Exactly as much as they can integrate: Calibration as a principle of dramaturgical construction in Therapeutic Theatre "TT"

This article proposes calibration as the central operational concept of the methodology of Therapeutic Theatre "TT" and attempts to give it a verifiable formulation. Calibration is defined as the fine adjustment of all components of the scenic experience so that the participant undergoes exactly as much as they can integrate. An observable criterion of success is proposed — the memory criterion: calibration has succeeded when the stimulus remains below the threshold of recollection and its effect above it. Two levels of application are distinguished, architecture calibrated in advance and execution calibrated in real time, together with seven simultaneous dimensions of adjustment: emotion, stimulus, time, relation, complexity, recovery and the collective. The article argues that in "TT" calibration has direction as well as intensity; that the age of participants constitutes the most powerful parameter for adjusting execution; and that the principle applies not only to the spectator but also to the actor — both in the procedure by which the director intervenes during a performance and in the way a correction is subsequently transmitted. The debts of the concept to the clinical literature on titration and to cognitive load theory are set out, together with the criterion by which it could be falsified.