Books

Heavy disagree here. It has been completely normal to read plays since forever, many dramatists were aware that their texts will be read - extremely obviously in dramatic texts from late 19th c. until today, and it has even been speculated that the variants in the early editions of Shakespeare's plays are a result of him writing one version for reading and the other one, slightly simplified, for performance. Shakespeare himself most definitely read plays (e.g. the influence of Seneca is obvious in Titus Andronicus, and I don't believe anyone was performing his works back in the 17th c.; Seneca is also believed by some to have intended his plays primarily for reading as well).

As for the experience/impact itself, that's very subjective but I have been as affected emotionally and intellectually by plays as any other sort of literary writing. And if you read plays, you don't rely on what the local theaters decide to produce and how they decide to do it - modernised, cut up, badly or well performed..., with the repertoire limited in language and culture of origin. (And I don't mean this to be a criticism of theater, it's just a different beast, a different art form. A lot of interesting contemporary theater doesn't have a dramatic text as its basis at all...)

If something has a diminished impact, it's recorded performances - they're useful as documents and awkward (IMO - unwatchable) as films, I've no idea how people can enjoy them.