Remixing Politics: The Case of Headphone-Verbatim Theatre in Britain

Abstract

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

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“…More recently, the Australian theatre company Back to Back Theatre has, for the last 30 years, engaged with the representation of disability on stage with an ensemble consisting of neurodivergent and disabled people. Theatre makers such as Anna Deavere Smith have furthermore promoted forms of ‘verbatim theatre’ focusing on recounting real events, such as the 1992 LA riots, using the actual words spoken by real people who had experienced the riots to foreground perspectives that were not represented in mainstream historical accounts (Garson, 2014).…”

“…Theatre makers such as Anna Deavere Smith have furthermore promoted forms of 'verbatim theatre' focusing on recounting real events, such as the 1992 LA riots, using the actual words spoken by real people who had experienced the riots to foreground perspectives that were not represented in mainstream historical accounts (Garson, 2014).…”

Theatre arts in UK city of culture evaluation practices: the case for headphone verbatim

“…The above passage by theatre scholar Derek Paget has been welcomed by academics and practitioners (Anderson and Wilkinson, 2007;Wake, 2010;Taylor, 2011) as one of the earliest working definitions of verbatim theatre as a theatre arts practice. Over time, verbatim theatre has adapted to also include the practices of headphone verbatim (Wake, 2013, p. 321) as a subgenre.…”

“…. developing "uncertainty enhancement" (Anderson and Wilkinson, 2007). This enhancement of the uncertain is important, particularly for project evaluators and policymakers, as without the knowledge of where issues within projects and policy exist, the process of responding to these issues is limited.…”