Theater goes online: Telematic performance during COVID-19 lockdown in Turkey

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2756101_(Table of contents)

The latest coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak forced theater venues across Turkey to shut their doors, just as it has been in the rest of the world. The closure of the physical venues suspended on-site theater activity all over the country, including rehearsals and public performances, yet brought a surge of new, or newly expanded, interest in telematic performances. With a specific focus on the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey, this study considers the lockdown measures an eliciting factor that crystallizes the limitations and potentialities of telematic performances in recreating theater’s alleged conventions, namely liveness and co-presence. It seeks to understand how conventional understandings of liveness and co-presence is challenged by and is challenging telematic performances. To elaborate on the antagonism intrinsic to these two standpoints, a qualitative research design is implemented throughout the study. As the main qualitative approach, ten semi-structured, open-ended indepth interviews have been conducted with independent theater professionals. The first part of the analysis tries to understand challenges and benefits of telematic performance practice concerning liveness and co-presence on the part of theater professionals. Taking this analysis one step further, two locally produced telematic performance pieces, namely Murder of the Male by Nadir Sonmez and Walkthrough: Istanbul by tibia x fibula, have been selected and analyzed. The second part of the analysis tries to demonstrate how these two specific pieces generate a different kind of liveness and co-presence.