Theoretical foundations for the study of theatricality in instrumental theater and cinema

Archive of Scientific Articles

ISSUE:

Pan-Art. 2026. Volume 6. Issue 2

COLLECTION:

Film and TV Arts

All issues

Abstract. The article is a theoretical review dedicated to the problem of investigating theatricality within instrumental theater and cinema as autonomous artistic systems. The focus is on the theoretical and methodological foundations of analyzing theatricality and the possibility of its comparative study across medially diverse artistic forms. The aim of the article is to systematize theoretical concepts of theatricality within the humanities from the 20th to the first quarter of the 21st century. The work examines philosophical-anthropological, culturological, semiotic, hermeneutic, and phenomenological grounds for understanding theatricality, which form the theoretical framework for its study in contemporary scholarship. Special attention is paid to the category of the “artistic text” as a universal analytical link that ensures comparability between different medial systems and allows for the examination of manifestations of theatricality beyond the performing arts proper. A review of scholarly literature shows that while the concept of theatricality is well-developed in philosophy, cultural studies, theater studies, musicology, and film studies, a unified methodological toolkit for consistently analyzing its manifestations in autonomous artistic systems has not yet been formed. This methodological deficit is particularly evident in instrumental theater, which, unlike cinema, is significantly distant from the traditional theatrical medium. Therefore, it requires not a mere transfer of theater-studies analytical frameworks, but the development of a universal model of analysis that accounts for the medial specificity of the compared artistic forms. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the author’s own systematization of research directions in the study of theatricality and the substantiation of a multi-level analytical model. The proposed model includes spatial, corporeal, dramaturgical, sonic, and communicative levels of analysis, allowing theatricality to be viewed as a complex principle for organizing an artistic event. As a result, it is established that the proposed model transforms the abstract concept of theatricality into an analytically applicable form and can be used as a theoretical-methodological tool for researching instrumental theater and cinema, as well as for the cross-branch analysis of synthetic artistic practices.