Verbatim Theatre

Verbatim Theatre

Please note the use of sophisticated vocabulary and try to use these words as your own metalanguage.

If you are unsure of certain words look them up. Create a glossary that you will use in your responses.

Revision

Dramatic Forms & Styles

are the distinguishing aesthetic features of any part of the process of making and performing a drama work. It is the style in which a drama work is performed.

Thus, on text may be performed in a number of different performance styles.

Dramatic Languages

consist of the elements of drama, skills of drama and the conventions of style and form.

Elements of drama create dramatic action and meaning. These can include but are not restricted to the following:

* character * contrast * focus * language * mood * movement

* place * relationship * role * situation * space * symbol

* tension * time

Dramatic Conventions

They are the defining features, customs and practices which are associated with a particular form or performance style.

What is Verbatim Theatre?

KEY FEATURES OF VERBATIM THEATRE

Conventions used in verbatim theatre:

• Text is delivered in the past tense interspersed with occasional present tense / ‘now’ moments to recall the action
• Actors visible and onstage throughout the whole performance, participating in and also observing the action
• Actors speaking in direct address to the audience, making direct eye contact with audience
• Titles of scenes visible in terms of signs or projected titles at the back of the stage. Sometimes actors would announce the title of the scene.
• Actor approaches the character in terms of lightly sketching or ‘showing’ them in action ‘rather than going for a full-on characterization.
• Text needs to drive the action and speak for itself
• Use of narration to introduce characters or action
• There’s an immediate responsibility to the owners of the stories. Actors act as ‘temporary custodians’ of the person’s story. There should be processes and ways of member checking as the piece takes shape.

EXPLORING

The Laramie Project

EXPLORING THE CONTEXTS OF THE PLAY

This play uses as its focus the murder of gay 21 year old university student Matthew Shepard in Laramie Wyoming in October 1998. He was brutally beaten to death and left to die tied to a fence in the remote hills of Wyoming. Two other local young men were tried and found guilty of his murder. Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson avoided the death penalty and were sentenced to life in prison.

The murder and the trial that ensued attracted intense media attention in America. Within 24 hours of the event itself a media circus descended on the small town and beamed details out across America, sparking heated debates and protests.

One month after the murder Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project from New York went to Laramie to engage residents in interviews to be used for the verbatim theatre project. They spent 15 months compiling over 200 interviews from local people. The focus was not to recreate the event but to show how the Laramie people themselves had reacted to the event.

The play itself was written by a team – Moises Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski, Stephen Belber, Greg Pierotti and Stephen Wangh. The play was constructed as a theatrical collage that gave the community of Laramie a means of making sense of the terrible event of Shepard’s death. Kaufman said:

"Its pushing the boundaries of what theatre can do…When we arrived in Laramie people were very bruised by the media, their behavior and their reporting and depiction of the residents as rednecks. [Our interviews] were a very cathartic experience for them because we brought theatre back to a very primal function – it allowed the community to talk about their feelings, allowed a community to talk about the ideals we believe in."

[Interview published in The Weekend Australian March 10 11, 2001].

Dramatic form and performance style

The Laramie Project is a three act verbatim play, with each act displaying a series of interconnected moments that recreate or relate to one particular event: the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998 in the rural town of Laramie, Wyoming USA.

The play presents 72 characters played by 8 actors. Each actor plays a group of characters comprising real individuals from Laramie, narrators, plus members of the Tectonic Theater Project as they engaged in the project. Sometimes actors share the one character. The play is mostly set in 1998 – 1999, but there are shifts in time as the moments jump from remembrance to ‘now’ time.

The play is constructed in a series of short dramatic moments that are organised to portray multiple viewpoints and stories side by side to show the impact of Matthew Shepard’s murder. Matthew is represented and remembered in the stories of those who knew him and who saw him the night he died. But the play also shows alternate views of ministers, other Laramie residents and people who were affected by the event. Only once is Matthew’s father directly represented, in the ‘Moment: ‘Dennis Shepard’s Statement’ which portrays the exact statement Dennis presented in court case.

The idea of ‘moment work’ Kaufman was to create a unit of theatrical time that could be then juxtaposed with others to convey meaning.

The performance style is realism, but it is treated more lightly than full Stanislavskian characterisation.

Techniques and conventions used

• Narration

• Layering of contrasting voices / stories, contradictory voices side by side

• Limited stage action

Engaging the audience

•Emotive / emotional storytelling

•Strong subject matter

•Poignancy of simple vs complex stories / bystander and insider stories juxtaposed for effect

•The testimonies of key players in the story withheld till the end

•Understanding the difficult place the researchers/ theatre workers occupied as this took shape, engages the audience / deepens their understanding of the context.

Representation of particular ideas and images

Key images that would resonate with the audience:

•Notions of space – skies, space, sparkling skies…lonesome and awesome, big enough to allow violence and hatred to flourish

•The ‘all American town’ and what lies beneath the surface

•Issue of tolerance and outrage runs through the work as a whole

•Angels VS devils…what is the ‘correct’ way to react to such a horrific event?

•Notions of everyday courage

•Grace and mercy offered by Dennis Shepard, in the face of such adversity and loss.

Aftershock Resources

Interview with Paul Makeham, original member of Aftershocks'

VERBATIM THEATRE IN CONTEXT

3. Approach to dramatic structure

1.Purpose or intention of verbatim theatre pieces

2. Approach to dialogue and action

Senior Drama

Where can our source of inspiration come from?

* Senior Drama involves students learning about aspects of drama and theatre in societies and cultures, past and present.

* Productions and works for this topic may be drawn from Australian and non- Australian material.

5. Relationship with audience

• Empowering marginalised groups and communities by staging their stories, enabling them to make their experiences visible / performative
• Political purposes –unveiling the non publicised story, the alternative story to a well known event or issue so that audiences can rethink their own politics or views.
• Excavating the story of a localised event or issue so others can understand, communicating the extraordinary in ordinary stories and worlds
• Exploring histories and ‘her’ stories that do not normally get aired or shared
• Reporting on how communities respond to and make sense of disasters or difficult events

Verbatim theatre has its roots in the documentary drama tradition see Brecht, Piscator and Meyerhold. The resurgence of Verbatim Theatre has been attributed to a reaction to popular media and the lack of diverse voices and stories in our community (Anderson & Wilkinson, 2007). The rise of verbatim theatre in recent years connects to our growing consumption of stories and our preoccupation with personal narrative and for ‘reality’ to be captured and represented to us via TV, digital media and internet, surveillance, social networking and online publishing. (Notice the recent rise of reality TV, digital gadgets, movies, blogs and other forms of web publishing). This heightened climate for story and reality leads to an explosion of available stories, identity performances and ‘performances of realities’ (eg Big Brother) or alternative identities. This current social climate both creates and fractures experiences of connection and belonging for individuals as well as communities.

Similarly, in the fields of social research and arts practice there’s been a simultaneous rise in methods and interest in storying and performance, eg ethnodrama, performance ethnography, narrative inquiry, feminist methodologies, collective memory work, narrative therapy and dramatherapy and applied theatre. Stories and the act of storying help us to make important meanings from experiences and they shape our relationships and understandings.

uses interviews, transcripts and material is distilled and selected, then layered or woven across broader themes or motifs or steps in the event being represented. The process of structuring the drama is often a collaborative process with the subjects giving feedback at critical phases in the development of the work. Brechtian elements are used to weave the piece together, such as narration, imagery, song, addressing the audience, re-enactment.

Actors treat the characters in a Brechtian sense, they are presented as witnesses to the street scene.

Dialogue is selected for its potency and relevance to furthering the play’s narrative. It is layered rather than chronological in its treatment.

There is little collaborative stage action. Often actors sit on stage or speak directly to the audience, but they may react to each other and work together to create motifs in the space.

Where did it come/originate from?

Again answer the above focus question from your own notes and the notes provided...

Verbatim Theatre

Positioning the audience as witnesses, watchers and listeners, privy to confidential personal reactions and stories.

Audience gains understanding by seeing all the contradictions and complexities as stories are juxtaposed and arranged for them to compare.

1. How did it feel to watch your story being told by your partner? Did it feel respectful? Why/why not?

2. Did you recognize any of your classmates in the stories that were told?

3. Did it feel like the story “belonged” to the teller even though they were imitating another person?

4. What changed about the story in the re-telling? What is lost and what is gained in the actor’s interpretation?

5. What new understanding do you have about people in the class?

6. What makes it feel safe to do this activity? What makes it feel unsafe?

7. Whose stories get told? Whose stories are hidden?

8. What are the implications in telling someone else’s story when they are a different gender, race or ethnicity from you, the performer?

9. What is your responsibility when telling someone else’s story?

10. What events are suitable topics?

Activity 2 – Storytelling of Events/Authenticity vs Authority

1. Draw an image that represents your childhood. Lay these out around the classroom for others to see.

2. Look at the other images drawn and stand behind the one you most connect with.

3. Pair up with the person whose image you are standing behind. If there are several people try to match up

several pairs or form a group of three. Person A tells a story about a moment in their childhood.

It could be the one from the image or something different. Person B listens observing what is being said,

how it is being conveyed and what the essence or emotion of the piece is.

4. Person B performs the story to the class.The focus is on trying to make the performance as similar to that

of the initial storytelling.

5. Reflect on observations made as to the accuracy of the retelling by answering the following questions:

Activity 1 – Observing Others

1. Begin by walking around in the performance space.

2. As you walk and are given instructions, observe your fellow classmates. Focus on their physical appearance, movement and use of voice.

3. Write down your observations. What physical and vocal qualities did you observe?

4. Discuss the following question as a class: What are the most difficult human behaviours to recreate as a performer do you think? Why?

Verbatim theatre is a form of documentary theatre which is based on the spoken words of real people. In its strictest form, verbatim theatre-makers use real people’s words exclusively, and take this testimony from recorded interviews.

About the event / the context of the play

Verbatim Theatre Plays:

4. Notion of the subject and personal testimony

after reading the following information, watching the video's, participating in the activities (and your own conclusions/research) you will be able to answer the above question...

Aftershocks by Paul Brown

The Laramie Project

Aftershocks

Paramatta Girls

Joy

The Solider

Twilight Los Angeles

This verbatim play by Paul Brown is a moving tribute to some of the people affected by the Newcastle earthquake in 1989, which killed 13 people. Aftershocks centres on the Newcastle Workers’ Club, which was one of the worst affected sites and collapsed in the earthquake resulting in nine deaths.

uses the drama form to capture events through the stories of those who experienced them or who were affected by them. Verbatim Theatre uses theatre to capture multiple realities, multiple voices in a dynamic, complex relation.

Verbatim theatre works on the basis of trust and responsibility as writers and theatre workers record and interview real people about their lived experiences. What does it mean to excavate and perform other people’s stories. What protocols need to be in place? How do we listen and record? What are the obligations and responsibilities of theatre workers in verbatim theatre? What does it mean to bear witness?

Direct language and testimony is used as dialogue, however what is said and when it occurs structurally to create particular meanings; all this is crafted and structured by the playwright. Some verbatim plays are more truthful than others to the original materials other verbatim plays have to be considerably ‘massaged’ (Valentine) because of their sensitive content or the need to collapse and condense a series of narratives.

What issues do you think this piece of work is looking at in our society?

10 Years on...

Aftershocks (2001)

Verbatim Theatre

Fires in the Mirror - Brooklyn riots 1991

http://www.currency.com.au/PaulBrown-verbatimtheatre.aspx

Key features of the play

• Play written by Paul Brown and the collective ‘Workers Cultural Action Collective’. The process of collecting materials and devising followed a structured collaborative process, that was inclusive and respectful of the people who owned these stories.
• A piece of ‘pure verbatim’ nothing added / massaged. It tried to capture the qualities of each teller accurately.
• Relied on the critical relationship between interviewer and interviewee to excavate their experiences of this event.
• Interrogated the responses of ordinary people to a natural disaster, the Newcastle earthquake…through the eyes of local people and their stories.
• 6 actors playing 16 characters

click on link and listen to audio that are below

http://www.newtradeshall.com/default.aspx?id=47

http://massculture.com.au/castlemaine-theatre-aftershocks/

Workshops

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2146318/theatre-aftershocks-remembering-the-day/