From the Home Front: Persona Dinner

On the 28th of November I attended a Persona Dinner at a friend’s house.

A Persona Dinner is one where everyone acts, for the whole meal, as if they were their SCA persona – no talk about movies or facebook or anything. It is an acting challenge – improv theater, if you will. For two hours or so I was Roger Gridley, a late 16th century English mercenary officer serving in Italy, saying the things Roger would say.

The co-hosts both had 10th century Moorish personas which made things interesting – one of them had Roger Gridley written into her own persona as a family relation and was something of a rule-breaker anyway so we could talk, but the other had no family connection with me and thus could not speak to me (she was unmarried, to make it worse). I could speak to her (and in fact my Roger would have been expected to speak to unrelated unmarried women fairly freely in his time and place), of course, which led her to address several answers to other guests (female, of course) or at one point mumbled to the table!

Also in attendance were an early 16th century Italian woman, a 10th century Moorish child (with a persona relation to the hosts but none in real life), a 15th century English couple, and a woman who didn’t really have a persona at all.

Under these circumstances odd things happen – Roger had no idea what a yurt was, so someone had to spend some time explaining it to him even though I knew perfectly well what one was. Roger made some comments on the certainties of military science that reflected the thoughts of the time but are idiotic to today’s eyes (the supremacy of the pike for example). Tomatoes were widely considered poisonous in some of our cultures but not others. Much of the conversation, of course, was us talking about ourselves.

As the hosts were Moors no wine or other alcoholic beverage was served, which Roger gently twitted his hostess about.

The food was excellent and I believe quite period (though prepared using modern equipment). We ate off more-or-less period serving dishes and tableware and were of course in full period garb. We sat on cushions at a low table as befitting 10th century Moors which I had no trouble simulating Roger’s awkwardness with. :-}

I considered apologizing to my hostess for the poor showing I made on the basis that I was on campaign and my baggage was stuck on the road (my SCA garb is oriented towards fighting or campaigning rather than court or dinner wear) but chose not to bring it up. I also wore a somewhat earlier-period sword than Roger would have normally carried.

All in all it was a great deal of fun and gave me a boost in motivation on updating my garb.