The past two decades have seen a remarkable resurgence of verbatim theatre, a type of drama based on actual words spoken by 'real' people, without any prescribed form and characterised by both a resistance to recognition and a commitment to aesthetic experimentation. In this article, I examine a distinctively twenty-first-century contribution grounded on the strategic use of headphones in performance -recently seen on the British stage. Though clearly indebted to the work of American playwright and performer Anna Deavere Smith, post-9/11 headphone-verbatim theatre presents a more complex and reflexive intervention by drawing attention to the problematic process of composition in verbatim theatre. Opening with an exploration of this methodological paradigm within contemporary practice, this study then suggests that something new emerges in the encounter between digital audio technology and verbatim material in performance that is particularly productive for rethinking the nature of the linkage between verbatim theatre and our politically charged transnational era. The article ends by analysing the potential of "voiceprints" to engage the audience politically in two examples of headphone-verbatim performance, Alecky Blythe's Voices from the Mosque (2011) and Tamasha Theatre's The Trouble with Asian Men (2005).Today, 'nation' is probably the strongest of all forms of group identity. Over and above its expression in symbols such as flags, leaders and cultural icons, national identity also works at a less visible, more fascinating level -in the forms of discourse specific to a nation: not what we say so much as how we say it. (Easthope 2; emphasis added) Headphone-verbatim […] operates on the principle there is as much information embedded in how someone speaks, as there is in what they are saying. (Oades 85; emphasis in the original)Within the context of what Jenny Spencer calls "post-9/11 political theatre" (12), verbatim theatre has traditionally functioned within a realist aesthetics, showcasing highly minimalist performances in order to emphasise "the notion that we are
In a post-Brexit (and perhaps even post-truth) context, the entire nation is going through an intense period of self-scrutiny, attempting to find a way forward for British culture despite a growing climate of divisive and destructive trends. As ever, verbatim theatre, spearheaded by Rufus Norris’ National Theatre, has sought to provide some answers in its relentless examination of the state of Britain. However, since the renaissance of verbatim theatre in the mid-1990s, the political situation has worsened considerably and it may appear that the typical strategies of verbatim theatre have lost their efficacy, struggling to provide a much-needed alternative. In this article, I will assess some of verbatim theatre’s latest developments in the 21st century through three main case studies, which are DV8’s To Be Straight with You (2007), Catherine Grosvenor’s Cherry Blossom (2008) and Alecky Blythe’s Little Revolution (2014). My main argument is that, notwithstanding the claims to the contrary, verbatim theatre is far from being in decline and it has continued to fluctuate, transform and exceed its familiar parameters, urging us to rethink its general aesthetic coordinates beyond the project of documentary realism and that of a national ‘shadow archive.’ More specifically and drawing from a variety of recent examples including the aforementioned case studies, I will argue that verbatim theatre in this period has a post-postmodern proclivity to make new connections across the fragments and re-construct the social.
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