In this increasingly wired world, where little is sacred and people literally vie for the opportunity to reveal their lives to the world, is it any wonder that the phenomenon of verbatim theatre is making its presence felt within the global arts firmament? But are blog-based stage events a theatrical flash in the pan, or the start of a new creative movement?
At this years Edinburgh Festival, long recognized as an influential barometer of changing cultural and artistic trends, a number of performances based on blogs were on show. Girl Blog From Iraq: Baghdad Burning was based on the writings of 27-year-old “Riverbend” and her daily record of life in Iraq. While Oliver Mann’s play Bloggers – Real Internet Diaries was based entirely on the day to day experiences of a number of real life British bloggers.
For the uninitiated: blog is a contraction of the words ‘web log’, a virtual diary of sorts that now enjoys astronomical popularity around the world. Political, personal, provocative, or dull, blogsm their bloggers and the blogosphere they inhabit are exerting considerable influence on culture, technology, even political campaigns.
They’re also turning their work into art, just as many contemporary artists have discovered a hitherto untapped world of artistic inspiration in the blogsophere, one offering an apparently limitless source of material.
Similarly, verbatim theatre, in which plays are written using only verbatim testimony or transcripts, is increasingly emerging in comtemporary theatrical circles.
Take Maralinga, a successful Australian production consisting of real testimonials from more than 40 veterans of nuclear testing in that country and their families. Explain the creators: “The words of the veterans capture the spirit of those who had to endure the harsh environment at Maralinga, the devastation that the tests recked on their lives as well as the battle for recognition that has followed.”
Not surprisingly, these fledgling genres have amassed their share both supporters and critics Many wonder if we’re simply witnessing the latest manifestation of the ‘reality’ craze, aimed squarely at the cultural (and economic) zeitgeist. Others, however, hold that in its exploration of contemporary political and social themes, it heralds the next, organic evolution of theatre.
One has to wonder, if Anne Frank had had a computer at her disposal, would her famous work now be called The Blogs of Anne Frank? And would the words and thoughts contained in them have been any less powerful as a result?
Art critic Emma Johns, is cynical. Pondering the prevalence of blog based theatre at this years Edinburgh Festival, she observed that “for now, it [blog theatre] looks naive and fairly opportunistic in its approach. Yes, people are turning to the Internet as a confessional – but that doesn’t necessarily mean their words make riveting theatre”.
Supporters such as Kimberly Kefgen, on the other hand, who co-created and directed Girl Blog for her all-female company Six Figures, believes “the sort of impulse that causes someone to blog and read blogs is the same impulse that pulls us into the theatre”.
War correspondent turned media lecturer, Jairo Lugo, whose own blog was shut down because it contained criticism of government corruption in Colombia, believes it may even extend beyond that: “These personal accounts are often more dramatic than anything you will see on the television,” he said.
Feelings are equally mixed on verbatim theatre, though more seem to accept its potential to succeed.
In a review of Robin Soan’s controversial verbatim piece, Talking To Terrorists (in which the writer interviewed a number of people who have been involved in terrorist organisations, and who have been victims of terror attacks), Guardian writer Michael Billington, noted that “Verbatim theatre is not just living journalism. If it is to succeed, it has to have the shape and rhythm of art”.
In many cases, it seems to be living up to this challenge. Certainly, arts writer Andrew Haydon is on the way to being convinced. Assessing Soan’s production himself, Haydon determined: “The result is fascinating. One problem with verbatim theatre in the past has been a tendency to patronise its sources with a layer of caricature, of knowingness, in the portrayal of the speaker, undercutting the words with an imposed commentary on the person who said them, often for the sake of cheap laugh or an easily scored point. There is none of that here…Instead there is the sense of watching real people telling real stories, giving their own opinions.”
He concludes with a ringing endorsement: “Putting this material in a theatre, rather than on television or in a newspaper, makes it more focused. It allows the audience concentrate harder and lends the evening a vital edge of being an activity undertaken as a community. This is not so much verbatim theatre as imperative theatre.”
One of the most well known pieces of verbatim theatre in recent times is My Name Is Rachel Corrie, the story of the American peace activist crushed to death in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza. A collaboration between writer Katherine Viner and noted thespian Alan Rickman, the piece has arguably set the benchmark for the embryonic form with its power, political punch and critical laurels.
Said Viner of her intentions for the work: “In developing this piece of theatre, we wanted to uncover the young woman behind the political symbol, beyond her death”. For this, the production team turned to the most intimate material available – Corrie’s own words.
“Events are history, and history shapes art. And the great dramatists find a way to hammer that history into a new shape,” penned Chicago Tribune writer Michael Phillips. The future and longevity of both blog based and verbatim theatre remains to be seen, given their collective infancy. But whether or not it lingers, a ‘new shape’ is sufficiently cause celebre.
