'It's All So Pointless. Ah, But It's Not Though, Is It? It's Really Real and When You Feel It You Can Really Feel It': Theatre and Performance within Metamodernism

According to art critic Jerry Saltz (2010), the post-postmodern artist is one who proclaims that ‘I know that the art I’m creating may seem silly, even stupid, or that it might have been done before, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t serious’. In the intervening decade, trends in contemporary performance practice towards a renewed emphasis on storytelling, authenticity, and an affective connection between actors, audiences and communities are illustrative of a move away from the tropes of postmodern irony, detachment, and pastiche, and towards what scholars within wider cultural studies have defined as the metamodern – a cultural structure of feeling that oscillates between disparate polarities; performance that is simultaneously both sincere and sarcastic, both ironic and enthusiastic, both hopeful and hopeless.