Lonely Amidst Applause
By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)

Opening your life up to the public sets one up for at least two lives. There is the public person, that side that the public sees and then expands with their own imaginations, creating personal relationships, albeit one-sided ones, with public entities. Then there is the public personality's private life, that only those in closest proximity to the public person know about. Sometimes there is a third level that only the public person her/himself knows about. These levels of reality are more marked than in normal daily separation of environments, it seems, as the fame aspect follows you through all realms in a way that one's roles at normal work environments would not.

Wavy Gravy is an example of this. When many people see him and say hi, they call him Wavy Gravy, not his "real" name, Hugh Romney. He lovingly accepts these greetings under his stage name. But it is more than a stage name, I would argue. "Mr. Gravy," as some reporters refer to him, is another part of Hugh Romney. I know several performers who perform as characters, such as "Reverend Chumleigh" and "Baby Gramps." But their mothers and lovers call them something else.

Different levels of separation from your public character can exist as well. Reverend Chumleigh publicly refers to himself as "Michael" once he is transformed out of the Chumleigh stage character. Yet people still come up to him and call him "Chumleigh" while he is being "Michael." Baby Gramps, on the other hand, is always in character when in public, it seems. I know he has a name his wife and family call him, but no one I know knows his real name after 25+ years of personal and professional associations with him. He never oscillates between himself and his act in public, like Chumleigh and Michael do.

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