Theater as a Socio-Cultural Institution: Overcoming Basic Conventions

Abstract

The paper is devoted to exploring the process of reinventing institutional conventions of theatrical art. After describing a series of contemporary performance phenomena, the author uses the “institution” concept from the theory of social construction of reality and methods of deconstruction to identify the distinguishing features of the new theater and/or “postdramatic theater” / or “post-performance turn” theater. The change, as demonstrated in the paper, is primarily connected with the theater’s abandoning its basic mimetic aim, the aim of simulating / depicting reality, i.e. referencing something other than itself, while the performance accordingly ceases to be a text, a carrier of a certain narration, plot and, eventually, an intrinsic sense, a message to the viewer. This abandonment is made necessary by the universal emergence of the media prevalence era that turns everything into a “theater”, so the theater, in its contemporary manifestations, is striving more and more to become “non-theater”. Its trives to be based primarily on what only the theater has: a vital energy of interaction; first of all, interaction between the actor and the viewer, or action participants (who turn out to be both actors and viewers) organized in a certain way, or the energy of the performance space itself, or the energy of its participants’ motion. In conclusion, the author argues that contemporary theater – in fact, just like any institution reinventing its basic concepts – presents a certain anthropological challenge: firstly, it appeals to a different paradigm of perception; secondly, it requires a higher level of agency of the individual perceiving the art.