ABSTRACT
In an essay especially provocative for this collection, “Why (Not) Theatre? Stage, Screen, and Streaming in a Pandemic,” Patrick Hart argues that, because of the pandemic, for “the vast majority of us the small screen at home constitutes by far the more significant influence upon the cultural fabric of our lives,” and that “both film and then television started out by feeding parasitically upon the theatre.” In similar fashion, the novel “cannibalized” older genres such as the epic, romance, and tragedy. He then envisions a theatre that might “dispense with the need for an audience entirely,” one of “more relaxed, inclusive spaces,” marked by a “responsiveness to the requirements of local communities.”
