ABSTRACT

The concept of immersive theatre is today growing in success, be it with artists – such as international avant-garde for commercial success such as Then She Fell by Third Rail Project (2012, New York) – or indeed with researchers. This explains why the journalist Mark Lawson has stated, “On a bad day at the Edinburgh or Manchester festivals, there were times when a critic felt dizzy nostalgia at the sight of a seat or a script.” 1 The term immersion designates a multitude of different practices in various disciplinary fields: naturally cinema and video games, but equally theatre, installation art, performance, dance, and the fine arts. Due to the broad use of the concept of immersion, it is becoming increasingly metaphorical, even opaque and contradictory. In this context, to what extent does the notion of immersion constitute a paradigm, best able to take into account a certain dramaturgical specificity? What criteria constitute the necessary conditions for a paradigm of immersion, applicable to different theatrical forms?