Verbatim theatre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Verbatim theatre is a phrase used to describe a type of play that has become increasingly popular in recent years. Verbatim plays are, as the name suggests, written using only the precise words spoken by people interviewed about a particular event or topic.
The playwright interviews people that are connected to the topic that the play is focused on and uses their testimony to construct the piece. In this way they seek to achieve a degree of authority akin to that represented by the news. Such plays may be focused on politics, disasters or even sporting events.
A verbatim style of theatre uses the real words from interviewees to construct the play. Decent says that Embers is “not written in a traditional sense… but is... conceived, collected and collated”.
Recent, high profile pieces of verbatim theatre include Talking to Terrorists by Robin Soans, My Name is Rachel Corrie by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner and The Permanent Way by David Hare.
The most famours Australian piece of Verbatim Theatre is 'Aftershocks', written by Paul Brown and the Workers' Cultural Action Committee, which tells the story of the 1989 Boxing Day earthquake in Newcastle, NSW.
 |
This theatre-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
