Theatricality: The Specificity of Theatrical Language

To define theatricality, or the specificity of the theater, is not only to attempt to define what distinguishes theater from other genres, but to define what distinguishes it from other kinds of spectacle-dance, performance art, or multi-media art. It is to bring the nature of theater itself into focus against a background of individual theatrical practices, theories of stage-play, and aesthetics. It is to attempt to find parameters shared by all theatrical enterprises from time immemorial. Although such a project may appear overly ambitious, its pertinence requires an attempt to establish such a definition. This article is such a step, seeking to establish points of reference for subsequent reflection. During the 20th century, the very foundations of theater were turned upside-down, as were those of other arts. What had been a clearly defined theatrical aesthetic at the end of the 19th century, outlining normative practice, was, during the 20th century, systematically reexamined. At the same time, stage practice began to distance itself from the text, assigning it a new place in the theatrical enterprise.2 Once under siege, the text was no longer able to guarantee the theatricality of the stage. Thus, it is understandable that those concerned began to question the specificity of the theatrical act itself, especially since this very specificity appeared to influence other stage practices as welldance, performance art, opera, and so on. The emergence of theatricality in areas tangentially related to the theater seems to have as a corollary the dissolution of the limits between genres, and of the formal distinctions between practices, from dance-theater to multi-media arts, including happenings, performance, and new technologies. The specificity of theater is more and more difficult to define. To the extent that the spectacular and the theatrical acquired new forms, the theater, suddenly decentered, was obliged to redefine itself.3 From that time on, its specificity was no longer evident. How then are we to define theatricality today? Should we speak of it in the singular or in the plural? Is theatricality a property that belongs uniquely to the theater, or can it also be found in the quotidian? As a quality-