Verbatim Theatre

This chapter responds to a revival of interest in social class, particularly working-class identity, class relations and class exploitation on theatre stages and in scholarship in the twenty-first century. The focus is onJez Butterworth’s Jerusalem (2009), Simon Stephens’Port (2002) and Gillian Slovo’s The Riots (2011) and the ways in which these plays engage in a twenty-first-century class politics, and more particularly, participate in forms of political subjectivization of working-class identity as abject, racialized, excessive and stagnant – in opposition to a normative personhood of taste, restraint, moral attunement, flexibility, and the ability to self-script. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu, Jacques Rancière, Beverley Skeggs and Imogen Tyler, the chapter considers whether these plays discover ways in which to articulate working-class subjectivity in forms that resist assimilation to already familiar classed ways of knowing and offer distinctively new forms of political theatre that intervene transgressively in the struggle over the contemporary meaning of class.

From Twenty-First Century Drama: What Happens Now, eds. Siân Adiseshiah and Louise LePage, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

As an influential playwright of Verbatim theatre which emerged in England in 1960s as a form of politic theatre, the roots of which date back to Ancient Greek period, Philip Ralph concentrates on Cheryl James, one of the four soldiers died doubtfully at the barracks in Surrey between 1995- 2002 and her parents seeking answers upon their daughter’s death in his
play, Deep Cut. Playwright who analyzed all the documents within three years studied social and political aspects of the tragedy, especially the parts that did not take place in the media. In this study, the researcher explores the specialities of the Verbatim theatre and considers Philip Ralph’s play, Deep Cut in political aspects.

Verbatim theatre processes which draw on interview content from living people are inherently open to accusations of appropriation, if not exploitation. However, scholarship addressing the experience of those who are interviewed for such productions, particularly those from marginalised communities, is sparse. This thesis asks what key issues need to be addressed by theatre makers when interview material from contributors is sought and employed within a verbatim script. Can an ‘insider’ positioning of theatre makers in relation to those they interview (where the playwright is from the same community and has shared experiences) produce a richer level of disclosure, a deeper level of trust in the project and a sense of co-creation on the part of the contributors?
As a theatre maker of many years’ standing, I wanted to explore whether a shift from a ‘mining’ or extractive relationship to one of reciprocity and co-production within professionally produced verbatim theatre can be facilitated by addressing the practices of theatre makers. To examine this question, I have discussed the working processes of several practitioners (including Christine Bacon and Della Pollock, who I interviewed) and have also reflected upon some of my own plays, analysing follow-up interviews with contributors.
My research demonstrated how risks can be mitigated and it also identified ways in which contributors can benefit from their involvement. It revealed that follow-up interviews with contributors provide much-needed documentation about their experience of verbatim theatre processes. Crucial to this enquiry, this thesis showed how existing debates and practice within oral history can inform and enhance ethical practice in plays created from interviews with living people.
This thesis has demonstrated that contributors’ narratives cannot simply be regarded as source material for playwrights, but that the experience of contributors in verbatim theatre processes must now be foregrounded in verbatim theatre practice and scholarship.

Dando continuidade ao esforço de compreender a ampla gama de realizações da cena performática documental da atualidade, propõe-se aqui uma análise comparativa de trabalhos recentes, para apontar polaridades recorrentes no que diz respeito à utilização de vídeo-projeções em diálogo com atores ao vivo. Em "Kondima", da Troupp Pas D’Argent (2018), a projeção cinematográfica de depoimentos pré-gravados alterna-se com a interpretação de atores; já em "Mi vida después", de Lola Arias (2010), acompanha-se filmagens realizadas ao vivo, como em um esforço de reencenação do passado. Igualmente polarizados entre a imagem pré-capturada e o vídeo remake estão "Stand by for tape back-up", de Ross Sutherland (2014), e "Pequenas biografias", do Teatro Número Três (2014): no primeiro, o performer revira imagens capturadas de um broadcast televisivo, como fonte de secundária de ativação da memória; no segundo, scripts de conversas antigas são re-filmados como num estranho esforço de compreensão. À segurança que transmitem as formas de utilização do vídeo nos dois primeiros exemplos opõe-se a trivialidade e a descontextualização radical dos dois últimos. Trata-se, contudo, de uma diferença fundamental na forma de tratar o real que se almeja anexar por meio do vídeo: em "Kondima" e "Mi vida después", são as realidades do refúgio e da ditadura que precisam ser expostas em sua gravidade, enquanto em "Stand for tape back-up" e "Pequenas biografias" é o fragilidade da constituição do eu autobiográfico que aparece refletida na utilização da mídia.
- - - - -
As a continuing effort to understand the vast body of works in documentary theatre today, this article proposes a comparative analysis of a few recent theater pieces, mapping out common recurrences in this genre, specifically regarding the onstage dialogue between actors and video-projections. In "Kondima", by Troupp Pas D'Argent (2018), cinematographic footage of real testimonials are accompanied by performers' interpretations of the interviewees, while in Lola Arias's "Mi vida después" (2009), it is the actors themselves who give testimony, making use of cameras to show objects and re-enact scenes from the narrated past. Equally polarized between the presentation of pre-captured images and mediated live re-enactments are Ross Sutherland's "Stand by for tape back-up" (2014) and Teatro Número Três's "Pequenas biografias" (2014): while, in the former, a solo performer revises old clips from television broadcasts as triggers for his own memory, in the latter old transcripts of banal conversations are re-enacted as in a film studio. While the images projected onstage seem reliable and clarifying in the first two works, they are oppositely trivial and decontextualized in the others. This shines light onto a fundamental difference in motivation for the use of video onstage in the field of documentary theater: in one side, it is the realities of refuge and dictatorial regimes that must to be exposed clearly; in the other, it is the fragility of the autobiographical self that appears reflected in the use of media.

Konseli adalah seorang wanita yang tinggal sementara di sebuah Lembaga Pemasyarakatan (LP) yang berada di Tuminting, Kota Manado. Ia telah berada di LP tersebut selama dua bulan. LP ini memiliki sekitar lima ratus penghuni di dalamnya, termasuk konseli. Dalam kesehariannya, konseli ditemani oleh sebelas perempuan lainnya yang berada dalam LP tersebut. Surti tidur di ruangan kamar seluas tiga kali empat meter persegi beserta tiga temannya yang lain. Konseli adalah seorang penghuni LP dengan alasan karena ia dahulu adalah seorang pemakai dan difitnah sebagai pengedar narkoba yang ditangkap oleh pihak kepolisian. Ketika ditangkap, awalnya ia dititipkan di Rumah Tahanan yang berada di Kota Bitung selama tiga bulan. Kemudian ia dipindahkan di LP Tuminting atas keputusan pengadilan. Kehidupan keseharian konseli di LP Tuminting sama seperti penghuni yang lainnya. Setiap harinya ia harus bangun pagi untuk kerja bakti, serta membersihkan kamar. Selanjutnya, konseli dan penghuni yang lain akan diberikan sarapan pada jam delapan pagi. Kegiatan ini berlangsung sepanjang hari Senin sampai hari Sabtu. Pada hari Minggu mereka diberikan waktu dan kesempatan untuk beribadah bagi yang beragama Kristen, hal ini juga berlaku pada hari Jumat bagi mereka yang beragama Islam. Konseli adalah ibu dari seorang anak yang masih berumur delapan tahun. Saat ini anak konseli sementara studi di kelas dua Sekolah Dasar. Sedangkan suaminya sudah meninggalkannya semenjak ia ditangkap polisi. Surti juga memiliki kakak laki-laki yang merupakan seorang Hamba Tuhan, dan saat ini sedang melayani di daerah Jawa Tengah. Ibu dari konseli tinggal di Kota Bitung bersama anak konseli, sedangkan ayahnya telah memiliki keluarga sendiri dan menetap di Ternate.

Dalam masa perkembangan, anak usia sekolah dasar tergolong masa yang relatif muda. Mereka dominan berkembang dalam lingkungan keluarga, baik itu keluarga kecil atau keluarga besar, baik keluarga muda atau yang sudah berpengalaman. Mereka masih tergantung pada pendidik dalam keluarga yaitu Orangtua, kakak, adik paman, atau anggota keluarga lain yang lebih tua. Mereka terbentuk ikatan social, emosional, kebiasaan, adat, norma dan gaya hidup sendiri-sendiri. Sekolah Dasar merupakan masa anak memperoleh dasar-dasar pengetahuan untuk keberhasilan penyesuaian diri pada kehidupan dewasa dan memperoleh keterampilan tertentu. Berkenaan dengan itu, terdapat beberapa problem/masalah yang mungkin terjadi dalam anak usia sekolah dasar yang dapat menyebabkan pertumbuhan dan perkembangan anak terhambat sehingga anak tidak dapat mencapai tugas perkembangan dengan optimal, masalah yang mungkin saja terjadi adalah masalah dalam bidang pribadi, social, dan belajar anak. Permasalahan yang dialami anak dapat mempengaruhi keberlangsungan perkembangan anak, yang bisa disebabkan oleh internaldiri anak atau berasal dari eksternal yaitu lingkungan dimana ia tinggal. Kegiatan bimbingan khususnya pada anak usia sekolah dasar diharapkan dapat memberikan andil dalam usaha preventif atau pencegahan agar anak tidak mengalami kejaian atau masalah yang dapat mengganggu kondisi Psikologis dan Fisiologisnya, dalam pemberian bantuan ini didasarkan pada perkembangan peserta didik, yang disesuaikan pada bimbingan pribadi, social, karir dan belajar. Sebagai guru pembimbing pada anak usia sekolah dasar berdasarkan tujuan preventif, guru pembimbing berperan dalam mangakomodasi semua kegiatan dan memberikan sarana kepada siswa untuk tumbuh perkembangannya.

‘Staging War’, in At the Front Line: Ukrainian Art, 2013–2019/ La línea del frente. El arte ucraniano, 2013–2019/ Na linii frontu. Ukrains’ke mystetstvo, 2013–2019, exhibition catalogue edited by Svitlana Biedarieva and Hanna Deikun (Mexico City and Kyiv: International ‘Renaissance’ Foundation, 2020) pp. 86-88. 

All That Remains is a reflection on memory and loss based on true stories from the ongoing war in Ukraine. A woman who has lost her brother and is left with only a few of his belongings tries to make sense of what happened. The show weaves her story together with those of the volunteers (mostly women) who keep the army supplied with the basics that the state doesn’t provide, fellow soldiers haunted by memories, and the voice of her brother from mobile phone videos recorded at the frontline. Using documentary theatre and music, this is a story about the shock of losing a loved one to armed conflict, and about finding the strength to live on. Written and directed by Olesya Khromeychuk and performed by Molodyi Teatr London.

Abstract
“ineradicable voices; narratives toward rerooting1”; An oral history researchcreation based on the life stories of individuals who experienced transracial/intercountry
adoption
Zeina Ismail-Allouche, PHD
Concordia University, 2021
This collaborative oral history research-creation, grounded in Indigenous methodologies
(Kovach, 2009; 2010; Smith, 1999; Wilson, 2008), amplifies the critical narrative of
transracial/intercountry adoption through the life stories of individuals who experienced
transracial/intercountry adoption (adoptees), regardless of their places of origin and adoption. An
Advisory committee of adoptees guided the research and 22 collaborators (including the
Advisory committee) worked together to ensure a co-authored representation of these longsilenced voices. The creative outcome was a Zoom oral history headphone verbatim
performance.
The online public event (available at this link: https://storytelling.concordia.ca/projectsitem/ineradicable-voices-narrations-toward-rerooting/) revealed complex, intimate, intense and
unique pathways with intersections of colonial systems, identity formation, and enduring racism.
Search for origins was perceived as necessary for the healing process and Indigenous custom
adoption was identified as the best community-based practice in parallel with investing in
preventing separation and breaking the vicious cycle of poverty.
The research-creation is timely amidst the tragic discovery of the remains of more than
1000 children buried at different sites of the colonial residential school following the 15 May
2021 release of the Laurent Commission final report on Children's Rights and Youth Protection
1
The title was meant to be written in small characters using Helvetica as a font to reflect on the adoption
documents that were most of the time falsified and written with a typewriter
iv
calling for reform of the youth protection system in Quebec. Internationally, the implications of
the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is expected to expose more children to the risk of falling into
transracial/intercountry adoption; some 150 million people across the globe will be pushed into
poverty by 2021 due to the global recession and the closure of many firms because of the
lockdown (World Bank, 2021). Lebanon is of particular concern because of the country's
unprecedented economic and political crises. History has proven that transracial/intercountry
adoption was practiced as a rescue intervention despite the fact that it has been critically revisited
in many writings highlighting its long-term and irreversible psychological challenges
(Blackstock, 2011; Brodzinsky, 1993; Cantwell, 2014).
The thesis is a complementary document to the public event. It presents the theoretical
framework of the research-creation. The thesis includes my connections to the research subject, a
historical perspective on adoption practices and the colonial legacies of forced separation of
Indigenous children in Canada, the research methodologies, the impact on audience, my
learnings about the methodologies, an analysis of findings and proposed recommendations.

The technological and cultural changes to the constitution and usage of documents often preempt - outperform even - the capacity of institutions to validate and integrate new document formations within their orders of signification. In such instances, the document can be said to operate outside the validating frame of the institution in territories of cultural practice where it functions as a hybrid, discursive object, capable of bringing established orders of knowledge to crisis. This paper presents an analysis of three specific examples of document formations across different times, cultures and practices: the passage from oral to written law in classical Greece; the emergence of photography and the serial archive; digital document formations in the context of the 2011 documentary play The Riots.

Theatre, Reality, Timeliness: Mediatic Aspects of the Contemporary Scene

Based on an extensive reference sample of dramatic texts and performances from both the Greek and the international stage, the present paper is an attempt to explore ideological, sociological and aesthetic issues of the reality trend in contemporary theatre. Debating upon hot social problems, but mainly dramatizing current events, which have already gained media attention, mixing facts and fiction and using authentic documents from primary sources, the new forms of documentary theatre tend to adopt, in our viewpoint, the principles, methods and processes of mass communication systems. Challenging notions of reality, truth and objectivity, such projects constitute a live cultural platform, where information values fuse with the critical analysis and interpretation of modern world.

This article explores the process of constructing visual metaphor for a youth verbatim theatre production within the South African, Afrikaans school context. The process of verbatim theatre creation within this context is explored, with examples from both the process and the production Wag, ek kry gou my foon [en soos sulke goed] (2017). The article further examines the aesthetic and thematic applications of visual metaphor and argues that visual metaphor can be used to circumvent problems or restrictions that arise in the data collection phase of the verbatim theatre process. These range from the context wherein the production is created, the length of the production, and especially ethical boundaries, including the responsibility of the verbatim theatre maker to represent both the subjects and material at the intersection between verisimilitude and contextual restrictions The article examines scenes from the production to conclude that visual metaphor can enrich the verbal aspect of the verbatim research to expand, replace or comment on the content generated and explored during the data collection phase.

Verbatim theatre has roots reaching back to the early twentieth century and a longer tradition of documentary and historical drama, but the form has enjoyed an extraordinary amount of interest and production since 2001.  Many dynamic works have been created in a variety of styles, but with interest in this documentary approach to text comes renewed interest in theoretical questions about how drama best reflects reality on stage

Resumen: La relación entre la práctica artística y la transformación social constituye un tema tradicional en la problematización filosófica del arte. Ello se debe a que entran en conflicto conceptos clave de la reflexión estética, como la autonomía del arte o la importancia del proceso frente al resultado. Con objeto de ofrecer algunas claves de trabajo, el artículo se compone, en primer lugar, de una aproximación al concepto de transformación social, para seguidamente ofrecer las dos modalidades de participación del artista: la crónica o el activismo. Este último conlleva, sin embargo, tres sacrificios en la encrucijada de la transformación social: la calidad estética del resultado, su autonomía y su propio protagonismo. Por último, y antes de las conclusiones, se presenta un caso práctico proveniente de las artes escénicas.

Palabras clave: transformación social, estética, autonomía, teatro contemporáneo, verbatim

Abstract: The relationship between artistic practice and social transformation constitutes a traditional theme in the philosophical problematization of art. This is due to the fact that key concepts of aesthetic reflection, such as the autonomy of art or the importance of the process versus the result, get in conflict. In order to offer some work keys, the article is composed, first, of an approach to the concept of social transformation, to then offer two modalities for the participation of the artist: chronicle or activism. The latter, however, entails three sacrifices at the crossroads of social transformation: the aesthetic quality of the result, his autonomy as artist and his own prominence. Finally, and before conclusions, a practical case from the performing arts is presented.

Keywords: social transformation, aesthetics, autonomy, contemporary theatre, verbatim

В статье рассматриваются российские театральные постановки 2010-х гг. «До и после» (реж. Д. Брусникин), «Донецк. Вторая площадка» (реж. А. Праудин), «Вятлаг» (реж. Б. Павлович), «Дневник крестьянина» (реж. А. Патлай), «Город-герой» (авторы Е. Бондаренко, М. Гацалов, Т. Рахманова), «Дознание» (реж. М. Тычинин), «Неявные воздействия» (комиссар В. Лисовский), которые можно назвать постдокументальными (термин З. Абдуллаевой). В них акцент с содержания документального материала переносится на произнесение его в конкретном месте и времени, собранные интервью с «донором» или дневниковые записи людей прошлого дополняются сегодняшними историями актеров и зрителей. Документом в постдокументальном театре становятся и характеристики интервьюирования, и воспоминания актеров, и реакция зрителей, купивших билет и случайных, на спектакль. Такое расширение понятия документа свидетельствует об освоении документальным театром эстетики перформативности.
The article examines Russian theatrical productions of the 2010s “Before and A er” (directed by Dmitry Brusnikin), “Donetsk. Platform-2” (directed by Anatoly Praudin), “Vyatlag” (directed by Boris Pavlovich), “Diary of a peasant” (directed by Anastasia Patlay), “ e Hero City”
(authors Ekaterina Bondarenko, Marat Gatsalov, Tatiana Rakhmanova), “ e Investigation” (directed by Mikhail Tychinin), and “Implicit e ects” (Commissioner Vsevolod Lisovsky), which can be called post-documentary (using the term coined by Zara Abdullaeva). In them, the focus on the documentary material is transferred to its utterance at a particular place and time, the collected interviews or diary entries from the past are supplemented by today’s stories of actors and spectators.  e post-documentary theatre includes as a document the characteristics of interviewing, the memories of the artists, and the reaction of spectators. Such an extension of the concept of the document indicates the adoption of the aesthetics of performativity by the documentary theatre.

This study discusses the key terms of presence and authenticity as well as introducing the connection and distinction between Theatre of the Real and Reality TV. It goes on to investigate the work of Quarantine Theatre through an analysis of the company’s 2010 production of 'Susan & Darren' , which is performed by mother and son, Susan and Darren Pritchard. The third element of the essay is a description and analysis of a piece of theatre of the real, 'Mike & Karen', conceived by myself in order to further investigate an audience’s understanding of “authentic presence”  in live performance.

This investigation takes two distinct approaches: an analysis of a Quarantine Theatre production based on interviews with members of the production team, time spent in rehearsals and observation of the finished production; and also the development and presentation of my own performance piece, initiated before my contact with Quarantine, but subsequently influenced by conversations with members of the company and by their working methods. My research questions attempt to address what “authentic presence” offers to theatre-makers, how practitioners attempt to manifest presence within these specific examples and what impact this has on an audience .

This paper examines the role of clowning in practice-as-research, and explores tensions between aspiration and execution in interdisciplinary projects. It draws on documentary assets (video screen grabs, photographs, texts) from a version of Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis devised online and presented at The Light in Leeds as Ugly Scenes (Performance Studies international, Psi#18, July 2012). It is also an experiment in writing ‘for’ and ‘as’ idiots, bringing together four interlocuting voices: those of two academics "in conversation with" their antagonists and clown-esque alter egos, Kurt Zarniko & Teddy Love.

The performance involved collaboration between academics and artists in the UK, USA, and Greece in the form of online auditioning, online devising, and collaborative writing. Formed into an international company, the group used opensource software (Googledocs, Skype, and Snagit) as platforms that offer productive arenas for live performance and improvisation. These platforms have an inherent potential for technological calamity (which is understood as fruitful in clown and comic modes). The actual staging of this work by this international but amateur outfit presented numerous obstacles, comical "failures" and shortcomings, and there remains a wealth of material that offers a rich resource for a visually striking critical reflection.

The mistreatment of medical and nursing students and junior health professionals has been reported internationally in research and the media. Mistreatment can be embedded and normalized in hierarchical healthcare workplaces, limiting the effectiveness of policies and reporting tools to generate change; as a result, some of those who experience mistreatment later perpetuate it. We used a novel, creative approach, verbatim theater, to highlight the complexity of healthcare workplaces, encourage critical reflection, and support long-term culture change.
Intervention: Verbatim theater is a theater-for-change documentary genre in which a playscript is devised using only the words spoken by informants. In 2017, 30 healthcare students and health professionals were recruited and interviewed about their experience of work and training by the multidisciplinary Sydney Arts and Health Collective using semi-structured interviews. Interview transcripts became the primary material from which the script for the verbatim theater play ‘Grace Under Pressure’ was developed. The performing arts have previously been used to develop the communication skills of health professional students; this esthetic expression of the real-life effects of healthcare workplace culture on trainees and students was implemented to stimulate consciousness of, and dialogue about, workplace mistreatment in healthcare work and training.
Context: The play premiered at a major Sydney theater in October 2017, attended by the lay public and student and practicing health professionals. In November 2017, three focus groups were held with a sample of audience members comprising healthcare professionals and students. These focus groups explored the impact of the play on reflection and discussion of healthcare culture and/or promoting culture change in the health workplace. We analyzed the focus group data using theoretical thematic analysis, informed by Turner’s theory of the relation between ‘social’ and ‘esthetic’ drama to understand the impact of the play on its audience.
Impact: Focus group members recognized aspects of their personal experience of professionalism, training, and workplace culture in the play, Grace Under Pressure. They reported that the play’s use of real-life stories and authentic language facilitated their critical reflection. Participants constructed some learning as ‘revelation,’ in which the play enabled them to gain significant new insight into the culture of health care and opened up discussions with colleagues. As a result, participants suggested possible remedies for unhealthy aspects of the culture, including systemic issues of bullying and harassment. A small number of participants critiqued aspects of the play they believed did not adequately reflect their experience, with some believing that the play over-emphasized workplace mistreatment.
Lessons Learned: Verbatim theater is a potent method for making personal experiences of healthcare workplace and training culture more visible to lay and health professional audiences. In line with Turner’s theory, the play’s use of real-life stories and authentic language enabled recognition of systemic challenges in healthcare workplaces by training and practicing health professionals in the audience. Verbatim theater provides a means to promote awareness and discussion of difficult social issues and potential means of addressing them.

This article addresses the function of public presentations of personal memory in a post-conflict context and explores whether they may contribute to a preservation of that conflict. In particular, it examines the reception of performed memories of violence and its aftermath by audiences who have lived through similar experiences. To do this, it will discuss observations from empirical research on a verbatim theatre production in Northern Ireland, Heroes with Their Hands in the Air, that used interviews with relatives of those killed or wounded in an incident that came to be known as ‘Bloody Sunday’. Drawing on the responses to the stories portrayed, it argues that, although such performative re-enactment of memory may contribute to an affirmation of collective identity and thus to preserving boundaries, it allows a community of memory to examine past events of suffering and explore impacts that reach into the present.

This thesis examines the “post-truth” political environment through a retroactive exploration of issues surrounding the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and how these were depicted on the British stage. By presenting “post-truth” politics as an extension of Giorgio Agamben's theories on the “State of Exception”, this thesis aims to analyse how political theatremakers have attempted to depict and critique political exceptionalism on stage. A second field of enquiry is to examine how these theatremakers differentiate their representation and how they disseminate “truth” from the ‘exceptional’ institutions that they intend to critique. The plays specifically covered in this survey include David Hare’s Stuff Happens, Richard Norton-Taylor’s Justifying War and Caryl Churchill's Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?

This article analyses Gina Shmukler’s verbatim play The Line (2012) and argues for another look at the testimonies captured from witnesses, survivors and perpetrators
of the violence targeting foreign and perceived as foreign persons in South Africa that escalated in 2008 and in 2015. It is a narrative analysis of the play that uses Gregory H. Stanton’s Ten Stages of Genocide model and the United Nations Convention on Genocide to investigate the theatrical representation of the violence. This account argues that the events that are captured in the play and
that inspired it should be reconsidered as acts of genocide. In the absence of an official acknowledgement of the events as genocide, performances like The Line and other ‘xenophobia’ plays entomb what Winston Churchill called ‘a crime without a name’ (1965). The article argues that performance stands as the public yet ephemeral and embodied commemoration of the trauma of genocide
violence, filling the void of the absent murals and museums that are often a built-in commemoration of past and contemporary trauma.

Hierdie artikel ondersoek die verwerking van verbatim-teks na verhoogbeelde deur ’n ontleding van die jeugteaterproduksie getiteld tot stof | tot stilte – ’n paniekreaksie wat deur die Hoër Meisieskool Bloemhof in 2018 opgevoer is. ’n Ondersoek word gedoen na die konvensionele skeppingsmetodologie van verbatim-teater. Daar word krities gekyk na die data-insamelings-, seleksie- en redigeringsproses van die gesproke teks. Daar word tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat die seleksie- en redigeringsproses van die gesproke data verwerkings van verbatim-teks nie noodwendig die volledige omvang van die rou data vasvang nie. Dit is veral die geval wanneer die rou data nie noodwendig toneelmatige trefkrag het wanneer dit byvoorbeeld as teaterdialoog beskou word nie. Deur gebruik te maak van Lehmann (2016) se teorieë van postdramatiese estetika argumenteer hierdie artikel dat ’n verwerker die rou gesproke data na beelde kan omskep om die kontekste, inhoud en prosesse van die data-insamelingsproses vas te vang. Hierdie verwerking kan as potensieel meer “eg” beskou word omdat daar moontlik ’n breër omvang van die rou data uitgebeeld kan word, veral gegewe sekere kontekstuele beperkings (die teatermatige ervaring van die spelers, of die lengte van die toneelstuk in verhouding tot die rou data). Deur die klem van die produksie op die verhoogbeelde te plaas, word die implisiete kunsmatigheid van verbatim-teater belig. Daardeur word die problematiek van lewensgetrouheid, “egtheid” en die “samestelling van egtheid” in beide die verbatim-vorm en verwerkingspraktyk op ’n nuwe manier ondersoek.

This article attempts a partial archeology of the evolution of COUNTED, a verbatim play developed by the author with Look Left Look Right Theatre Company, which premiered at London's County Hall just before the 2010 UK General Election. A constituent part of the AHRC-funded 'Road to Voting' project led by researchers at the University of Leeds, COUNTED was assembled using the edited transcripts of interviews conducted with a cross-section of West Yorkshire voters about their affective relationships with electoral politics. The essay explores the dramaturgical challenges arising from this attempt to use social science 'data' as raw material for verbatim theatre, as well as considering broader questions around the stage representation of traditionally under-represented sections of the electorate.

The term "Living Newspaper" or zhivaya gazeta originated in Russia during the October Revolution of 1917. It refers to public readings of party political news for audiences in (mostly) rural locations. During the 1920s, the idea was co-opted by agit-prop theatre groups across Europe and evolved into a type of proto-documentary theatre, using news and actuality to critique cases of social and political injustice. In the 1960s, the Brazilian director, Augusto Boal, revived the form as one of many techniques to experiment with theatre for social change. In 2016, as part of a course on media cultures with ESL students at Konan Women's University in Kobe, Japan, I explored the potential of Living Newspapers as a form of process drama towards critical media analysis. Students analyzed "official" news accounts, questioned how news narratives are formed, and edited and performed their own Living Newspapers. In this paper, I outline the background of the Living Newspaper model, share the methodology for its use in an ESL classroom, and analyse its educational benefits.

Abstract:  Boundary crossing allows for new forms of knowledge creation and dissemination, while simultaneously activating frictions within established cultures of academic production and reception. This chapter explores how disciplinary expectations in anthropology are released and challenged as ethnographic research is rendered into theatrical forms. The chapter highlights the delimiting functions of oppositions such as “social science vs. humanities” and “pure vs. applied research,” and suggests ways of moving beyond such dualisms. The exposition focuses on the production and reception of a verbatim documentary theatrical work based on the author’s ethnographic research into young adults’ experiences during the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
Keywords:  Academic culture, Democracy, Ethnography, Media, Theatre, U.S., Young adults.

В статье проанализирован манифест "Театра.doc", написанный в 2003 году Русланом Маликовым, Александром Вартановым и Татьяной Копыловой. Текст манифеста наглядно демонстрирует, на что и на кого ориентировались активные участники нового театра. И хотя сами авторы утверждают, что манифест был шуткой, можно с уверенностью сказать, что это один из важных документов театрального процесса «нулевых».

How an audience of scholars' evaluated arts informed communication and verbatim theatre as media through which to communicate academic research ABSTRACT Despite educational research 'steerage' which directs funding and energy towards positivist approaches to research, the influence of 21st century research and philosophy have supported the germination of narrative and arts-informed processes in educational research; both of which have increased exponentially over the last 20 years. Against this landscape I discuss an academic audience's evaluation of the use of non-traditional forms of communication to present academic research. In particular, I explore the audience's preference for non-traditional discursive forms, their engagement with verbatim theatre as a medium for academic scholarship, and their identification that specific elements of a mise-en-scène supported their cognitive and emotional experience of dramatised data. The findings further suggest that the form of academic communication, including theatre, should congruently align with the focus and methodological approach adopted, and that an academic audience can be theatrically literate and sensitive to the impact of aesthetic communication. Therefore, an audience of scholars can be highly receptive to non-traditional forms of academic communication, including theatre, as long as they align with the focus and methodology of the research represented , and are presented with aesthetic dexterity.

'In 'Theatre of the Real', Carol Martin addresses a perennial problem in the medium of theatre: its access to, reliance on, and use, representation, and betrayal of the real. Eschewing a merely generic argument, Martin moves beyond the terminology of "documentary" or "verbatim" theatre to analyze the complex ways performance invokes contemporary politics, biography and autobiography, historical events and personal memory. Richly positioned in the history of modern theatre, ranging across four decades of performance, 'Theatre of the Real' suggestively explores an essential dimension of the contemporary stage.' - W. B. Worthen, Alice Brady Pels Professor in the Arts, Barnard College, Columbia University, USA

Description:
At an unparalleled time of the construction of reality across the fields of the science and humanities on a variety of platforms, theatre and performance participates in the current obsession with the problems and possibilities of the epistemologies of the real by using and revising the conventions of dramatic writing and performance to create and recreate personal, national, historical, and virtual realities. Theatre of the Real examines a wide range of international theatre and performance that claims a special relationship to contemporary reality in order to theorize how theatre and performance participates in how we come to know, experience, and understand the important events of our personal, social and political lives. The wide range of works discussed include Kamp and History of the World - Part Eleven by Hotel Modern, Is.Man by Adelheid Roosen, I am My Own Wife by Doug Wright, Southern Exposure by JoAnne Akalaitis, My Name is Rachel Corrie by Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner and Via Dolorosa by David Hare.

Contents:
List of Illustrations
Series Preface
Acknowledgements
Theatre of the Real: An Overview
The Theatricalization of Public and Private Life
After the Fact: Technology, Memory, Experience
Apart From the Document: Representation of Jews and Jewishness
Occupying Public Space
Seems Like I Can See Him Sometimes: Theatre of Revelation
Works Cited
Index

Author:
CAROL MARTIN is Professor of Drama at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, USA. Recent books include 'Dramaturgy of the Real on the World Stage'. Martin is the General Editor of 'In Performance', a book series devoted to post 9/11 performance texts and plays published by Seagull Books and distributed by The University of Chicago Press. Her essays have appeared in anthologies and academic journals and have been translated into Turkish, French, Polish, Chinese, Romanian and Japanese.

Treating a visit to the theatre as if you were going to court or to school is the wrong way to go about it. –Brecht

Though it dates back to the 1970s, verbatim theatre has seen a resurgence in the last 15 years, which has helped to usher in a new era of documentary and political theatre. The technique involves importing snippets of unaltered language from everyday life and presenting them on stage with as little theatrical interference as possible. It is an interdisciplinary genre that imports into theatre techniques first developed in the fields of journalism, sociology, and law. The intertwining of these disciplines is contradictory on many levels. On the one hand, verbatim theatre defers to theatre as a strategy to fill a lack that social sciences seem to suffer from. On the other hand, it is an anti-theatrical genre that treats the techniques of traditional dramatic theatre as artifices that obstruct truths that can be found in daily life. The result is a form of theatrical minimalism that adopts the radical anti-theatricality of the historical avant-garde but nevertheless rests on mimesis borrowed from naturalistic drama. In this paper, I look at the work of Richard Norton-Taylor, a former editor of the foreign affairs section of The Guardian newspaper, who has become a playwright using strict verbatim techniques. What kind of truths does this theatre offer to excavate from everyday life? What model of politics emerges from these methods? What does the influence of the social sciences do to our understandings of what political theatre means now?

The third annual Practice-based Research Conference organised by Royal Holloway postgraduate students, this day-long, interdisciplinary event provides a space for creative dialogue between practitioners and academic researchers by foregrounding practice as a means of creative exploration and academic enquiry.

Sticks and Stones is the second fully student devised and developed musical, following Aesop's Fables, performed by the Centre for Theatre and Performance, Monash University. Created by 2nd and 3rd year theatre students, in collaboration with composition students from the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, the musical explores the issue of 'bullying'. Students utilised self-reflective, documentary, and verbatim approaches to theatre making as a means of generating the source material for adaptation into dramatic and musical form. The show ran for four performances in October 2014.
(Download the attached PDF for poster art, director's notes and links to four "Anatomy of a Song" videos produced by the marketing team.)