Help understanding these uses of 「取っぱらい」

Question

Yet another sentence in a taiko performer's memoirs that I can't quite grasp...

総ての枠を全部取っぱらって、というのはやっぱり難しいけれど、投銭興行でやったのも一つの取っぱらいだった。

I know 「取っぱらう」means "to throw away" or "set aside", etc. The context of this sentence involves the performer discussing what it's like for him to be up on stage, versus in the practice room; he sees being on stage as a unique opportunity to get to know a different side of himself as a performer.

I believe the first half of this sentence says something along the lines of: "I completely let go of all of the restrictions I had put on myself, and though doing so is quite difficult..."

I also know that 「投銭興行でやった」is working as a street performer, or performing for "tossed coin" donations, but I'm uncertain of how 「取っぱらいだった」interacts with this (and, I'm also not really sure how 〜の is functioning here).

Thank you for your help!

Answer 1

とっぱらい is a piece of showbiz jargon which is described here, but it's not used in this sense in your case.

投銭興行でやったのも一つの取っぱらいだった。

• の here means もの/こと. 投銭興行でやったの means 投銭興行でやったこと ("what I did as a street performer").
• も is used in place of the topic marker は.
• The masu-form of a verb is sometimes used to nominalize a verb, or to coin a noun which has some derivative meaning from the original verb. (とっぱらい above is also a good example)
• And 取っぱらい seems to refer to the 枠を取っぱらう part in the first half of the sentence.

So the most reasonable interpretation of 取っぱらい here, I think, is "let-go-of-the-restrictions experience/episode", or simply "liberating experience" in this context. In other words, the author temporarily coined the noun 取っぱらい to refer to the concept previously mentioned.

総ての枠を全部取っぱらって、というのはやっぱり難しいけれど、投銭興行でやったのも一つの取っぱらいだった。
While I still find it difficult to completely let go of all my restrictions, what I did as a street performer was a kind of (such) "let-go" experience, too.