In his 1970 pioneering essay “The Uncanny Valley,” Masahiro Mori (2012) wrote that “once we realize that the hand that looked real at first sight is actually artificial, we experience an eerie sensation” (p. 99). According to the Japanese robotics professor, when we shake hands with a prosthetic hand, “its limp and boneless grip together with its texture and coldness” makes us uncomfortable, and “when this happens, we lose our sense of affinity, and the hand becomes uncanny” (Mori, 2012, p. 99). Mori’s concept of “the uncanny valley” proposes that the more humanlike robots appear, the more attractive they seem to people. Conversely, at some point, that attractiveness is replaced by a feeling of uncanniness. Mori’s concept of the “uncanny valley” is defined today as “people’s negative reaction to certain lifelike robots” (Caballar, 2019).

The negative reaction has occurred in every field in which digitization has necessarily integrated into our lives during the 2019 coronavirus pandemic, including theatre. Theatre is ontologically based on the condition of presence. The opposite is usually considered to be non-theatre. Examples of digital theatre are mostly considered to be non-theatre precisely because of the violation of this ontological condition of presence. Because, according to classical understanding, the stage of the theatre is the stage of humanity, this is the great theatre of theworld that belongs to human beings (theatrum mundi). Although we have witnessed the collapse of this comprehension of the human perspective in the posthuman era, the need to rethink theatre arises. It is a fact that digitization has altered and transformed the aesthetics of theatre today. Therefore, the concept of digitization in theatre should be viewed not only as a feature unique to digital theatre but also as a technological aspect that impacts all aspects of theatre-making. Conversely, the term digital theatre refers to a distinct subgenre within the theatrical umbrella, separate from this overarching trend. The defining characteristic of the performances that can be included in the genre of digital theatre is that the dramaturgic context of the performance is established through the use of a digital element.

In a performance based on digital dramaturgy, the digital element in the centre has a substitutive basis. This substitutive quality can be defined as meeting a physical condition specific to the theatre with the digital condition. In other words, there is a displacement — the virtual replaces the physical. This article argues that the digital element, replacing the tangible one, can create virtual space, time, or humans — therefore a virtual presence — by what is defined here as the principle of substitution. Thus, the article intends to read digital theatre here through a dichotomy of presence and absence as a process that threatens the condition of presence, which is assumed to be the sine qua non of theatre. In a performance based on digital dramaturgy, the theatre-specific presence is replaced by what is absent. When it comes to digital theatre and even digitization in theatre, “to be or not to be,” just as Hamlet said, is strangely right in front of us again as the key answer that explains the “whole issue.” “What is” is known, visible, and familiar and inspires confidence rather than anxiety. Conversely, “what is not” is unknown, invisible, and unsettling. As such, our first reaction to the digital is an uncanny feeling of absence. In the specific case of Masahiro Mori’s definition, this feeling of uncanniness becomes even stranger when one meets a non-human but humanoid being.

In this article, the German theatre collective Rimini Protokoll’s 2018 play Unheimliches Tal / Uncanny Valley is examined in light of the views outlined above. The play, which has an animatronic robot at its centre instead of a human actor, is discussed in the context of the uncanny and its relationship with theatre. The fact that an inanimate robot rather than a living human actor takes the stage in the play moves the actor from the presence to the absence in the actor-audience component of the above-mentioned displacement specific to the theatre. In Unheimliches Tal / Uncanny Valley, absence creates the uncanniness, just like the appearance of a ghost on stage.

To define this uncanniness, first, the uncanny nature of theatre itself and the academic literature that currently considers theatre with the analogy of ghosts are mentioned. Then Jacques Derrida’s views on Western theatre arepresented, focusing on his concepts of the metaphysics of presence, logocentrism, and hauntology. Last, Unheimliches Tal / Uncanny Valley is discussed, with a consideration of the theatricality of this production in relation to contemporary theatre productions and digital dramaturgies.