Verbatim Theatre

How is the material being researched and developed at significant stages during the process of creating drama?

The set used for Vernon God Little was highly symbolic and simplistic; when we walked into the theatre we could visually see that there were flowers, cards and memorable items attached on the audiences seats above our heads, which already created a sombre atmosphere around the theatre.

Alfred Hitchcock commented, “ what is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.” This quotes is typically true of drama, however verbatim theatre is contrary to this as it forces it audiences to confront serious issues and offers conventions that shy away from “fantasy” world. Verbatim theatre is from of documentary theatre in which plays are constructed from the exact words and testimonies from interviewed people. These testimonies are based of people opinions

"My commodity as a writer, whatever I'm writing about, is me. And your commodity is you. Don't alter your voice to fit your subject. Develop one voice that readers will recognize when they hear it on the page." –William Zinsser, On Writing Well

character. A good example of how the tone of their voices change clearly portrays emotion is

One of Jane’s great passions is acting. It was one event that gave her the motivation to pursue her acting dreams. In the year of 1969, Jane was nine and she had never experienced the enthralment of acting before. At the time, she lived on a farm in Queensland which meant that there weren't local schools around her area. Jane completed her primary education through the Charters Towers School of the Air. This meant that instead of having to travel for hours everyday, Jane would use her radio to listen to her teacher and she would do her schoolwork from home. Every year, Jane's school held school plays and it was in 1969 that Jane auditioned for Thumbelina (based on the book by Hans Christian Anderson). To Jane's delight, she was cast as

The means through which I showed my character was through the tone of voice and the body language directed towards the other person. One the first night of performance my acting was much more skewered to the side of realism, with a stern and authority voice directed towards the characters at the apex club, with body language which was at times antagonising with arms directed to the person or person’s I was speaking to. While I was talking to characters such as Veronica or Jack, a stern yet

1 Assignment 2 Drama Assignment/Do our Differences Define Us? 1. Do our differences define us? Write a paragraph in which you answer this question and provide at least 3 reasons to support your opinion. Yes our differences do define us. Our differences affect our experiences, which shape our realities ,our perception of situations, and our futures.

For a performer making a character starting with no outside help is a noteworthy undertaking. In the event that you wish to accomplish more than playing some variety of yourself there are numerous components that go into making a part.

The leader of the movement to end South African apartheid, Nelson Mandela, in his “Rally Address Following Release From Pollsmoor Prison” speech, he speaks of continuing his movement. Mandela directed his speech to the people of South America. His purpose was to motivate his people. Mandela creates a passionate tone in order to appeal to pathos through the use of the tone passionate, repetition, and anaphora.

After having initially finished a lot of our scenes, we decided to revisit them to develop further, in order to portray each scene in the most creative and captivating way. The first scene we modified, was the opening of our performance. Originally, we had planned to have an arrow head shape down stage centre, made by all of our group members standing in this formation. From here, we were going to use a technique learnt from a theatre company who visited our school, called ‘Paper Birds’. This technique involved narrating an overview of the story, by using emphasised vocals to show how the mood changed throughout the story.

Spoken by one or two characters before the chorus appears. The prologue usually gives the mythological background necessary for understanding the events of the play.

This last half term we’ve been looking at challenging stereotypes and misconceptions. To begin with we were given stimulus in the form of photographs; these prompted each of us to have thoughts on what was shown. The image showed a man or woman staring stone faced through the many legs of passers by. My feeling towards this photograph was partly sympathy; however I knew I would just be one of the many people who would walk past. Stereotypes can interfere; one of the first things that came into our minds was things like drugs and gambling. This makes you feel less sorry for the person and immediately ideas that could be entirely untrue come into your head.

After hearing about an interrogation term the process began for my characters, it was suggested that each ensemble member would wear blacks and a neutral half mask to hide the face, removing their identity, furthering to represent a collective. After researching into this response, it appeared that the interns, as ensemble, gave resemblance to a Greek chorus, due to never entering the stage space unless moving set. A Greek chorus was said to be costumed men that perform in the ‘dancing floor’, this being below the stage. In a number of scenes they would observe the piece and comment on the arrangements of the performers.

Commencing the Solo Performance module, I discovered myself taking a liking to certain genres that I previously had little knowledge of. However, my attention was immediately drawn to Verbatim Theatre. Verbatim Theatre first fascinated me in September 2014 when I went to watch ‘Little Revolution’ by Alecky Blythe at The Almeida Theatre, a play constructed of interviews concerning the 2011 London Riots. I instantly felt a connection to this play as the London Riots happened very close to my home and so I was captivated to hear the raw emotion and authenticity coming from the actors, who were imitating real-life people’s words and utterances in real time. Therefore, when the opportunity to create my own 5-minute scratch solo performance using