The article is devoted to the understanding of the phenomenon of modern theatre, defined by the German theater critic Hans-Thies Lehmann as “post-dramatic theatre”. The purpose of the article is to show the mode of existence of post-drama in the real theatrical process. From Lehmann’s point of view, post-drama is not a new direction in art, but a state of the theater in which it emancipates from the literary source. The post-dramatic theatre breaks the tradition of narrative art and abandons the rigid structure of the play. The semantics of post-drama is considered in the tradition of contextualism, when the meaning directly depends on the context. The contextuality of the play Shpalikov is its semantic field. The pragmatics of post-drama is in the creation of a new polylinguistic space. Post-drama changes all the language elements of the theatre, including the audience’s expectations.
Keywords: Lehmann, semantics, pragmatics, “post-dramatic theatre”, theatre platform “In the Centre”, the play Shpalikov