Is there a theater outside the human horizon?
Or how the playwrights got it wrong!
Hatem Al-Talili Mahmoudi
From a theatrical point of view, we must not believe the narrative that we have turned into mere virtual beings despite the digital revolution that has loomed over the entire world. But to accept this matter is pure bloody distortion that would dismember the theatrical art and throw it into the coffin of its end. This art is not about believing in its existence beyond the horizon of blood, and the intention behind this is its eternal attachment to humanity. It is the result of human anxiety since the first sacrifice that was signed in his name, since the actor became the transcendent alternative to this sacrifice, and since his presence was established among social groups. To talk today about digital theater means that we are recording in the farewell exhibition that living encounter between the self and the other, and it means that we are about hybridizing this art by distancing it from its true tasks. The terrifying truth that dramatists seek to ignore is that theatrical art is a slow, tortoiseshell art, and its age is longer than even the monotheistic God’s lifespan. Therefore, it is not intended to run after the accelerating lives of humans as a result of technology and terrifying technological twists. Rather, its true mission lies in dramatizing The tragedies of this life itself.
In a situation like this, harsh criticism must be directed against every claim that would defend the playwrights and not the theatre, as they would not hesitate at all to defend their own existence in the face of abandoning this art. There are many facts that reveal the extent of the devastation that playwrights have inflicted on the theatrical art, and we have the best evidence of that in an example not far from our time, about two and a half years ago. The terrifying question that sparked the debate among the playwrights revolved around the following problem: Is technology an alternative in light of the freezing of public space as a result of the recent epidemic? But this question was soon put on hold, as life relatively returned to theatrical art with the return of festivals and theatrical events.
A question that could have been decisive in the history of the theatrical art and its fate by eliminating it: the mere fact of raising it and placing it in the place of possibility may reveal a tremendous desire on the part of theatrical artists to continue, even in a way that leads to “distorting the theatrical art” or emptying it of its essence.
This art was born from human anxiety. Therefore, his real mission lies in reassuring humanity. But, how can he achieve this when he has been erased from existence with the return of the human race to the home and the cities emptied of human movement after the impact of the quarantine intensified on the entire world? It seems that the issue has been settled from the beginning. Theater ends with the end of man and returns with his return. Therefore, the moment in which it stopped is only a sign of waiting for life and its return to its usual form. In contrast to this art, which has gone deeper in its loyalty to humanity, the playwrights did not stop their attempts to operate the theater, and because they became native residents of the worlds of digital, technology, and virtual, they dragged this art with them to their new home, and then the question was raised about technology as an alternative to public space. The legal home of the theater.
This question could not be posed with sufficient seriousness until the character of theater was taken away from the playwrights, because they became mere citizens inhabited by terror, and were no longer separated from ordinary human beings. More precisely: they lost what distinguished them, unlike the doctors, scientists, or philosophers who engaged in… Offering solutions to the world or trying to explain it. Thus, it was decided to erase theater from existence. As for the playwrights, their creative castles collapsed just as Troy collapsed, and they no longer had a role other than the role of the wailing women in the play The Trojans, which was signed by Seneca. The playwrights wailed instead of singing. Noah’s God, rejecting the catastrophe, only produced a new catastrophe practiced by these people, as it happened that another plague was born no less dangerous than theatre, a plague that found its realization within this art, as it was blatantly dehumanized. Otherwise, how do we explain its dehumanization and its introduction into the villages of digitalization? Has humanity turned into a robot or a virtual number, such that this art that has been attached to it for centuries has become transformed with it? No, that didn’t happen at all.
The entire world has moved to live in the digital space, which theater rejects as an artistic and aesthetic reality that can only be achieved through direct communication. As for trying to transfer it to that digital horizon, it is a kind of illusion practiced by theater people so that they can overcome their psychological panic in the face of the horror of what is happening. It was like a theatrical consolation: evocation of ancient works in the oceans of the Oceanic world and running virtual seminars and festivals that were met by the sarcastic face of Walter Benjamin, and his compelling saying resurfaced: the death of the aura, as “the moment when the artistic work is emptied of its fragrance for reasons or technical factors.” Simply put, this work is wasted and vanished.” There is no meaning to talking about theater without a spectacle in which bodies join, there is no meaning to talking about theater while we are in front of computer screens, and there is no meaning to talking about theater without a live encounter between performers and audience: this is how the process of torturing this art took place in the context of this conceptual war after the critics’ pens lit up regarding… This issue is on an Arab and international level, and has produced hundreds of articles scattered across social networking sites and pages interested in theatrical affairs. Yes, the body of this artist was dismembered as if it were a human body struck by the plague, and the cough and fever became severe, and then his lungs exploded as a result of that horrific virus. Adorno said: “The self-fulfillment that art had achieved after it got rid of its ritual and similar functions was nourished by the idea of humanity. But it was destabilized to the extent that society became less human.” Schiller asked: “What is the event that announces the entry of the savage into the realm of humanity?” ?” Al-Miskini replied, speaking of man as a prisoner of Castile, “the terrifying one who has absorbed every possible interpretation of the future of humanity as it is.”
We must not forget that this issue has not been raised before – the issue of theater, technology, and the end of humanity on the last stage.
