László Bérczes (HU)
Encounter or Consumption?
My short speech is problematizing and thinking about how spaces in theatre changed recently.
Whether by saying theatre, we mean
a building,
a unique space, cut out of the world, and valid for a particular time,
a company,
an event,
a community based on performers and viewers, born in relation of a theatrical event for a particular time?
Can we say that the traditional spaces of public theatres, with 600-1200 seats, are not only but primarily, consuming - driven?
Is consuming as such, sinful?
Is that true that the spreading ‘black boxes’ are more efficient in creating ‘the meeting’ between the aritifact, the creator, and the receiver?
Is this kind of ‘meeting’ possible to be achieved via traditional voyeourism?
Is this kind of ‘meeting‘, one of the roles of theatre at all?
Is that true that contemporary texts are mostly played in narrow, small spaces, black boxes and studios?
And if that is true: is that sad or these are the necessary consequences of the need for creating a ‘meeting’.
What may be the reason behind the current trend, that some performances not only leave public theatres but also black boxes, to step out in ‘real life’?
Should we consider this phenomenon as a form of “degradation” where theatre climbs down to the level of people who do not understand theatre?
Or should we understand this as a consequent creation of ‘the meeting’ at all costs, to innovate theatrical language and forms?
Are these trends anyhow related to the so called regime shift, or is that a more general and universal process, defining our theatre and the world theatre alike.
Etc.