Zoom; or, Obsolescence

The signal modality of theatrical production during the pandemic crisis of 2020–21 has been Zoom theatre. While Zoom theatre responds to public health concerns regarding virus transmission, it also articulates a vision of performance at the intersection of the public and the private, at the juncture between theatre and electronic media, and as a representation of theatre as a humanizing technology. Theatre has suggestively foregrounded new technologies under the sign of obsolescence, and in the affective register of nostalgia.