The use of Verbatim Theatre

Our show ‘The Truth About Bedtime…’, will consist of verbatim theatre. “Verbatim theatre is a form of documentary theatre which is based on the spoken words of real people” (Drama Online, undated).

Sleep is for everyone and everyone needs sleep in order to survive. Yet, everyone has different experiences of sleep, it is personal. This meant we are able to speak with everyone and anyone and involve their words and their experiences within our performance. Simply using our own words, would mean we could not have reached into a wider range of sleep experiences, as within our company we are all women, all students and all roughly the same age and therefore we would not be representing sleep issues as widely as they are. I have never realised how complicated sleep is, I have a fairly good relationship with sleep, although I never truly understand why I need sleep, so this process has taught myself a lot and made me realise and become more understanding to other peoples issues regarding sleep.

As a performer, I have the responsibility to learn and deliver the verbatim speeches we are collecting. This does require great focus, as in order to be truthful to the people who have helped us, we will need to make sure we understand the meaning of what they are saying. This will help ensure that our delivery will be as truthful as possible, therefore we must also must include the ‘um’ and ‘ah’ from every person, to indicate they thought process, possible nervousness and even regular speaking, which will reflect on severity of the verbatim sections of our production, The Truth About Bedtime… 

L.F

Works Cited.

Drama online (undated) Verbatim theatre. Drama Online. Available from http://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/genres/verbatim-theatre-iid-2551 [accessed 20 April 2018].

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