The Impact of Virtual Reality on the Future of English Theatre: A Speculative AnalysisThe Impact of Virtual Reality on the Future of English Theatre: A Speculative Analysis

Abstract

This study considers the future of English Theatre when it is dominated by new virtual reality (VR) media tools, and how performance modes, narrative strategies and audience engagements become infiltrated with un-bodied digital technologies. Informed deeply by the field of performance theory, postmodernism and digital media research, the scope of this article takes into consideration how VR is rewriting a continuum of presence in theatre space across levels ranging from physical to individual body condition within an embodied environment. In addition, it outlines the changes in recent years and offers a brief overview of theatrical practice from its Renaissance beginnings: taking English theatre itself as an interesting case model for hybrid production, it shows how this modernist symbolic commodity has come into being at present and describes the various mediums used within its production procedure. The author also discusses the cautions and questions raised by digital technology as it enters real human quest for meaning in the machine; that is to say, questions such as personal or collective authenticity, convenience and scientific or not thinking patterns. In considering the future of stage electronic literature, it is stated that by incorporation with technician innovation and positive humanism English theatre could become an interactive art form; it should be a constantly interactive medium of communication basically accessible to all types of people. Therefore, VR is not to replace live theater, but more its extension--opening the creative and social possibilities even for ethical investigation in this digital age.