‘Adjacent to the Live: paratextual augmentation of performance during the pandemic’

Abstract

The plethora of paratextual materials such as digital programs, recorded interviews with artists and creative teams, behind-the-scenes videos, and curated playlists have been pressed into service to extend the reach of the core business of performance companies. Behind the scenes and ancillary activities have come to the fore, potentially altering the way Genette considered paratexts to work as thresholds to the core. Until the last year or so, paratextual elements such as the aforementioned existed primarily in the service of marketing and promotion. They were not themselves seen as separate or independently monetised ventures. They were tasters of the real thing or treats for loyal followers. Comparatively little attention in this field has been paid to live performances, although these too have similar panoplies of paratexts used to promote the core texts: advertisements, advance publicity and reviews for instance. Our concern here is with the way paratexts were used during the extended COVID lockdowns when live performance venues were closed, particularly instances where the usual relationship between core text and paratext, whereby the latter are shorter pieces supporting or promoting the former, is upset. There was a considerable range of sophistication in the paratexts operating as core texts during the pandemic. Most sophisticated ones, like those from the NT or Pinchgut’s The Loves of Dafne and Apollo did not call on audience members to produce the experience of liveness, even if the NT’s branding persisted. We have concentrated here on Dream because it was such a sophisticated piece with liveness at its very heart.