Robin Soans states, “verbatim plays are more like conventional plays than is generally acknowledged” (Billington, 2012, online) I question what Soans truly means by the aforementioned statement. Is he suggesting that the staging of a verbatim play is essentially the same as staging a ‘conventional’ fictional play? Therefore, is Soans questioning the writers’ ability to stay authentic to the verbatim text and as a result allowing for the factual text to become more of a fictional representation. Verbatim theatre prides itself on its ability to offer a source of uncontaminated truth. Dramatists staging verbatim plays are incredibly aware of their artistic limitations due to the texts ethical restraints. Therefore, due to the manuscripts legality and the inordinate pressure surrounding the legitimacy of the factual content, writers tend to isolate verbatim in appose to creating a collusion between two genres. However, Max Stafford-Clarke frequently uses the exploration of verbatim texts during his rehearsal process, interesting when working on fictional texts. It appears evident that creators of verbatim theatre and also of fictional theatre seem to be enticed by verbatim emotive qualities. Stafford-Clarke utilising the texts content to draw upon his actors characterisations. However, playwrights seem to reject the idea of a relationship between factual and fictional when it comes to physically staging verbatim. It is either presented as a solely verbatim play in which the text is reflectively accurate, or playwrights refer to the staging as documentary theatre allowing for slight amendments to be made to the verbatim text, therefore reducing the accuracy.

If verbatim playwrights state that verbatim plays fall into the same genre as conventional plays, how come they are so anxious about factual context. Surely dramatic works can be based around a factual text but be presented as a fictional performance. The limitations placed on a verbatim writers’ ability to adapt and restructure text has enable this potentially fatal divide to happen between what we perceive as reality and theatre. What is reality? Yes verbatim plays claim to purport reality but this is just unachievable in the theatre. Yes the text is reality; the reality is someone spoke the words; however the situation isn’t reality that is representation. For example during our performance we used legal transcripts as the source for our verbatim text. The text was in essence ‘accurate’ but the situation wasn’t. We didn’t perform in the court room where Doreen originally recalled the works. We created a representation of reality in a theatrical setting.

Writers are so focused on an authentic representation and dramatically limited by the legality of staging verbatim that they seem to stick to this journalistic delivery in appose to making theatre. Who said verbatim text can’t be embedded within a fictional performance? The words aren’t changed; it’s still authentic to the original text. However, when we begin to experiment with the exploration of fact and fiction as one genre, you are forced to ask the question what is entertainment? I am ethically able to take this spoken text and change its intended purpose. You wouldn’t put a verbatim testimony from a solider serving in the Iraq war in the middle of a play intended for comical entertainment but then the beauty of theatre is to express emotion that powerful change that occurs when one moment you’re laughing and the next you’re crying. This emotive change was something we, as a theatre company, intensified during our performance. The fictional play provided the comical interludes whereas the verbatim served as the stern reality. For us the merging of the two genres seemed to create a natural fluidity largely due to the content of the fictional play. The verbatim text remained faithful to its source, in some ways you could say embedding verbatim within a fictional context magnified its appeal and its impact.

Reinelt comments, “Someday the gap between reality and representation might be overcome by new techniques” (2009, p.9) Here Reinelt is suggesting that the gap between a straight verbatim play and a representational play can afford to lessen, allowing for future exploration of the verbatim techniques. Emerging verbatim playwrights such embrace the ability to experiment with text and language. As theatre makers, you are given a verbatim text to explore is theatrical potential and this is something that should be embraced if verbatim theatre is succeed as a dramatic median.

 

Works cited:

Billington, Michael (2012) V is for Verbatim Theatre, Online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/may/08/michael-billington-verbatim-theatre (accessed 23rd May 2013)

Reinelt, Janelle (2009) The promise of documentary in Get real Documentary theatre past and present, Alison Forsyth and Chris Megson eds. Palgrave Macmillan publishers limited: Hampshire