Verbatim

Verbatim

What is it?

Verbatim theatre is 'exactly the same words that were used originally'. It is a type of documentary theatre, which aims to dramatize real life events, by using precise wording of people interviewed about particular topics. These are constructed, edited and used to a degree to create a piece of theatre.


Exercise

The main exercise we used was to create our own verbatim piece of theatre. I was given, with my group, an article on the case of Oscar Pistorius. We had to extract key moments and sentences to put into a short performance. We had no type of theatre we had to set the words to, but we decided on it being abstract, false, frequently using sentences said simultaneously to create an impact. Despite the task being tricky due to very little time, we managed to create something, that communicated the main message of the subject matter. Feedback at the end made us realise how crucial it is to inform the audience that it is a verbatim piece, as the statement of the words is so much more effective. "One of the strengths of Verbatim is the sort of rich text you couldn't make up."

Influences

The London Road

Our two main influences came from the verbatim musical 'The London Road'. This piece of theatre explores the story of The London Road prostitute murder. However, rather than exploring the main narrative, it delves into the lives of residents in the road, and their responses to the crimes. Interview recordings were taken of their opinions, and dramatized by actors so accurately to create great naturalism. Although this element is naturalistic, the fact it is put to music, makes it a lot more effective for the audience.

DV8

DV8 are an example of theatre that explore physical dance as a way of communicating emotions. They used a type of gestural language which aims to break the barrier between dance and theatre, by using a highly visual style. Gestures made by parts of the body are linked to lines in the script to communicate information through a type of sign language.