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Like most theatre lovers, I watched the 2013 Tony Awards with glee. (Not the TV show, the feeling of joy). Neil Patrick Harris was fantastic as host, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tom Kitt wrote an amazing opening number, and all of the performances made me want to go out and spend a lot of money on Broadway tickets.
However, there was something else that caught my eye. Every year, there are performances by the shows nominated for best musical and best revival of a musical. Occasionally, there are also performances by noteworthy performers or longstanding Broadway hits (this year, “Phantom of the Opera” celebrated 25 years on Broadway). Typically, the host of the show or an actor or writer introduces the performances by saying a few words about the show and then ceding the stage. This year was different. This year, performers from Broadway shows introduced each other’s performances. And they did so in character.
Let’s just unpack what this means for a moment in the layers and layers of fiction/reality boundary crossing that occurred when, for example, “Velma Kelly” introduced the cast of “Bring it On”. The character of Velma lives in Chicago in the 1920’s, has shot her husband and is currently embroiled in the “trial of the century”—that is her reality. Of course, that is her reality while also wearing slinky outfits and dancing some fantastic Bob Fosse choreography. She then introduced “Bring it On” as a Broadway show, not as a reality in and of itself. So there was a level of self-awareness on the part of a fictional character, but 1930s Velma would never come to 2013 to buy a ticket to a show about a high school cheerleading squad.
I wonder if there were any children watching at home who were confused as to what was going on. At what point do we learn to separate out these complicated layers of fictional worlds? And at what point do we learn that there are actors who play the roles we see on stage?
There is some research to the first point, but almost none to the second point. Research by Deena Weisberg and Paul Bloom has looked to when and how children understand the separateness of fictional worlds. They conducted a study in which they asked preschool children about both fictional characters and real people. And then, they asked about the overlaps between those worlds. Specifically, children were asked to talk about a real friend they had at school, and then they were asked to talk about SpongeBob SquarePants and his friend Patrick. Finally, they were asked to talk about Batman. As adults, we know our friends are real, cartoon characters are fiction, and superheroes are also fiction, although from a different fictional world than the cartoon characters. And children had the same intuitions. They know their friends are real. They know SpongeBob and Patrick are fiction, and that the two underwater dwellers are friends and think each other is real. And they know that Batman is also pretend, and, importantly, that Batman and SpongeBob don’t know each other. By three years old. So despite the strangeness of having Spiderman, or rather, multiple Spidermen, introduce “Annie”, it may have not actually caused confusion.
What we still don’t know is whether and when children understand that these are real people, with lives that continue after they take off their makeup and mic-packs, doing the introducing. That despite the fact that “Velma Kelly” seems to continue to exist outside of her proscenium stage, up Sixth Avenue, and into Radio City Music Hall, the woman playing Velma will eventually take off her high heels and go home to her 21st century apartment. There has been a bit of previous research showing that children believe the characters from Sesame Street continue to exist even when the television is off. But no one, to my knowledge, has asked directly whether children think that there are lives being led by characters that we as audience members don’t know about. Or, if children understand that the “character” stops existing as an embodied person when the actor takes off her make up or removes his costume. Hopefully as work in my lab continues over the next few years, we will start to answer these questions.
Although in the end, it’s probably best if we don’t think about this too deeply. Just enjoy the spectacle and smile at the notion of Simba from the Lion King introducing “Pippin”.
