Theatre: why the oldest "medium" outlived every new one

Theatre has been declared dead since the invention of cinema. Then television, then the internet, then streaming. More than a hundred years on, theatre is still alive, while some of its “killers” have gone out of fashion themselves. There is a reason for this stubborn longevity, and it matters more than it seems.

The only medium that breathes with you

A film is the same on Monday and Friday — the reel does not change. A performance is never repeated: tonight the actor is tired, the hall laughs in a different place, a pause runs a little longer — and it is already another evening. Theatre is the only “medium” where audience and author breathe the same air at the same time. You cannot pause it, rewind it, or watch a recording without losing the essence. That very irreproducibility is its product.

Why the live is prized again

The more the world retreats into screens, the more valuable becomes what cannot be digitized: live presence, a shared room, the risk of error in real time. We pay not for the plot — we can find the plot on our phones — but for the fact that it happens once, and in front of us. In a world of endless copies, the original that occurs here and now only grows dearer.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
— William Shakespeare

My opinion: theatre is not a relic but a reminder of what no screen will replace — a shared, unrepeatable, living moment. Technology gives the endless copy; theatre sells the one-of-a-kind. And the more perfect the copy, the more precious what cannot be copied.