Appropriating the ‘real’: ethical explorations in the creation of fictional verbatim performance

Appropriating the ‘real’ is a practice-led investigation that researches the extent to which verbatim theatre techniques can be appropriated to create a fictional performance. Criticisms of verbatim theatre’s ‘truth claims’ – that it is a re-presentation of the ‘real’ – are both dramaturgical and ethical. Addressing these concerns, the practice presented here sets out to experiment with “indecidability” (Lehmann, 2006:101), heightening the audience’s perception of the gap between ‘truth’ and ‘fiction’, chiefly by drawing attention to the role of the theatre maker. Located at the interface between contemporary performance and applied theatre, this research project explores conventions of both schools. On the one hand, it utilises compositional strategies of collage, autobiography and disruption employed by performance practitioners. On the other hand, it develops a collaborative practice that is empathetically and ethically rooted in the words of those it re-presents.

This practice-led research is made up of this supporting thesis alongside a trilogy of performances: The Unsettling; Everybody Always Tells the Truth; and Is It Different Now?. The practice focuses on three aspects: the participants who have contributed their stories, the role of the artist when making fictional verbatim theatre, and the development of an aesthetic of indecidability. The thesis engages with verbatim theatre from contemporary performance and applied theatre contexts and addresses a range of critical perspectives including representation and ethics.

By re-mixing verbatim testimony with self-consciously fictitious material, I draw the audiences’ attention to the way verbatim material can be manipulated. The intention is to show an audience how ‘truths’ are constructed within theatrical forms that purport to authentically recreate the real. There is political efficacy in unmasking the strategies within documentary, but a new multi-perspective story may also communicate and be reflective of the ways we process and construct personal and shared narratives.