Documentary theatre is a genre that builds performances from pre-existing documentary material, such as newspapers, government reports, interviews, journals and correspondence, about factual events and real people, typically preserving the original text without alteration. It encompasses several related forms, including verbatim theatre, investigative theatre, theatre of fact, theatre of witness, autobiographical theatre and ethnodrama, all of which share the practice of presenting factual source material as the basis for dramatic performance.
Facts
Place of OriginRooted in theatrical practices of Eastern Europe and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, beginning with the Soviet Blue Blouses troupes' living newspaper performances and Erwin Piscator's documentary stagings in Germany. 1 Notable ExampleThe Laramie Project (2000) by Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project, a verbatim play about the murder of Matthew Shepard, and Erwin Piscator's 1925 In Spite of Everything, often cited as the beginning of modern documentary drama. 1 Defining TraitA genre of theatre built from pre-existing documentary material such as newspapers, government reports, interviews, journals and correspondence about real events and people, typically presented without altering the original text; its verbatim-text branch is known as verbatim theatre. 1 Sources
1. Documentary Theatre (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Documentary theatre is theatre that uses pre-existing documentary material (such as newspapers, government reports, interviews, journals, and correspondences) as source material for stories about real events and people, frequently without altering the text in performance.
Lead section, second sentence
The genre typically includes or is referred to as verbatim theatre, investigative theatre, theatre of fact, theatre of witness, autobiographical theatre, and ethnodrama.
Zhivaya gazeta and Piscator section
In 1925 he wrote In Spite of Everything, a piece derived entirely from contemporary political documents and often cited as the beginning of the first period of modern documentary drama.
Zhivaya gazeta and Piscator section, opening
In the years after the Russian Revolution, the USSR's Department of Agitation and Propaganda employed theatre troupes known as the Blue Blouses (so called because they wore factory workers' overalls) to stage current events for the largely illiterate population.
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