefore have a performative dimension insofar as people carefully assemble them to make
recognizable scenes.
The most important gure in this theoretical tradition is Erving Go man, whose dramaturgical perspective
uses the theatre as a metaphor for social life. Individuals are actors, performing characters to audiences in
frontstage, situated encounters. These presented versions of the self may be more or less convincing,
depending on the actor’s technical skills of impression management, their teammates’ cooperative support,
and the audience’s willingness to provide tactful acceptance. Symbolic interactionism more broadly shares
an interest in social performance, identifying broader patterns of identity work, role-making,
communicative gestures, and public behavior. Social scenes are managed collectively as well as individually,
to de ne and uphold normative displays of interaction order. This chapter will review the main ideas about
performance in dramaturgical theory, discuss some key concepts, and demonstrate their relevance to
contemporary social life.
Performing Reality: Theatre and Social Drama
Performance can be de ned as the deliberate enactment of a representational front that is directed at an
audience to communicate a meaning. This can apply to portraying a character, demonstrating a skill, or
presenting an artistic creation. Although performance often involves movement, gesture, and embodied
action, it is the way these techniques are used that is important, rather than their intrinsic content.
Performances are motivated and intentional, designed and rehearsed; they tell us what actors are aiming to
do and why—how they want scenes to appear and be interpretively read.
The idea of performance implies something contrived and arti cial, rather than authentic and directly
given. Schechner (2002, p. 2) describes it as “any action that is framed, presented, highlighted or displayed”
and suggests that it involves “twice behaved behaviours.” By this he means that the performative process
operates simultaneously on two levels: there is not only the manifest scene that is shown, but also the
productive action of showing it, through careful timing, rehearsal, and e ort. The latter particularly
intrigues symbolic interactionists because it reveals the mechanics of social life—the “dirty work” (Hughes
1962) that is always going on behind the scenes in private, “backstage” (Go man 1959) regions.
Theatre studies examine the techniques, skills, and devices that professional actors use to create versions of
unreality. Cultural anthropologists argue that many of these principles apply equally to social life, where
everyday dramas mirror the aesthetic of the stage (Turner 1997). Historically, the theatre has served various
social functions, including entertainment, education, persuasion, and community building (Hinton 1987).
In social life, we see the same pattern, as cultural identity performances allow groups to tell convincing
stories that are dialogic and relational (Jackson 2002). Performance helps to transmit social myths—
versions and accounts that are presented and usually believed (Sche 1968). It is a curious paradox that,
although we may suspect that scenes are not as they appear, suspending disbelief helps us to maintain a
reassuring sense of order. Audiences are performing too, immersed in their own show of observing
attentively and giving supportive reactions (Go man 1959). This implies an optimistic view of calm
cooperation toward a common goal. As Berger and Luckmann (1966) argued, “paramount reality” is a
precarious social construction, and we are all conspiratorial impostors.
Stripping away the layers of setting, scenery, costume, and props, the essence of theatre is the
communicative relationship between player and audience (Southern 1962). It is through this direct,
immediate encounter that ideas are suggested and versions of reality presented for interpretation and
response. Acts of designation (Hinton 1987) can turn any space into a performative arena: just as a gallery
turns material objects into exhibits, so too can social spaces be symbolically “framed” as settings for a
drama. However, what makes or breaks the success of a performance is the interactional dynamic between

the two parties. Actors must be skilled and ready to perform, while audiences must be willing to suspend
their disbelief. Alexander’s (2004) notion of “fusion” describes a harmonious sense of mutual
understanding that arises when actors convey a set of deep, authentic meanings with which the audience
can identify.
Characterization can be naturalistic or contrived. In professional theatre, this is taught through the
respective techniques of the Stanislavskian method or Brechtian distance. That is, actors may attempt to
draw their audiences into a shared, make-believe world, which appears to everyone as if it were real, or they
may wish more subversively to challenge the audience’s assumptions and invite critical thought. In social
life, the same principle applies to the way people present themselves as having certain kinds of characters.
As we shall see below, this corresponds to Go man’s (1959) dramaturgical ideas about sincere versus
cynical role performance, and occasional slips out of character.
The skill of improvisation is also important to making social situations ow smoothly. Hodgson and
Richards (1966) describe how theatrical actors must react to the unexpected by nding practical, creative
solutions and maintaining a exible repertoire. Social actors also remain constantly alert and prepared to
respond, using what Go man (1959) called “dramaturgical discipline.” Audiences, in their turn, improvise
appropriate responses to unpredictable scenes, for example by tactfully ignoring embarrassing mistakes
(Go man 1956, Gross and Stone 1964).
Social performances often take a ritualistic form, at both the micro and macro levels of analysis. Durkheim’s
(1912) functionalist theory of religious worship, as a collective practice by which societies symbolically
represent to themselves common values and shared morality, in uenced two major contemporary
perspectives. Firstly, Collins’s (2005) interaction ritual theory examined how interpersonal exchanges
perform the same function, by displaying observance of normative values. Interaction rituals unfold in a
standardized way, through sequential chains, which generate emotional energy (ibid.). One dramaturgical
example is the apology ritual, discussed more below, which serves as a reparative device (Go man 1967).
Secondly, Alexander’s (2004, 2006) theory of cultural pragmatics shows how groups and societies perform
scripted stories about their history, politics, or collective identity. This can be important when telling about
trauma, su ering, and victimhood, particularly when a group’s voice has been silenced and struggles to be
heard (Plummer 2019). It can also help to build shared understandings of events in the past, through
popular or social memory (Halbwachs 1992 [1925]). In this respect, Alexander (2006) argues that social
performances are more structurally embedded than Go man argued and the interactionists acknowledged.
Actors draw upon a deeper background repertoire of shared cultural codes, symbolic representations,
values, and sentiments that make them feel intuitively resonant and widely understandable.
Cultural scripts are communicated through symbolic forms and interactional processes, such as the
discourses of news journalism and social media platforms (Potter 1996). They tend to reproduce dominant
myths, but these may be critically subverted (Jackson 2002). For example, Tyler (2013) critically discusses
the British mass media’s stigmatizing representations of certain social groups, such as young working-
class single mothers, Gypsy travelers, and asylum seekers. In the wider cultural context of neoliberalism
and austerity measures, this serves the political purpose of scapegoating the structurally oppressed and
legitimizing social inequality. However, Tyler suggests that these populations may subversively “revolt”
against their abject subjecti cation, if supported by a more collectivist left-wing agenda of social justice.
Performing Selves: Characters and Actors
At the heart of social performance is the actor. Symbolic interactionism works with the idea, common to
modern Western social theory, of the individual self as a separate and contained, boundaried unit with an

essential core (Elliott 2007). Acting requires agency, and so there is a thinking, rational, re exive actor-self
working behind the scenes to design and execute their performance. There is little room for emotions,
irrationality, or spontaneous surprises. While this one-dimensional view of selfhood has been criticized for
lacking nuance and complexity (Smith 2006), it does resonate intuitively with common-sense ideas about
personal selfhood, making the concept of social identity performance easier to understand.
By contrast, the post-structuralist notion of “performativity” describes a feature of the exhibited display
rather than of the person who gives it. Butler’s (1990) theory of gender performativity, for example,
referred to the repertoire of stylized expressions through which ideas of gender are shown. Gender can be
“done” in many di erent ways by every kind of person, and it is not tied to biological sex (West and
Zimmerman 1987). Dramaturgy and symbolic interactionism diverge from this anti-essentialist view, by
focusing on the motivations of the individual actor. Subjectivity means subjecthood, a coherent sense of
oneself as a conscious being. However, this does not mean that social identity is xed and stable; far from it.
Identity is an ongoing, exible process, which is negotiated with others and shaped by interaction (Scott
2015).
Social actors are self-consciously aware of and responsive to the others they encounter in everyday life
through the symbolic conversation of gestures (Blumer 1969). The dramaturgical performer epitomizes
Mead’s (1934) concept of the re exive social self, as an internal dialogue between two perspectival phases.
“I” am the thinking subject, who acts to present a version of myself, while “Me” is formed through how I
think the audience view and appraise my performance. Similarly, Cooley’s (1909) concept of the “looking
glass self” explains why we care so much about how we appear (or imagine we appear) in other people’s
eyes: social “face” (Go man 1967) is contingent upon external judgments of appropriateness, or situational
propriety (Go man 1963a).
Here again, we see the contrast behind what appears on the surface and what goes on behind the scenes.
Despite giving a carefully orchestrated front and keeping the show running, actors are always aware of the
risk of making an embarrassing blunder that will bring down the whole façade. Just like theatrical
performers on the stage, social actors can feel shy, doubtful, and nervous when they re ect upon their skills
(Scott 2007, 2017). Thus, although dramaturgy presumes a shrewd and rationally calculating self (Smith
2006), this does not mean that individuals lack emotion or responsibility toward the wider social scene.
Presenting Social Scenes
Symbolic interactionism regards everyday life as a sequence of scenes that actors move between, just like in
a lm or a play. Each scene, or social situation, is carefully designed and presented to appear familiar,
orderly, and easy to navigate. Often this involves aspects of visual display—the architectural design of
buildings, furniture, and material objects—and the coordination of movement around social space. For
example, imagine a railway station, complete with trains, platforms, ticket o ce, and waiting room,
through which masses of people move calmly around. However, from a symbolic interactionist perspective,

what is most important for making scenes work are the unspoken rules of social behavior that help to
produce orderly conduct.
Go man (1983) de ned “the interaction order” as a moral and institutional domain, encompassing all
forms of socially patterned behavior. He mapped out a wide realm, ranging from the causal, eeting
exchanges of strangers in mere co-presence to close and familiar teammates engaged in focused encounters
(Go man 1967). Embodied individuals move like vehicles around social space, navigating paths in relation
to others (Go man 1971). This is particularly noticeable in public places that bring strangers together, such
as the city street, parks, shopping malls, and waiting areas. Self-conscious actors try to avoid direct
acknowledgment of each other by preventing bodily contact and presenting a facial expression of “civil
inattention” (Go man 1963a). Each type of scene within the interaction order has its own set of rules,
norms, and expectations for governing contextually appropriate social behavior. Tacitly learned through the
process of socialization, these patterned arrangements create an overall structure of normative consensus
(Go man 1983).
This raises the question of how exactly such orderliness emerges—how people learn the right ways to
behave. Beneath the polished surface of “normal appearances” (Go man 1969), what are the mechanical
processes by which rules are produced, observed, and cooperatively enacted? The “de nition of the
situation” (Thomas and Thomas 1928) is determined during a stage of examination and deliberation that
occurs when actors enter a scene and try to work out what is going on. Actors are generally pragmatic and
want to get on with the business at hand; they share a motivation to decide how to interpret the situation
and what to expect from each other. Thus they tacitly agree to “frame” (Go man 1974) the scene as a
recognizable type, such as a lecture, party, bus queue, or meeting, and to coordinate their lines of action.
The de nition of the situation provides the cast with a template set of roles to perform and scripts to follow.
In social phenomenology, Schütz (1972) described these resources as “typi cations,” which o er “recipe
knowledge” for building a scene. However, given that actors have the capacity to improvise, adapt, and
sometimes make mistakes, the appearance of cooperation is precarious and easily disturbed. Strauss (1978)
described a process of negotiated order, whereby actors rather messily and clumsily assemble working
scenes, attending to the faults and glitches that threaten to undermine the show.
A further complication is that situations may not really be as they appear. Actors may collude to present
di erent versions of reality, both to their audiences and to one another. Go man (1969) warned that it was
risky to take performances at face value and trust in characters’ authenticity. The concept of “awareness
contexts” (Glaser and Strauss 1964) describes the variable amounts of information that actors hold about
one another’s true identities and the meaning of the situation. Glaser and Strauss devised a typology of four
awareness contexts, which they demonstrated with the example of terminally ill patients in a hospital. In an
open-awareness context, both doctors and patients knew the latter’s fate and could talk about it honestly.
Closed awareness occurred when patients did not know that they were dying but the medical sta did, which
leant itself to secrecy and deliberate concealment. Suspicion awareness involved the patient guessing what
was happening but not being able to prove it. Finally, pretense awareness emerged when everybody knew
the hidden truth but nobody acknowledged it.
The last of these o ers a refreshing insight into one form of interaction order. It explains why sometimes
there is a discrepancy between “believed” and “presented” realities (Sche 1968) that goes unchallenged,
even when the truth seems blindingly obvious. When all actors share an interest in maintaining a false
de nition of the situation, they collude to ignore the elephant in the room. Burns (1992) called these “polite
ctions,” and we nd them particularly in scenes involving the threat of embarrassment. For example,
studies of nudity in naturist camps (Weinberg 1965) and swimming pools (Scott 2009) reveal how people
make a show of decency by ignoring each other’s bodies and pretending that “nothing unusual is
happening” (Emerson 1970).

Go manʼs Dramaturgy: Individual Performances
The dramaturgical perspective is Go man’s most famous metaphor for understanding interaction order. It
was inspired by Kenneth Burke’s (1945) dramatism, which suggested that social situations mirrored the
same pentad structure (what, where, when, why, how) as mystery detective stories. Go man began as a
student of social anthropology at the University of Chicago and was always reluctant to call himself a
sociologist. His works catalog the minutiae of human behavior, using taxonomies, typologies, and
classi cation systems (Lo and 1980). Go man wanted to explain how the orderliness observed in everyday
situations was practically accomplished through the rituals and routines of social interaction.
Dramaturgy draws a comparison between social life and the theatre, using striking visual imagery and
precise terminology to highlight their common elements. A key concept is self-presentation: individuals are
social actors who perform versions of themselves in a similar way to professional actors (Go man 1959).
These role performances are tailored to each situation and audience, giving social interaction a live,
unpredictable format. Self-presentation is accomplished using the techniques of impression management:
actors try to project distinctive images or create particular impressions by carefully designing their
appearance, lines, and moves. This is a way of making identity claims, or “announcements” (Stone 1962),
about the type of person whom one is. Usually, it involves self-enhancing qualities that create positive
impressions of competence, reliability, and “normalness,” but sometimes we try to appear di erent or
subversive. Go man (1959, p. 32) thus de nes performance as “all of the activity of an individual which occurs
during a period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some
in uence on the observers.”
Go man (1959) suggested that the performative self has two theatrical “regions”: the frontstage and
backstage. These may be physical, geographically separated spaces, or more symbolic distinctions between
the public and the private. Frontstage is where performances are shown deliberately to audiences—where
we present stylized, contrived versions of ourselves. The material design of this region is important: it
combines the “setting” (furniture, decoration, layout, and space) and the “personal front” (items of
expressive equipment carried around by the actors, including costume, prop objects, posture, and
demeanor). The personal front signals to the audience how a character should be read: their situational role,
status, or condition and the manner in which they convey this. Riggins (1990) suggests a taxonomy of prop
objects, which serve di erent self-presentational functions. As well as Go man’s status and esteem
symbols, there may be “occupational objects” con rming one’s credentials (e.g., a certi cate on the wall of
a doctor’s o ce), “exotic objects” that display experience and ambition (e.g., souvenirs from traveling),
and “collective objects” that signify belonging and social group membership (e.g., ags, tattoos, and fan
memorabilia).
Backstage is a di erent matter. This is the region in which actors relax out of role, dropping their face and
reverting to being their “real,” true selves. “Behind many masks and many characters, each performer tends to
wear a single look, a naked unsocialised look” (Go man 1959, p. 235). Backstage regions are private and
usually concealed from audience view, for example bedrooms and bathrooms, or work areas marked “sta
only.” When safely backstage, actors review and rehearse their performances to make them more
convincing next time. This may involve chastising oneself for making embarrassing mistakes, re ecting on
the audience’s reactions, or preparing a conversational script to counteract feelings of shyness (Scott 2007).
We will return to the backstage region later in this chapter, in the discussion of hidden and negative aspects
of drama. But rst, let us consider the ways in which frontstage performances are intentionally given.
Self-presentation is crucial for maintaining “face”: the sense of dignity and respectability that comes from
playing a role appropriately and meeting public approval. Go man (1967) argued that an actor’s face was

only “on loan from society,” as personal reputation is contingent upon maintaining external esteem. Actors
are concerned with the processes of keeping face, avoiding discrediting losses of face, and saving face if such
inopportune incidents occur. The “facework” that individuals perform for themselves is therefore mainly
“defensive,” although it can serve to positively enhance one’s social image.
Go man (1959) described various “arts” or techniques of impression management that individuals perform
to this end. Dramaturgical circumspection refers to prudent and careful preparation for a role, by setting up
the scene in a favorable way. For example, a schoolteacher arranges for their most obedient pupils to be
present when the inspector is visiting (Go man 1959, p. 220). Dramaturgical discipline involves the vigilant
management of one’s conduct during a performance, while at the same time appearing casual and
nonchalant. For example, swimmers waiting for a vacant shower pretend to be immersed in a daydream, but
are actually keeping a close eye on the queue (Scott 2009). Dramatic realization is the exaggeration of a role
performance, highlighting its most salient aspects to ensure that the audience grasps the right meaning.
Go man (1959) describes a nurse almost caricaturing her part by taking a patient’s temperature and
checking his blood pressure chart. Idealization is similar but involves emphasizing how a role performance
ts with socially desirable values: for example, a student in the library pores over their books.
Actors can have di erent levels of belief in the parts they are playing (Go man 1959). A sincere performance
occurs when an actor is so fully immersed in their role that they do not feel they are acting. They see their
role as an extension of their real self and give themselves over to it completely. A cynical performance is the
opposite, when actors are self-consciously aware of presenting a character and feel quite detached from
their contrived display. This corresponds to Hochschild’s (1983) distinction between deep and surface
acting, respectively, as two ways of performing emotion work. Actors may shift from one attitude to the
other as they become used to their role. This happens particularly in the workplace, where new employees
eagerly remain in character (sincere/deep acting), but over time become jaded and start breaking the rules
(cynical/surface acting).
When performing to a critically evaluative audience, actors try to present themselves in socially normative
ways. Rather than boosting their individual status, they seek to align themselves with the values of the
group. This demonstrates that they are good team players, who can be trusted to uphold the scene. Aligning
actions (Stokes and Hewitt 1976) are particularly important in response to deviance: when an actor realizes
that they have broken or are about to break a rule, they perform certain symbolic actions that attempt to
correct it or minimize the damage. Disclaimers (Hewitt and Stokes 1975) are made prospectively, as verbal
prefaces to an utterance that might otherwise be heard as o ensive. They reassure the audience that any
deviant views are not the individual’s own, placing him or her on the same side of moral judgment as those
who might be critical. For example, hedging involves asserting that one feels uncertain about what one is
going to say, in case the audience rejects it: “I’m not entirely sure, but I think…” Accounts are statements
people make retrospectively, to explain why they did something wrong. They draw upon the group’s shared
vocabulary of motive (Mills 1940), which provides a stock of culturally sanctioned, acceptable reasons for
behavior. For example, Scott and Lyman (1968) distinguished between excuses (which acknowledge a rule-
breaking act but deny responsibility for it) and justi cations (which claim responsibility but deny the act
was wrong).
Go manʼs Dramaturgy: Teamwork
Performances can be collective as well as individual. Go man suggested that, in many situations, actors
cooperate like the members of a theatrical cast to give a convincing show. Their shared interest in making
the scene ow smoothly is greater than any individual’s motives for self-presentation, and so everyone
plays their part in a supportive, facilitative manner. The performance team (Go man 1959, p. 85) is de ned
as “any set of individuals who co-operate in staging a single routine.” The aim is to create an “emergent team
impression” (ibid.), which may be a de nition of the situation or a claim to group identity. Throughout

everyday life, people move around between di erent scenes, and so the same individual may switch from
being on one team to another, acting alone in response to a team, or being an audience member observing
the whole drama.
Teams employ their own collective arts of impression management. The most important principle is
dramaturgical loyalty—one must be able to trust and rely upon one’s teammates—and this leads to carefully
selective practices of recruitment. For example, Van Maanen (1990) showed how Disneyland employees had
to look a certain way (young, tall, slim, blonde, tanned) and follow a spoken script in order to uphold the
company image. Even when members of a team privately disagree about the content of a show, they pull
together to present it as a united front, toeing a “thin party line” (Go man 1959, p. 91). We see this in
contemporary politics, where leaders rely upon the solidarity of party members to boost their credibility.
However, this puts teammates in a vulnerable position: every member knows the backstage secrets that
they share and sees the risk of being betrayed if anyone stops playing along. Go man (1959, p. 88) referred
to the “bonds” of reciprocal dependence and familiarity that hold teammates together, implying that it may
be fear rather than altruism that keeps a lid on their dissent.
Teammates display their collective identity with prop objects and items of expressive equipment, as well as
through ritualized forms of exchange. Clothing and dress can be signi ers of membership, for example
when sta wear a company uniform, sports players wear their team’s kit (Green and Jones 2005), and fans
of a subculture consume distinctive merchandise (Sandvoss 2005). Tie signs (Go man 1971) are symbolic
relationship markers, which tell the audience that two or more actors are bound in an intimate team: these
include wedding rings, holding hands, or pushing someone else’s wheelchair. Conversational rituals
similarly allow teammates to perform to each other a display of their mutual regard and continued loyalty.
For example, greetings and farewells usually involve some form of pleasantry that suggests either the desire
to meet up again or regret that it has taken so long (Scott 2015). Go man (1971) calls these supportive
interchanges as they show sympathy, care, and concern. However, just as with individual performances,
these displays may be sincere or cynical, genuine or fake.
The facework that teammates provide for one another is generous, aimed at maintaining a harmonious
front. Protective facework is performed by one individual for another to save their personal face: for example,
pretending not to notice someone tripping over on the street, so as to reduce the acuteness of
embarrassment and help them restore poise (Go man 1956). Collective facework defends the shared front of
a group (Rossing and Scott 2014), for example, laughing along at an o ensive joke with a gathering of
friends. Tact describes this whole set of generous practices that “help the performers save their own show”
(Go man 1959, p. 222). Tact can be given retroactively, when teammates politely disattend to faux pas that
have actually occurred, but also proactively, in anticipation that they might. For example, we knock on
doors before entering to allow performers time to compose themselves and get “in face” (Go man 1959, p.
223). Audiences also show tact toward performance teams that they perceive to be in trouble, for example,
when restaurant guests pretend to ignore the argument going on between a family on a nearby table.
Ethnomethodology has shown how conversational exchanges are structured and follow ritualized formats
(Gar nkel 1967; Sacks 1992; Drew and Heritage 1992). Utterances are patterned, paired, or arranged in
sequential order to ensure that each correct move is made and the overall e ect is accomplished (Scheglo
1968). For example, standard turn-taking sequences occur in rituals of greeting, questioning, apologizing,
and asking for help (Whalen and Zimmerman 1987; Zimmerman 1992). Action sequences are performed by
teams of museum and gallery visitors to display their practical engagement with interactive exhibits (Heath
and vom Lehn 2008). Go man (1981) was interested in how these “forms of talk” are managed between
teammates and contribute toward interaction order. Remedial interchanges (Go man 1971) serve as a form of
corrective repair work for deviant conduct, addressing the face needs of virtual o enders and claimants.
These interaction rituals have four stages: challenge, o ering, acceptance, and thanks (Go man 1971).

Apart from the apology sequence, the request is an interesting remedial interchange. Go man explains how,
when one actor needs to impose on another for dramaturgical assistance, they acknowledge the
intrusiveness in their opening line. Hence, requests are phrased as polite forms of address (Go man 1981),
such as, “Excuse me, would you mind if I sit here?” Fascinatingly, Go man points out that this considerate
formatting induces the potential claimant to collude with the o ender, by inviting and o ering willingly:
“Oh yes, of course, that’s ne!”—even if they privately feel the opposite way. This avoids any con ict,
discomfort, or threat of disruption, smoothing over the cracks in the collective face. Remedial interchanges
are therefore a cooperative aligning action (Stokes and Hewitt 1976), whereby teammates demonstrate their
shared awareness of normative conventions and commitment to appropriate conduct. As always, what
matters most is not the convenience of individual actors, but that the overall show can go on.
Hidden Performances
So far, we have seen how social actors can manage their performances skillfully to give a convincing display.
This paints a persuasive picture of dramaturgical competence and explains why most situations in everyday
life appear to run smoothly. But symbolic interactionists also have plenty to say about the other side of the
social theatre. Despite a common criticism that the perspective neglects con ict, “radical” theorists within
it recognize the micro-politics of power (Athens 2007; Katovich 2013). This raises some important
questions: what happens when performances go wrong, need rehearsing, are sabotaged from within, or
break down completely?
Go man’s (1959) backstage region is a symbolic space designed to deal with precisely these contingencies.
It serves as a container of all the mess, faults, mistakes, and undigni ed “dirty work” (Hughes 1962) that
are necessary to uphold our front, and without it, performances could not run. Go man depicts the
backstage as a source of relief—a chance to drop guard, rest, and retreat from the exhausting labor of
presenting ourselves. He suggests that without it, actors would quickly burn out and be unable to continue
the show. So, the backstage is vital, but insofar as it undermines what is presented out front, its very
existence must be kept hidden and secret. One of the most important arts of impression management,
therefore, is mysti cation: putting a barrier between the front and back regions and preventing the audience
from seeing into the latter (Go man 1959).
Even when frontstage, actors can give less-than-convincing performances. Apart from the cynical attitude,
described above, when parts are played without sincere belief, actors may also show role distance by
standing aside from the part altogether (Go man 1961a). Role distance occurs when we have to perform in
ways that feel boring, demeaning, irrelevant, or surreal. There is a felt disconnection between the required
character and one’s real self, which makes it di cult to get immersed in the show. Actors deal with this by
playing their parts with an attitude of ironic amusement and critical detachment: for example, by joking and
messing around in the workplace. Go man (1961a, p. 95) suggests that role distance serves as a “symbolic
apology” for the undigni ed impressions made by the currently presented front. It proudly tells the
audience that “I am more than just this situational role” and pleads with them to look beyond it to the
deeper, smarter self.
Actors may also engage in deliberate deception, or what Go man (1959) calls the misrepresentation of their
frontstage persona. Sometimes we are acutely aware of a “dark secret” about our true self that we do not
want the audience to see; this may be something embarrassing or shameful that threatens a loss of face.
Go man (1963b) explored this in his discussion of stigma, a potential “blemish of character” caused by a
discrepancy between one’s virtual (presented or claimed) and actual (real) selves. The discrediting stigma
are those that are immediately apparent, such as a physical disability, while discreditable stigma are those

that are hidden but may be discovered. In the latter case, actors use dramaturgical techniques to manage the
risk of exposure. These include information control (deciding carefully what and how much to tell di erent
audiences) and passing (disguising oneself as a non-stigmatized person and hoping to remain undetected).
For example, Schneider and Conrad (1981) found that people with epilepsy adopted strategies of disclosure
that depended on how tactful and supportive they expected each audience to be. Over the long term, actors
may develop a moral career (Go man 1961b) as they manage the cumulative e ects of living with a
stigmatized attribute. The moral career is a sequence of stages through which an individual’s conduct is
morally judged against normative standards, resulting in a changed sense of status and social identity.
When identity performances are discredited, actors face social failure and a humiliating loss of status.
Cooling out (Go man 1952) is the process of adaptation to this, through which actors restore their place in
the interaction order. Actors may cool themselves out to defend their pride, for example a suitor who is
turned down when he asks for a date pretends that he did not like the woman so much anyway (Go man
ibid.). Teammates may also cool out each other, for example a university sending polite rejection letters
reassuring applicants that the competition was very tough. On a societal level, Go man suggests that
cooling out happens routinely and often, and so it must be structurally accommodated. Organizations and
institutions exist to provide “resting places” for those who have been permanently cooled out, such as
prisons, ghetto neighborhoods, and asylums (Go man 1952, 1961b).
Teammates can perform deviously to outwit each other, despite maintaining a united front. Go man (1969)
argued that cooperation in teams is often pragmatic rather than altruistic and involves shrewd, rational
calculation. Self-presentation is risky and dangerous, because we cannot always rely on our teammates to
keep us in face—occasionally, friends become enemies and betray our trust. Aggressive facework (Go man
1967) describes the sabotage of another’s performance, by catching them out or deliberately humiliating
them, for example through teasing and bullying. Uncovering moves (Go man 1969) are gestures that
shamefully expose another’s discreditable status, instead of tactfully ignoring it. More subtle manipulation
occurs with response cries (Go man 1981), short utterances designed to invoke a response from the fellow
actors in a scene. For example, the “ oor cue” is a performance that seems self-absorbed and mysterious; it
is designed to tantalize bystanders into requesting more detail. A husband reading the newspaper gives a
sudden laugh, provoking his wife to ask, “What’s so funny?” (Go man 1981, p. 105). Floor cues are useful
when actors wish to appear modest but really want to be called onto the center stage.
Finally, actors may collude with (or against) the audience, to subvert the success of the show.
Communication out of character (Go man 1959) occurs when an actor momentarily slips out of role and
acknowledges that they are giving a performance. This may happen spontaneously, when something
unexpected and surprising happens that threatens poised composure: for example, losing one’s balance and
exclaiming with swear words. Teammates communicate out of character deliberately to change their
relationship with the audience. In a pretense-awareness context, when everybody knows that things are not
really as they appear, actors make coded gestures to each other to indicate their mutual knowledge of the
truth. This serves as a meta-commentary on the performance, by e ectively saying, “Let’s agree to play
along, but we really mean something else.” Teammates speak indirectly, using irony and innuendo to say one
thing while contradicting it with another. At all times, actors sustain a surface, manifest de nition of the
situation to revert to if things go awry. This often happens in the context of salesperson bartering, veiled
gestures between colleagues, and even the risky venture of romantic irting (Tavory 2009). It mirrors the
technique used in theatrical drama of “breaking the fourth wall,” when actors turn to address the audience
directly and invite them in to join the scene.
Conclusion

This chapter has explored the performative dimensions of social interaction, focusing particularly on
Go man’s dramaturgical perspective. Symbolic interactionists are interested in how social situations get
constructed through everyday rituals and practices, and how the resultant scenes are displayed for external
view. Even though interaction can feel spontaneous and unpredictable, actors tacitly agree to uphold the
appearance of order so that the show can go on. The de nition of the situation may therefore be a polite
ction that belies the contingency of life behind the scenes.
Dramaturgy unpacks the mechanics of this process, by examining the minutiae of interpersonal encounters
and highlighting the skills and techniques that are used. The theatre provides a helpful metaphor for social
life, with actors presenting di erent versions of themselves like the characters in a play. They design and
rehearse these performances backstage before going frontstage to impress situational audiences. The arts of
impression management include dramaturgical circumspection, discipline and loyalty, idealization,
dramatic realization, and mysti cation. Actors also work cooperatively in teams, like a theatrical cast.
Bound by bonds of reciprocal dependence, they provide support and protection to keep each other safely in
the face. Audiences are generally sympathetic and tactfully disattend to embarrassing mistakes that would
otherwise disrupt the show.
However, sometimes performances do not run smoothly, and actors must work hard to cover the cracks.
Identity claims get discredited, status is lost, and trust is betrayed by competitive teammates. Actors also
enjoy playful moments of subtle subversion, through role distance, collusion, and slips out of character.
Beneath the veneer of manifest appearances, interaction is a precarious drama, and we are all swept along
for the ride. Actors, audience, and teammates are not separate groups but perspectives, alternate positions
that t neatly together through mutually sustained hard work. This complex and collective endeavor creates
the magical theatre that we know as social life.
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