Quick questions on Verbatim theatre: HSC Drama elective

Verbatim theatre is theatre built from real testimony. Interviews, court transcripts, parliamentary records and other recorded speech are transcribed and edited into performance scripts. Performers learn the original speech, preserving its rhythm, hesitations and texture.

Verbatim theatre as a contemporary form develops in three roughly parallel traditions: an American testimony-based theatre, a British tribunal-play tradition, and an Australian community-based tradition.

Anna Deavere Smith (born 1950) is the American pioneer. Trained as an actor at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, Smith began the project "On the Road: A Search for American Character" in 1982, recording interviews with people involved in specific moments of American social conflict and performing the resulting material as solo shows.

The Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, North London, ran a series of "tribunal plays" from 1994 onwards under artistic director Nicolas Kent. The tribunal plays were edited transcripts of public inquiries, performed as ensemble theatre with full courtroom staging.

Alana Valentine. Sydney playwright. Run Rabbit Run (Belvoir, 2004, on the South Sydney Rabbitohs' campaign against expulsion from the NRL), Parramatta Girls (Belvoir, 2007, on the Parramatta Girls' Industrial School), Ear to the Edge of Time (2012). Valentine's verbatim work uses extensive interviewing.

Recording. Audio recording of interviews, with subjects' consent. Some practitioners use video. The quality of the recording matters; performers will work from this material.

The form raises persistent ethical questions:

Section II essays on verbatim theatre typically ask candidates to discuss the form's techniques, analyse specific productions, or engage with the ethical questions. Strong essays cite specific productions, name techniques precisely, and treat the ethical questions as substantive rather than ornamental.

Sydney playwright. Run Rabbit Run (Belvoir, 2004, on the South Sydney Rabbitohs' campaign against expulsion from the NRL), Parramatta Girls (Belvoir, 2007, on the Parramatta Girls' Industrial School), Ear to the Edge of Time (2012). Valentine's verbatim work uses extensive interviewing.

Sydney-based. Fast Cars and Tractor Engines (2005, on rural Australian masculinity), Stories of Love and Hate (Belvoir, 2008, on Cronulla and the 2005 riots), Hello Goodbye and Happy Birthday (2013). Oades's technique uses headphones: performers wear earpieces with the original recording playing live during the show, and speak the lines as they hear them.

Black Diggers (Sydney Festival, 2014). Documentary play on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander First World War soldiers, built from archives and family interviews.

Various community-based verbatim projects with specific communities (refugee testimony, hospital ward documentation, regional Australian voices).

Audio recording of interviews, with subjects' consent. Some practitioners use video. The quality of the recording matters; performers will work from this material.

Verbatim transcription that preserves "um", "you know", pauses, false starts, and overlapping speech. Smith's transcripts are famously detailed.

Selection of which material to include and in what sequence. This is the central artistic decision. Some practitioners edit heavily; others minimally.