Synopses & Reviews
Over the past two decades, theatre practitioners across the West have turned to documentary modes of performance-making to confront new socio-political realities. The essays in this book place this work in context, exploring historical and contemporary examples of documentary and 'verbatim' theatre, and applying a range of critical perspectives.
Synopsis
Contents Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction; A.Forsyth & C.Megson The Promise of Documentary; J.Reinelt Mediating the 1930s: Documentary and Politics in Theatre Union's Last Edition (1940); B.Harker History in the Driving Seat: Unity Theatre and the Embrace of the 'Real'; C.Chambers The Documentary Body: Theatre Workshop to Banner Theatre; A.Filewod Living Simulations: The Use of Media in Documentary in the UK, Lebanon, and Israel; C.Martin Looking for Esrafil: witnessing 'refugitive' bodies in I've got something to show you; A.Jeffers Remembering the Past, 'Growing Ourselves a Future': Community-Based Documentary Theatre in the East Palo Alto Project; L.Smith Ngapartji Ngapartji: Telling Aboriginal Australian Stories; M.Casey Performing Trauma: Race Riots and Beyond in the Work of Anna Deavere Smith; A.Forsyth History, Memory and Trauma in the Documentary Plays of Emily Mann; A.Favorini When Heroes Fall: Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife and the Challenge to Truth; N.P.Highberg The Performance of Truth and Justice in Northern Ireland: the Case of Bloody Sunday; C-A.Upton Half the Picture: 'a certain frisson' at the Tricycle Theatre; C.Megson Verbatim Theatre in South Africa: 'living history in a person's performance'; Y.Hutchison The 'Broken Tradition' of Documentary Theatre and its Continued Powers of Endurance; D.Paget Index
About the Author
ALISON FORSYTH is Lecturer in Theatre Studies at Aberystwyth University, UK, and researches into adaptations and staging the real. Her publications include
Gadamer, History and the Classics: Fugard, Marowitz, Berkoff and Harrison Rewrite the Theatre (2002). Her current research projects are an anthology of adaptations and
The Trauma of Articulation: Arthur Miller's Holocaust Plays.
CHRIS MEGSON is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway College, University of London, UK. He is currently writing a book on the playwright Sarah Kane and has published a range of essays on post-war British playwriting and performance.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction--A.Forsyth & C.Megson
The Promise of Documentary; J.Reinelt
Mediating the 1930s: Documentary and Politics in Theatre Unions Last Edition (1940)--B.Harker
History in the Driving Seat: Unity Theatre and the Embrace of the Real; C.Chambers
The Documentary Body: Theatre Workshop to Banner Theatre; A.Filewod
Living Simulations: The Use of Media in Documentary in the UK, Lebanon, and Israel; C.Martin
Looking for Esrafil: witnessing refugitive bodies in Ive got something to show you--A.Jeffers
Remembering the Past, Growing Ourselves a Future: Community-Based Documentary Theatre in the East Palo Alto Project--L.Smith
Ngapartji Ngapartji: Telling Aboriginal Australian Stories--M.Casey
Performing Trauma: Race Riots and Beyond in the Work of Anna Deavere Smith--A.Forsyth
History, Memory and Trauma in the Documentary Plays of Emily Mann--A.Favorini
When Heroes Fall: Doug Wrights I Am My Own Wife and the Challenge to Truth--N.P.Highberg
The Performance of Truth and Justice in Northern Ireland: the Case of Bloody Sunday--C-A.Upton
Half the Picture: a certain frisson at the Tricycle Theatre; Chris Megson
Verbatim Theatre in South Africa: living history in a persons performance; Y.Hutchison
The Broken Tradition of Documentary Theatre and its Continued Powers of Endurance--D.Paget
Index