Performance is a Window

I’m the furthest thing from a cheerleader, but this summer I pretended to be one. 

My job was to play “the cheerleader” in Cheri Briggs’ play Into the Canvas, produced by the School of the Performing Arts in the Richmond Community. The play centers on three high school girls forced to work together on a group project. It examines the interactions between them, and each has a monologue revealing their personal experience, all of which connect to a painting featuring a single subject. I loved the concept.

I have never been mistaken for a cheerleader, and the extent of my experience was three failed gymnastics lessons when I was three years old. I was out of my depth. 

They wanted me to be a cheerleader? Really? Well, I was being paid, so why not?

Sure, I was totally going to do it, but how? I’d acted before, but for the first time, I was struggling to connect with my character. The cheerleaders I’d known were nice enough, but not close friends of mine. Who was this character, and how was I supposed to portray her?

I turned to the script. At first, the character seemed typical: bubbly, energized, and perfect. But then, I found something I could relate to. This cheerleader was a transplant, struggling to be accepted by the others. My character began to question the intentions of those around her. She wanted to be friends with the other cheerleaders, but she did not believe they would accept her unconditionally. This spiral continued — would they laugh at her, sabotage her, drop her in mid-air during a stunt? We never meet these girls, but that doesn’t matter. The experience of this cheerleader felt personal. Even though her name is not given until the end of the play, she becomes more than a cheerleader. Her identity is suddenly full of intersectionality — she is bubbly, yet anxious. Energized, yet out of place. Seemingly perfect, but truly human.

And this? This was someone I could become.

I understand her pain, and I think most people do. We all want friendships, but reaching out can seem like the hardest thing in the world. We’re all self-conscious, afraid of the judgment of some mystical figure or perfect person that will smite us if we say the wrong thing. Then, we’re left to regret and wonder what could have been, robbing us of the joy in our lives. 

This role, and its message, rings true because the playwright wrote in a way that understood what it actually means to be a person. We all want genuine human connection, but feel like we will never be clever or pretty or popular enough to achieve it. 

Even those who don’t want to be a part of the in-crowd want to be part of the antithesis of that, which is, truthfully, its own in-crowd. At the end of the day, we’re all searching for good friends. We all engage in constant comparison to the others around us, even when we know objectively that they are struggling just as much as we are. Above all, we believe that no matter what, we will never be good enough to be loved. Doubting one's own intrinsic worth makes it easy to drift through life alone, withering inside. 

I operate under the belief that everyone deserves love, even though many people make that exceedingly difficult. But, at the end of the day, I can’t change the actions that others take. I can monitor my response to those actions and choose to act from a place of forgiveness and love anyway. I can only hope that others extend the same sentiment to me when I am not at my best. 

Because everyone deserves love and everyone, at some point, considers themselves to be unworthy of it, this cheerleader feels very real. She’s an expression of the doubts and anxiety that infiltrate our lives. She, too, struggles with intrusive thoughts that impact every interaction she has with the world. 

As it turns out, it was laughable to be unsure about portraying this character. Of course, I was going to be able to relate to her. No one is solely defined by their after-school activity. 

As I stood on that stage, I didn’t think that I wasn’t right for the role. She was an extension of the anxiety I’ve felt when trying to form connections with new people, and it was cathartic to get to share that on stage. It was vulnerable, but I wasn’t scared. What I did was important. Showing others that their experiences have validity is a privilege. As I delivered the final line of the cheerleader’s monologue, “She’s searching for a place to belong,” I realized that the playwright had hit on the basic need of humanity. Belonging keeps us sane and gives us strength. Humans are not robots. We need each other to prosper. Truthfully, empathy and love are what make us human. Denying anyone the opportunity to belong is anti-human. 

Then why do so many of us feel alone? 

Maybe we’re scared, or self-sabotaging, or hopeless. Any myriad of causes exist, but if more of us took the risk and struck up a conversation, I’m sure there would be less loneliness in the world.

I didn’t have the funniest lines or the most dramatic role, but mine was the most real. That’s part of what performance can be: a window into the internalizations we would never say to anyone else, the pain that we typically keep to ourselves, and an exploration of the nature of humanity itself. Essentially, the concept of performance itself is transformed. It turns from a fantastic portrayal of invented events to something real. Reality can be ugly and painful, but there’s beauty too. Thank goodness for performance. How else would we learn to recognize the beauty around us?