Theoretical and Conceptual Approaches to Cyber Theatre

Abstract

The article addresses the question of integration and dispersion in theatre. Theatre is the art of representation, so it is presented as unified and integral, starting with Aristotle's principle of three unities, through Shakespeare, Calderón de la Barca's The Great Theatre of the World or Erwin Piscator and Walter Gropius's model of total theatre. With the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, theatre changed, not only by itself but also by necessity, becoming diffuse and imprecise. It broke with one of its foundations: the encounter between spectators and actors in a designated space. Theatre ceased to be a place of performance and the stage was moved to nowhere. Digital theatre assumed an anti-Aristotelian order; the classical principle of the three unities of place, time and action was broken. However, even though the pandemic shook the foundations of theatre and theatre used all the means offered by new technologies, the fundamental concepts of theatre and theatrical space were not abolished.