ABSTRACT
Definition is primarily a problem of inclusion and exclusion, what does and does not count as immersive. A number of scholars have attempted to establish working definitions or at least delineations of immersive theatre, but somehow, they are not completely satisfying. Initial and perfunctory feelings of imagined traditional theatregoers who evaluate the performance as either simply good or bad are hardly exhaustive. The problem of definition is made more important by its connection to the problem of immersive theatre’s politics. For a number of scholars who have argued that immersive theatre is part of an experience economy associated with late capitalism and neo-liberalism, these experiences can cultivate a self-referential narcissism or a hyper-individualism that is consonant with anomie and distraction. To pledge or bind oneself to immersion must mean to enter the performance on its own terms without holding back or maintaining a critical distance.
