Documentary Theatre and Performance
1st Edition
Published on 25. July 2024
192 pages
978-1-350-13716-5 (ISBN)
Description
What distinguishes documentary theatre from other forms of drama? How has it integrated different media across the years, and to what effect? What is its relationship to truth and reality, and defining moments of civic unrest and political change?
In this short, authoritative book, Andy Lavender surveys a century of documentary theatre and performance and analyses key productions. Arranged in 3 sections that take a broadly chronological approach, the volume considers the nature of documenting, forms of intervention through theatre, the presentation of lived experience, and issues of truth, reality and representation.
The book includes a variety of case studies, beginning with Piscator's In Spite of Everything! (1925) and tracing the work that followed in Europe and America, including the tribunal and testimony plays of the 1990s and 2000s. It examines the relationship of 3 key productions to moments of civic and political crisis: Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights Brooklyn and Other Identities (1992), Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1993) and The Colour of Justice: The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry (1999). Finally, it looks at the impact of digital technologies, social media and hybrid artforms in the 21st century, to explore the engagement of documentary performance with mediations and experiences of cultural change and shifting identities across a range of case studies.
In this short, authoritative book, Andy Lavender surveys a century of documentary theatre and performance and analyses key productions. Arranged in 3 sections that take a broadly chronological approach, the volume considers the nature of documenting, forms of intervention through theatre, the presentation of lived experience, and issues of truth, reality and representation.
The book includes a variety of case studies, beginning with Piscator's In Spite of Everything! (1925) and tracing the work that followed in Europe and America, including the tribunal and testimony plays of the 1990s and 2000s. It examines the relationship of 3 key productions to moments of civic and political crisis: Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights Brooklyn and Other Identities (1992), Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1993) and The Colour of Justice: The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry (1999). Finally, it looks at the impact of digital technologies, social media and hybrid artforms in the 21st century, to explore the engagement of documentary performance with mediations and experiences of cultural change and shifting identities across a range of case studies.
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Illustrations
9 bw illus
ISBN-13
978-1-350-13716-5 (9781350137165)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Andy Lavender
Documentary Theatre and Performance
Book
08/2024
Methuen Drama
€22.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Persons
Andy Lavender is Vice-Principal & Director of Production Arts at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, UK. His publications include Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement (2016), and the edited volumes Making Contemporary Theatre: international rehearsal processes (2010, co-edited with Jen Harvie), and Mapping Intermediality and Performance (2010, co-edited with Sarah Bay-Cheng, Chiel Kattenbel and Robin Nelson).
Content
List of Figures
Series Preface
1. Documentary Theatre and Performance: Tributaries, Trajectories
2. Documentary, Multimedia and Artistic Prisms for Social Situations: 1925, 1964
3. Verbatim Theatre, Documentary Theatre and Contests for Civic Change:1992, 1993, 1999
4. Mediations and Representations: Multiple Perspectives and Practices: 2008 to 2023
5. Coda
Endnotes
References
Index
Series Preface
1. Documentary Theatre and Performance: Tributaries, Trajectories
2. Documentary, Multimedia and Artistic Prisms for Social Situations: 1925, 1964
3. Verbatim Theatre, Documentary Theatre and Contests for Civic Change:1992, 1993, 1999
4. Mediations and Representations: Multiple Perspectives and Practices: 2008 to 2023
5. Coda
Endnotes
References
Index
