In the presence of others

My experience with Samara Hersch’s online version of Body Of Knowledge (At Home), which was part of Germany’s Impulse Theater Festival last year, has since got me interested in the question of what it is we do in theatre as audience. In Body Of Knowledge, the audience engaged in conversations with teenagers via WhatsApp, they in their own home, we in ours. The performance made me more attuned to the act of listening — something we do in theatre without thinking or being asked to.

When theatres all over the world began shuttering two years ago due to the pandemic, the meaning of theatre was widely discussed by professionals and enthusiasts. I remember American director Anne Bogart at…