TODAY’S AGENDA
Feedback on performance exercise about
In Extremis (from last week’s session)
 Two groups to perform Reading Week exercise
 Reminder about first assessment next week

Introduction to Verbatim Theatre
 Verbatim exercise
 Comments
 Performance exercise on Cruising

* We will be finishing at 3:50!
PORTFOLIO ITEM 1: DIRECTORIAL
PITCH
DUE MONDAY 25TH NOVEMBER
Taking ONE of the plays studied during
Unit One: Naturalism to Symbolism make
a pitch for a specific directorial approach
to staging the play drawing evidence from
the play and wider critical reading. You
may offer suggestions for stage and
costume designs to supplement your
interpretation.
(750 words or equivalent)
PORTFOLIO ITEM 1: DIRECTORIAL
PITCH
DUE MONDAY 25TH NOVEMBER
This portfolio item is inviting you to offer a
justifiable idea for a way of staging one of the
plays you have studied in the Naturalism to
Symbolism unit.
 You can justify your directorial choices by
drawing evidence from a wide variety of sources
including:






the text;
secondary reading;
knowledge of the original historical period of the play or a
strong feeling that the play could be creatively evoked by
drawing on another historical period;
prior productions of the text you are aware of;
external stimulus drawn from politics, society or popular
culture, etc.
PORTFOLIO ITEM 1: DIRECTORIAL
PITCH
DUE MONDAY 25TH NOVEMBER



Your written pitch for a directorial approach to staging
your chosen play can be supplemented by references to
specific theatres/locations for performance and/or
design ideas (staging, costume, lighting, etc.) through
mood boards or other visual means.
Please be mindful that your word limit is 750 words or
equivalent so please do not write 750 words and then add
visual materials, etc. If you want to include visual
materials think about how you communicate your central
idea economically through text – which can then be
‘brought to life’ with your visual materials.
You can e-submit your portfolio or submit a hard copy
to our department secretary, Kate Brennan, if e-submission
is inappropriate.
VERBATIM THEATRE
VERBATIM THEATRE
Verbatim = ‘word for word’
WHAT IS VERBATIM THEATRE?

Original definition
‘Theatre firmly predicated upon the taping and
subsequent transcription of interviews with
‘‘ordinary’’ people’ (Paget 1987)
VERBATIM THEATRE TODAY

‘The “plays” are edited (or ... transmutations of)
interviews with individuals. Sometimes these
interviews are taped and transcribed, sometimes
actors work directly with
the tapes themselves.
Whatever the variants,
aural testimony
constitutes the basis for
theatrical representation’
(Paget 2009)
THE PROBLEM WITH TERMINOLOGY:
DOCUMENTARY / FACT-BASED / VERBATIM
Fact-based theatre includes extra-theatrical /
non-fictional material in the form of documents
and/or testimonies...


Document: ‘hard copy’ providing information,
evidence or a record of something
Testimony: “a declaration of truth or fact”
(important in legal and religious discourses)
THE PROBLEM WITH TERMINOLOGY:
DOCUMENTARY / FACT-BASED / VERBATIM
Documentary
Theatre:
factual,
based on extratheatrical
material
Verbatim
Theatre:
Testimonies
Other sources:
records, statistics,
public statements,
reports, letters...
THE PROBLEM WITH TERMINOLOGY:
DOCUMENTARY / FACT-BASED / VERBATIM


Sources: “records, documents, letters, statistics,
market-reports, statements by banks and
companies, government statements, speeches,
interviews, statements by well-known
personalities, newspaper and broadcast reports,
photos, documentary films and other
contemporary documents” (Weiss 1971)
“In tribunal theatre, the ‘plays’ are edited
transcripts (‘redactions’) of trials, tribunals and
public inquiries. These constitute the basis for
theatrical representation” (Paget 2009)
THE DOCUMENTARY TRADITION
o
o
o
o
Russia (post-1917): ‘agitprop’, montage (Eisenstein),
the Living Newspaper (touring groups)
Germany (1920s and 1930s): Erwin Piscator
pioneered the use of documentary material and
technology (projected images and film) on stage,
Bertolt Brecht adopted these epic techniques; postwar tribunal plays (e.g. Peter Weiss)
USA (1930s): The Federal Theater Project had a
Living Newspaper Unit directed by Hallie Flanagan
Britain (late 1920s to 1970s): from the Workers
Theatre Movement to Theatre Workshop;
combination of documentary and popular
entertainment forms
FUNCTIONS OF VERBATIM THEATRE
In relation to the concept of the ‘public sphere’:
 Critical: to re-examine official versions of events
 Inclusive: to give voice to the voiceless
“Both The Permanent Way and Talking to Terrorists
advance at least two of the paradigmatic principles of the
Habermasian public sphere: inclusiveness, by bringing to
the fore the words of private people who otherwise would
not have access to public arenas, and common concern, by
articulating discourses of public interest which are
independent – and critical – of state or market powers and
their interpretations (of privatization and terrorism,
respectively)” (Botham 2008)
FUNCTIONS OF VERBATIM THEATRE
Paget (2009):
1.
To reassess
international/national/local
histories
2.
To celebrate repressed or
marginalised communities and
groups, bringing to light their
histories and aspirations
3.
To investigate contentious
events and issues in local,
national and international
contexts
4.
5.
Some Examples:
1.
(1963)
2.
Peter Cheeseman’s
community work at Victoria
Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent
3.
Tanika Gupta’s
Gladiator Games (2005)
4.
Kieron Barry’s Stockwell:
The inquest into the death of
Jean Charles de Menezes
To disseminate information,
employing an operational concept
of ‘pleasurable learning’
To interrogate the very notion
of documentary.
Joan Littlewood’s
Oh What a Lovely War
(2009)
5.
Moisés Kaufman’s The
Laramie Project (2000)
A WIDE SPECTRUM OF PRACTICES

Rehearsed readings, e.g. Ice&Fire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2tH0hC_nLo
Tribunal plays, e.g. Tricycle Theatre
 ‘Hybrid’ forms, e.g. Out of Joint (David Hare)
 Headphone verbatim, e.g. Recorded Delivery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Emg7M1iv8o0&feature=related


Verbatim + Physical Theatre, e.g. DV8
‘Fake’ verbatim: Dennis Kelly’s Taking Care of
Baby
THE TRICYCLE THEATRE
(FORMER DIRECTOR: NICOLAS KENT)

Tricycle’s Tribunal Plays:

Half the Picture: The Scott Arms to Iraq Inquiry (1994)

Nuremberg: 1946 War Crimes Trial (1996)

Srebrenica: UN War Crimes Tribunal (1996)

The Colour of Justice: The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (1999)

Justifying War: Scenes from the Hutton Inquiry (2003)

Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry (2005)

Other Verbatim Plays at the Tricycle:

Guantanamo: Honour Bound to Defend Freedom (2004)


Called to Account: The Indictment of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair for the
Crime of Aggression against Iraq – A Hearing (2007)
The Riots (2011)
RECORDED DELIVERY
DIRECTOR: ALECKY BLYTHE
 Come
Out Eli (2004)
 Strawberry Fields (2005)
 All the Right People Come Here (2005)
 I Only Came Here for Six Months (2005)
 Cruising (2006)
 The Girlfriend Experience (2008)
 Do We Look Like Refugees?! (2010)
 London Road (2011)
CRUISING (2006)
Showing a hidden reality (like Naturalism) or
sensationalist/exploitative?
 Between Stanislavski and Brecht? What is the
effect of the use of headphones and casting
choices in this case?
 What is the role of humour? How should actors
approach it?
 Does it work in performance?

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Blythe, Alecky. ‘Alecky Blythe’. Verbatim, Verbatim: Contemporary
Documentary Theatre. Ed. Will Hammond and Dan Steward. London: Oberon
Books, 2008.
Botham, Paola. ‘From Deconstruction to Reconstruction: A Habermasian
Framework for Contemporary Political Theatre’. Contemporary Theatre Review
18.3 (2008): 307-317.
---. ‘Witnesses in the Public Sphere: Bloody Sunday and the Redefinition of
Political Theatre’. Political Performances: Theory and Practice. Ed. Susan C.
Haedicke, Deirdre Heddon, Avraham Oz, and E.J. Westlake. Amsterdam:
Rodopi Press, 2009. 35-53.
Megson, Chris. ‘“The State We're In”: Tribunal Theatre and British Politics in
the 1990s’. Theatres of Thought: Theatre, Performance and Philosophy. Ed.
Daniel Watt and Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars,
2007. 110-126.
Paget, Derek. ‘‘‘Verbatim Theatre’’: Oral History and Documentary
Techniques’. New Theatre Quarterly 3.2 (1987) : 317-336.
---. ‘The Broken Tradition of Documentary and Its Continued Powers of
Endurance’. Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present. Ed. Alyson
Forsyth and Chris Megson. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Weiss, Peter. ‘The Material and the Models: Notes Towards a Definition of