Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present

Abstract

Over the past two decades, theatre practitioners across the West have turned to documentary modes of performance-making to confront new socio-political realities. This has led to an astonishing range of performance styles, ways of working and modes of intervention in varied sites of theatrical production. The essays in this collection place this work in context, exploring historical and contemporary examples of documentary and 'verbatim' theatre, and applying a range of critical perspectives that elaborate its impact and significance today. Focusing on examples from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa and the Middle East, this collection raises provocative questions about documentary theatre's relationship to new technology, media, the body, the archive, memory, autobiography, and national identity. It examines the viability and resonance of documentary theatre in an era of infotainment, globalisation and postmodernity, and explores its past and potential contribution within the public sphere.