Theatre as Installation in the Syndemic Architectures of Rimini Protokoll and Battersea Arts Centre

Abstract

This essay proposes a theory of (post)-pandemic performance that reconceives the theatre, via its buildings, as installation. Innovations designed to navigate theatre-making within the context of pandemic, and the imperatives of online and physically distanced productions, open new perspectives on theatre’s projects and venues. Taking installation as its primary optic, the essay reviews two recent performance events: Black Box, a physically distanced audio tour staged by Berlin-based theatre company Rimini Protokoll at Schauspiel Stuttgart in 2021, and The Way Out (2020), a digital performance directed by British filmmaker Suri Krishnamma and recorded at Battersea Arts Centre, London. These productions restage entire arts centers as installational encounters to explore how theatre might address itself to its histories and futures. Taking the form of theatrical tours, the events encompass areas beyond the stage that are functional or transitional, raising questions not only about how we move through specific performance spaces, but also how we position ourselves in relation to theatre’s institutions. In (post)-syndemic theatre, the installational thus gives view onto both the physical-material of theatre’s buildings and representational tools, and the institutional in its structures of power.