Verbatim theatre is a form of documentary theatre, it empowers marginalised groups and communities by staging their stories, enabling them to make their experiences visible whether it be local or global. Verbatim theatre explores a range of perspectives, and a variety of truths by scripting real life interviews of people from a story or incident
Verbatim theatre offers a range of perspectives from different people, for example In the Laramie Project the play draws on hundreds of interviews from different peoples perspectives in the town of Laramie. The people in the town of Laramie are all connected to the murder of Mathew Sheppard in some way, this is why these particular people have been interviewed for the Laramie project. The baptist minister is against homosexuality and believes that Matthew Sheppard brought it on himself, friends of Mathew have a different perspective, they believe it was a gay bashing and support Mathew one hundred percent. This gives you a wide range of perspectives and a variety of truths.
The Laramie project is good example of verbatim theatre due to the complex layering of characters realities through story and language. Each character tells their story from their perspective of the murder. Some characters have different views on the incident, some believe it was a gay bashing, and some believe it was a hate crime. The stories told by many different characters all lead to the same thing, but each character has something different to say about it. The stories are put into an order of events (what happened before the crime, the crime and murder, and the towns reaction).
In Verbatim theatre, the audience is given the opportunity simultaneously to reflect on a play's content intellectually and to experience the characters's stories emotionally. The Laramie project can have this effect on audiences due to the emotional stories told through out the play. Each character has a different story