Preview

Verbatim Theatre essay

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
668 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Verbatim Theatre essay
Verbatim Theatre - The Laramie Project

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

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Ruby Moon Analysis

    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages

    I must be able to shape, interpret and use the elements of drama to create particular effects for an audience. To enhance conflict I decided to place Ruby and Ray upstage so that they have a closer proximity with the audience. I decided to create many pauses between Sylvie and Ray’s dialogue to redefine the conflict. For example when Sylvie says, ‘Ray…? Where’s Ruby?’ and Ray responds with, ‘I don’t know, Sylvie! I don’t know!’ I decided to place the actors so that they’re facing each other with a pause after Ray’s dialogue to show the climatic moment. I decided for Sylvie to imagine the mannequin of Ruby is outside the front under the street lamp so she is looking out into the audience enhancing the conflict revolving around the missing mannequin which she says. ‘The mannequin! She’s not under the street lamp. Somebody’s taken her. Who could be that cruel?’ Sylvie is looking out frantically into the audience making the audience feel uncomfortable and uneasy enhancing the conflict of this missing mannequin. One last way in which conflict is shown is through the body part of Ruby being sent in a parcel and how they don’t know the answers to who sent it and why and how it event got there reinforcing the invasion of a safe neighbourhood. For…

    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through study of Moises Kaufman’s The Laramie Project and Paul Brown’s Aftershocks I have found that simply collecting and performing testimony will not make for exciting theatre. It is necessary that the structure of the testimony be manipulated in order to engage the audience. Both plays employ a range of dramatic techniques which help bring the characters and their stories to life.…

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A short play is usually filled with a theatrical energy of diverse anthologies. The time allotted may be only ten or fifteen minutes, so it must be able to capture and engage the audience with some dramatic tension, exciting action, or witty humor. Just as in a short story, a great deal of the explanation and background is left for the reader or viewer to discover on their own. Because all the details are not explicitly stated, each viewer interprets the action in their own way and each experience is unique from someone else viewing the same play. Conflict is the main aspect that drives any work of literature, and plays usually consist of some form of conflict. In “Playwriting 101: The Rooftop Lesson,” Rich Orloff explores these common elements of plays and creates an original by “gathering all clichés into one story and satirizing them” (Orloff as cited by Meyer, 2009, p. 1352).…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    3. Do you find the genre of documentary theatre productive in addressing a criminal issue--such as the murder of Matthew Shephard. Analyze how the genre of 'documentary theatre' represents the murder and the local town's view about it. What does the play try to say about the murder and about the town? What is the 'message' of the play in your view?…

    • 438 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    the following elements of dramatic text. Then, explain how the author uses each element to enhance…

    • 236 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    …….asked us to create a stylised performance using the narrator’s text; DNA by Dennis Kelly. We, had to use still images, mime and movement and a section from to play to be delivered in response to Stanislavski. We stayed our performance by having …… and …. as the two naturalistic performers, sitting side by side on the floor, quite far apart from each other to show the audience the lack of closeness between…. and …. Leah being the main narrator, sat up on her knees, inviting the audience in to listen and seemed more comforting and engaged, whereas Phil communicated with the audience with the lack of focus and response, showing have far away Phil really is to understanding Leah’s thoughts and feelings. The actors facial features were kept very minimal, neural expressions which showed no emotion allowing the other two character to really communicate and show the audience what they really think and feel. We did this to support our interpretation of the characters and what we got from the play which was that Leah had deep feelings for Phil, which he took for granted. I played Leah’s conscience, alongside….., who played Phil’s. I and …..walked up to each other hesitantly, showing the lack of communication between the characters as their unsure of their relationship. We help our hands out towards each other after we had separated to communicate through the use of gesture, to the audience that we do truly need each other, we just can’t show it. This was my idea, and I think it was successful because I really wanted to show to the audience the true feelings of the two characters and I think this was a good moment to communicate with the audience. I contrasted with …. tone of voice, as she uses a soft yet pleading tone, I respond to it with an aggressive tug of Sam’s arm, silently beginning him to respond. Leah’s self-conscious, in coherent character and Phil’s stubborn blindness, stops them communicating, and I believe this is why their relationship is so strained and…

    • 993 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To say that Verbatim Theatre is communal storytelling implies that it is the community telling stories. Such storytelling employed as a collective act allows for many benefits including the voicing of previously unheard stories from a variety of perspectives, feeding stories into the wider communities and allowing for action to be taken, and providing a venue for the search of truth. Good.…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How are the dramatic forms and theatrical techniques of the plays you have studied used to portray the struggles of the characters?…

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Thtr 100

    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages

    All plays and play productions can be usefully analyzed and evaluated on the way they use the theatrical format to the best advantage and make us rethink the nature of theatrical production.…

    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ruby Moon Play Analysis

    • 2237 Words
    • 9 Pages

    * Distances audience from the play so they can picture the message that underpins the play…

    • 2237 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    On Sunday, September 26, I saw The Laramie Project written by Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project, presented by the Missouri State Department of Theatre and Dance at the Balcony Theatre. This brilliant work is about Matthew Shepard, a 21 year-old student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and murdered near Laramie, Wyoming. This play is a reaction to the 1998 hate crime motivated by homophobia. The play was derived from hundreds of interviews made by members of the theatre company with the citizens of Laramie, Wyoming, as well as published news reports.…

    • 608 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lane Tech College Preparatory has chosen to do a play on The Laramie Project, a non-fiction story of discrimination upon homosexual and the hate crime of Matthew Shepard’s murder in 1998. The story takes place in Laramie, Wyoming, based on hundred of interviews afterward the murder, and re-enacts in chronology of the murder. It truly is a really serious and important subject to touch upon but, Lane Tech failed to show it to its full extend and beauty the production could have been. The sound system was horrible during the performance. Finance seemed to be a problem; the costumes for example were pitiful. Last but not least…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I believe each group managed to send a clear message to the audience about loss and grieving but still keeping our own characteristics and personality into the play to make it our own. Every group used a wide range of techniques and conventions to help inform the audience of the themes and issues focused on in the play and created powerful adaptions of already told…

    • 894 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rhetoric And Writing

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages

    By researching and studying a specific culture during a set time period of your choosing, you garner a certain impression of the environment while helping you understand your own surroundings (McKee). For example, William Poole uses textual analysis in his article “‘Unpointed Words': Shakespearean Syntax in Action” to explore the structure of language on and off the stage in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Christopher Marlow’s Doctor Faustus, and other stage plays.…

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Elizabethan Theater Essay

    • 1803 Words
    • 8 Pages

    What is the Elizabethan theater? The Elizabethan theater is a prominent theater during the English Renaissance. It's a general term for covering plays that are written and performed publicly in England during the reign in 1558-1603. The Elizabethan theater history had started in 1576, Until the Protestants came and took over the power they had. However in 1648 the Elizabethan theater was ordered to be shut down, and every single actor would end up being seized and whipped, Also anyone who attended a play would be fined.…

    • 1803 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays