Infinitesimal variations

 

 I feared that during our next meeting, the atmosphere of our conversation might be disturbed by the mutual misunderstandings we had displayed. But either I was mistaken, or Lucian — whom I was on the verge of calling Mr. Lucian… not without a certain anger… perhaps a touch of it… or out of defiance — continued, quite simply, as though nothing had happened, addressing me by my first name in the same calm tone.
– You see, Ignatius, I propose we explore theatre, yes in general, but here… in particular. I am speaking of the theatre of your images. It reveals that identity is never fixed, but a play of roles, a passage… the “pass,” a performative construction.
– You think that through drawing we may play with identity… as others play the piano!
Without hesitation, Lucian replied with disarming naturalness:
– Yes, identity is played, but this play must lead to an inner appropriation, an authentic “becoming oneself.”
Confused, Ignatius tried to explain himself… mixing initiatory process with scarcely veiled revolt…
– Yet, you know… or at least you must suspect… when I draw… what lies before us, since, according to you, I would be the author of these drawings… like now, here before you, I no longer know who I am… and afterward — and you know this better than I — I have no memory of having done it…
– Where theatre reveals the plurality of masks, there lies the risk of remaining in the mask: a man may perform his life instead of living it. And I see that this is precisely what is happening to you… In drawing, you wear a mask… Look closely, and you cannot deny a striking resemblance to yourself!
– So you are saying, in a sense, that there is no given identity, only processes such as changing roles or constructing oneself through representation.
– Kierkegaard would say:
“A man is not first himself. He must become himself.”
But this becoming does not occur on the social stage — it takes place within. There is in us an “inner stage” where the drama of the self unfolds.
– And the external theatre?
– The external theatre reveals the multiplicity of the self.
What matters most, in any case, is: who is the spectator?
– When I play a social role, the spectator is the public, but when I “become myself,” is the spectator the one some call God… or… I prefer this, my conscience.
– You are right and you know it, Ignatius: authenticity is not performance but inner testimony. Being is built through play, rupture, passages...
Internally, Ignatius still felt a strong disagreement with Lucian. This feeling had arisen the moment he glimpsed Lucian’s sketches, recognizing instantly their kinship with the drawings he had purchased in a gallery and brought to the man he believed to be his friend — who now claimed that, on the contrary, Ignatius himself had drawn them. Childish, even infantile behavior, he thought… especially as Lucian was clearly recognizable in the drawings… The more he thought of it, the more this feeling grew in secret, and the less he remained open to dialogue.
How, by erasing evidence with clever rhetoric, under false pretenses, had play become a trap into which Lucian sought to push him? Ignatius wondered, for whom Lucian’s armchair, at times, replaced the mouth of the monster and seemed ready to devour him…
– You perhaps think that the social game is a trap, Ignatius? asked Lucian, as though he had read his patient’s thoughts.