David Peat

Pausing the Cosmos 203character or stereotype. In the early Italian dramatic form known ascommedia dell’arte there are the stereotypes of the doctor, soldier, andso on. A mask presents a character with graphically etched characteristicswho behaves in ways consistent with those traits—miserly, overbearing,officious, seductive, or foolish.As we enter an office or workplace we also put on a mask or persona.A person “becomes” a teacher, police officer, doctor, store clerk,airline pilot, waiter, and so on. The uniform and the setting help to setthe scene. And “scene” is a good word to use because entering a workplaceis a little like stepping onto a stage on which various scripts areabout to be played out. Visit a doctor’s office, or go into a bar late atnight, and you may end up talking about life’s intimate details. Thiswould not be the case in an encounter with the maitre d’ of an expensiverestaurant. A man expects his barber to discuss details of lastnight’s game but this sort of conversation would seem singularly inappropriatewhen asking a bank manager for a loan.Specific situations and uniforms call for specific scripts, “speechacts,” and personae. Step out of that situation and you become a differentperson. Leave the bank and you cease to be manager. Join yourfriends at the bar and you become “one of the gals.” Put your key inyour front door and you become Mommy, Daddy, husband, wife, orpartner.Putting on the persona of maitre d’, nurse, bank manager, doctor,or schoolteacher may, in part, be a relatively conscious action. A personputs on the uniform, steps into the office, consulting room, bank,or restaurant and, to a certain extent, acts out a role. One is saying ineffect, “this is what I’m good at, this is my profession, but this isn’treally me. Behind this mask I’m quite a different person.”Behind that mask lies the wife, husband, lover, parent, or child.But are these also personae? Am I a father or am I “being a father” byputting on a particular act for my children?In our lives we wear a variety of masks, some consciously and someunconsciously, to the point where some of us are no longer sure whichis the mask and which is ourself. Take as a particular example an actorfriend of mine who found himself cast in the role of a contemporaryDon Juan. Over the weeks that followed he began to change. He was