ABSTRACT
In the end, dramatic illusion seems to have lost the battle against media illusion. Media images offer audiences such instant and immediate satisfaction that they have stolen most of the theatre’s spectators. Faced with a dwindling audience in recent years, the theatre has thus had to find ways of winning them back. But how does one win spectators back over to an art increasingly perceived as archaic? Brecht has already asked this question, but contemporary theatre has reframed the terms of the debate. Rather than peddling the myth of theatrical illusion, contemporary theatrical performance plays on the co-presence of actors and audiences. In other words, theatre is increasingly played in the present tense, emphasising the present-ness of all its components. This opens up all sorts of potentialities and possibilities hitherto untapped. Rather than try to captivate the audience, contemporary theatre practice seeks to emancipate it (to borrow the terms of Jacques Rancière 1 ) from its passive position as a consumer of cultural goods. The audience becomes a critical subject and co-creator of the performance. As such, the dominance and ubiquity of screens has led today to an unframing of the theatre.
