Presenza virtuale, emozione reale: cosa resterà al teatro dopo il Covid?

[Autom. eng. transl.] Comparing theater and technological media has always seemed to many to be an oxymoron, almost a sacrilege. Theater, they argue, has nothing to do with what is reproducible, in the absence and above all "devoid of body". Theatre, in fact, is the art of live bodies and, as such, is based on the physical co-presence of actor and spectator in the same place and at the same time. The distancing rules imposed by Covid-19 exclude the 'here and now' of physical co-presence, preventing the possibility of being bodies in relationship without which the theater does not exist. It is no coincidence that theater – together with the other live arts – is currently among the most affected sectors in the world. Faced with the risk of resigning to silence or tout court of not existing, the theater has tried to reinvent itself. He did it mainly in two ways: seeking a synthesis between 'staging' and 'airing', and replacing physical presence with disembodied presence. On the first front, it is singular how the theater production structures have chosen not to suspend their activity, but to remain 'open' even in the lockdown era, continuing to represent the shows on the bill on the concrete and real stages of their empty halls, to stream them on web channels to a distant but present audience. On the second front, many artists have started to use social media and digital platforms both to meet each other and thus continue to have a creative relationship, and to stay in touch with their audience. In both cases, the use of the media has compensated for the physical absence with the virtual presence, a disembodied but real and not simulated presence that allows not to give up on the relational dimension.