The Long-term underlying conditions of theatre performance and its symptomatology during the pandemic: chronic untreated Pathologies and temporary remedies

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused alertness to literal and metaphorical pathologies. Attempting an analogy with medical science and drawing upon the notion of pathologia, the pandemic superimposed its own viral layer onto the organism of theatre performance that was already coming to terms with its chronic underlying conditions. The article aims to provide a bigger picture of the pathology/ies of theatre performance (+ studies), to denote the ways in which theatre performance responded to the social prohibitions as well as to underline long-term unresolved inconsistencies and contradictions. It argues that recent remedies may have offered smart ways out of the pandemic but more subtle and chronic issues, such as lack of complicity/cross-disciplinary terminological consensus between theatre and performance studies, tensions in theatre/performance politics, and political correctness need to be scrutinized once again. It highlights the pandemic problems and solutions, such as online theatre, transformation of theatre communication, normalization of the theatre spectator, theatre making in the openair and theatre prosumerization and trace their immediate aftermath. The article concludes by also “reading” vulnerabilities of theatre performance as sources of power that could in fact re-inform the societal and political intentions, enhance resistance to “normalcy” and nurture deviations in theatre performance (+studies).