Verbatim theatre is a form of documentary theatre

Documentary theatre

Documentary theatre is theatre that wholly or in part uses pre-existing documentary material as source material for the script, ideally without altering its wording.-History:...

 in which plays are constructed from the precise words spoken by people interviewed about a particular event or topic.

Definition

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. Campion Decent, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n playwright and author of the verbatim theatre play Embers, said it is “not written in a traditional sense… but is... conceived, collected and collated”.

Examples

Recent, high profile pieces of verbatim theatre include Talking to Terrorists

Talking to Terrorists

Talking to Terrorists is a play written by Robin Soans. It was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds, England, on 21 April 2005. The play is written in the style of verbatim theatre where all of the dialogue is taken from real interviews and then recreated on stage...

by Robin Soans

Robin Soans

Robin Soans is an actor, and a playwright specialising in verbatim and documentary plays. These plays include Across the Divide ; A State Affair which looked at life on a Bradford estate, produced by Out of Joint theatre company; The Arab Israeli Cookbook ; Talking to Terrorists Robin Soans (born...

, My Name is Rachel Corrie

My Name is Rachel Corrie

My Name is Rachel Corrie is a play based on the diaries and emails of Rachel Corrie, edited by Alan Rickman, who directed it, and journalist Katharine Viner. Rachel Aliene Corrie was an American Evergreen State College student and member of the International Solidarity Movement who traveled to...

by Alan Rickman

Alan Rickman

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman is an English actor and theatre director. He is a renowned stage actor in modern and classical productions and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company...

 and Katharine Viner

Katharine Viner

Katharine Viner is a British journalist who is deputy editor of The Guardian.Raised in Yorkshire, the daughter of teachers, she was educated at Ripon Grammar School and read English at Oxford University. Just before her finals, Viner won a competition organised by The Guardians women's page and...

, Deep Cut

Deep Cut

Deep Cut is a play performed by Cardiff based theatre company Sherman Cymru and written by Philip Ralph. It premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 2008 and won the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award in the same year as well as best Actor and Best Actress awards with The Stage's...

by Philip Ralph and Katharine Viner, The Permanent Way

The Permanent Way

The Permanent Way is a play by David Hare first performed in 2003.In 1991 the British government decided to privatise the country's railways. David Hare recounts the development through the powerful first-hand accounts of those most intimately involved...

by David Hare

David Hare (dramatist)

Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...

, Counted (2010) by LookLeftLookRight http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/the-rise-of-democratic-theatre-1942833.html. Unusually, London Road

London Road (musical)

London Road is a musical written by Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork . The production, directed by Rufus Norris, opened at the National Theatre's Cottesloe theatre in London, United Kingdom, on 14 April 2011 after seven previews.-Overview:The musical is set in and around London Road in Ipswich,...

(2011) by Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork, is a verbatim musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

, in which the verbatim spoken text is coupled with music composed and sung to resemble the source interviews as closely as possible.

Another recent example is Black Watch (play)

Black Watch (play)

Black Watch is a play written by Gregory Burke and directed by John Tiffany for the National Theatre of Scotland. Based on interviews with former soldiers, it portrays soldiers in the Black Watch regiment of the British Army serving on Operation TELIC in Iraq during 2004, prior to the amalgamation...

, a piece that integrated interviews taken with actual members of the Black Watch

Black Watch

The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland is an infantry battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. The unit's traditional colours were retired in 2011 in a ceremony led by Queen Elizabeth II....

 with dramatized versions of their stories and dance pieces. The piece originated in the Edinburgh Festival

Edinburgh Festival

The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...

 and was created by the National Theatre of Scotland

National Theatre of Scotland

The National Theatre of Scotland is a theatre company established in February 2006. The company performs in a wide range of venues including theatres, halls and found spaces across Scotland....

 and Gregory Burke

Gregory Burke

Gregory Burke is a Scottish playwright from Rosyth, Fife, Scotland.-Life:His family moved to Gibraltar in 1979 and returned to Dunfermline in 1984. He attended St John's Primary in Rosyth, St Christopher's Middle School in Gibraltar, Bayside Comprehensive, Gibraltar and St Columba's High School,...

.

Recorded voice delivery is an extension of verbatim theatre in which actors have recorded interviews played back to them during the performance, allowing them to directly mimic the accents and manner of speech, as well as the words, of the people they portray. This technique was pioneered by American actress Anna Deavere Smith

Anna Deavere Smith

Anna Deavere Smith is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is currently the artist in residence at the Center for American Progress.-Early life:...

 in her play Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 about the 1992 Los Angeles riots

1992 Los Angeles riots

The 1992 Los Angeles Riots or South Central Riots, also known as the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest were sparked on April 29, 1992, when a jury acquitted three white and one hispanic Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King following a...

. A more recent example is Grandpa Sol and Lily's Grandma Rosie by Lana Schwarcz, in which Schwarz portrays the residents of a retirement home via puppetry and playback of interviews via iPod

IPod

iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...

.

External links

Paul Taylor's article on Counted and the rise of verbatim theatre, The Independent 2010 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/the-rise-of-democratic-theatre-1942833.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2010/jul/15/verbatim-theatre-aftermath

The Council of Ontario Drama and Dance Educators' Verbatim Theatre unit.