Internet space in the contemporary drama about teenagers

Abstract

The article considers modern plays that show the peculiarities of the teenagers communication in the Internet. The aim of the study is to determine the impact that, according to playwrights, in the Internet communication has on the fate of adolescents. The empirical material for the study was the plays of 2013-2020, noted at the competitions of the contemporary dramaturgy and included in the collections of teenage plays: "Photo topless" by N. Blok, "That's all she" by A. Ivanov, "Mart and Sliva" by E. Bizyaeva, "Gandhi was silent on Saturdays" by A. Bukreeva. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is based on a combination of an interdisciplinary approach with an analysis of works on literary criticism, theater studies and psychology. As a result of the investigation, it was found that playwrights reconstruct the situation of characters' being in the Internet and reflect the communication of teenagers with their peers, adults and anonymous users, whose age or gender cannot be determined. The emerging conflict situations are associated with the violation of personal boundaries (bringing the conflict into the public space of the Internet), the substitution of live communication with virtual one, the manipulation by adults of the fragile consciousness of children. In some cases, the Internet space is portrayed as a digital copy of the real life of adolescents, while the Internet becomes a platform to which traditional adolescent conflicts are transferred. In other cases, the Internet becomes a place where a teenager goes to, being in conflict with the present.