An Examination of Authorship and Ownership in Contemporary Verbatim Theatre
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Antoinette Moses Constructing the Real: An Examination of Authorship and Ownership in Contemporary Verbatim Theatre For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy: Creative Writing Research University of East Anglia School of Creative Writing and Literature Date Submitted: September 2009 © This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis, not any information derives therefrom, may be published without the author’s prior, written consent. 2 Abstract Verbatim theatre is a term for a genre of factually-based plays that in recent years have become increasingly popular on stages around the world. Th is study contains two components: creative and critical. The creative component consists of two original plays, Trash and Cuts . Both take the form of an inquiry into the deaths of women in the care of the State, and, at the same time, the plays create a metatheatrical argument on how theatre itself fulfils the role of an inquiry. The critical component investigates issues raised by the practice of verbatim theatre. Through an appraisal of the intentionality and process of a number of verbatim plays, and the empirical analysis of writing Trash and Cuts , the study asks whether there is there room for imaginative expression in a genre that promotes itself as a form of theatre predicated on a literalist interpretation of testimony and document. It also explores the extent that fidelity to the testimony and the document limits the form of the genre. The study examines notions of authenticity and representation in the use of factually-based material and considers the process whereby those who create verbatim control the perception and response of the audience. Finally, the study addresses the issues of who (morally and legally) owns the texts and the inherent ethical and legal implications of working within the genre. The methodology of the critical study is principally an empirical study of verbatim theatre, an analysis of a number of contemporary verbatim plays written for the stage, and an experiential analysis of the work of researching, editing and writing Trash and Cuts . 3 Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 7 Creative Component: Trash A Play 10 Sources of Trash 68 Cuts A Theatrical Installation 69 Sources of Cuts 157 Text 1 159 Text 2 160 Text 3 165 Critical Component: 1 Verbatim Theatre – A Theatre For Our Times ? 169 1.1 Verbatim Theatre: An Intermittent Tradition 171 1.1.1 Verbatim practices to 1940 174 1.1.2 Verbatim Practices 1960 – 1990 177 1.2 The Rise of a Theatre of Reportage and Witness: Verbatim Practices Today 185 4 2 This Is A True Story: Issues Of Reality, Authenticity and Representation 194 2.1 Testing the Document: Bloody Sunday and Cuts 196 2.1.1 “Tools for the Exposure of Injustice and Subterfuge”: Bloody Sunday 197 2.1.2 Sourcing the Text: Cuts 205 2.2 Testing Witness Testimony: The Exonerated and Trash 214 2.2.1 “An Act of Faith”: Witness Testimony in The Exonerated 216 2.2.2 A Negotiated Reality: Trash 230 2.3 Acts of Representation: My Name is Rachel Corrie , Cruising and The Girlfriend Experience 237 2.3.1 The Making of a Myth: My Name is Rachel Corrie 238 2.3.2 “Kindof very true”: Cruising and The Girlfriend Experience 246 3 Ethical and Legal Issues in the Creation of Verbatim Theatre 255 3.1 Ethical Concerns 258 3.1.1 Methodologies 259 3.1.2 Ethical Frameworks and Codes of Practice 268 3.2 Legal Constraints 277 5 4 Making Room for the Imagination: Issues of Authorship and Aesthetics 285 4.1 Verbatim as Theatre: Narrative and Performative Techniques 287 4.1.1 Rhetoric 287 4.1.2 Metatheatricality 291 4.1.3 The Creation of Immediate Theatre: Verbatim Plays in Performance 293 4.2 Creating an Aesthetic for Verbatim Theatre 297 4.2.1 ‘Sculpting’ the Facts: The Creation of Trash and Cuts 300 5 Conclusion 309 Bibliography 315 6 Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the families who allowed their lives to be exploited in my two plays, particularly Jean Pearson and Pete and Kirsty Blanksby and Pauline Campbell, who sadly died a few days after our last interview. Generous thanks, too, to Leslie Thomas and all the other interviewees for their candour and willingness to talk to an unknown playwright. And to David Hinchliff, HM Coroner, West Yorkshire, Eastern District. Cuts could not have been written without the help of several organisations, in particular Inquest, Women in Prison and The Howard League for Penal Reform. Particular thanks to Deborah Coles and Hannah McFaull. Thanks, too, to the directors of the readings and productions of Cuts, Geoff Colman and Amelia Nicholson, and the casts who generously donated their time and talent. And to Professor Phil Scraton for chairing the debate at the ICOPA Conference. This thesis owes more than can be said to the inspirational guidance of my two supervisors, Val Taylor, dramaturg extraordinaire, and Professor Jean Boase-Beier; and also to members of the faculty of Creative Writing and Literature at UEA who spent many hours discussing the ideas in this study. Above all, thanks to Alan, who has lived with this study for four years, never ceases to inspire me, and is the best editor one could hope for. I would also like to acknowledge the Arts and Humanities Research Council for generously funding this research. 7 Introduction If the Greeks invented tragedy, the Romans the epistle, and the Renaissance the sonnet, our generation invented a new literature, that of testimony . – Elie Wiesel, 1977:9 The theory and practice of this thesis is centred on the writing and analysis of verbatim theatre, a genre that creates its text from the theatrical realisation of original testimony and document. The plays, Trash and Cuts , that form the creative part of this study, as well as the critical analysis, test the space between facts and how they are subsequently reported and interpreted. Both plays focus on investigations into the deaths of young women in the care of the State and take the form of an inquiry. This is personal in the case of the mother in Trash , and official in the case of the inquest in Cuts . At the same time, the plays create a metatheatrical argument on how theatre itself fulfils the role of an inquiry. Verbatim theatre promotes itself as a dramatisation of reality, a stance that prompts a number of questions in terms of its relationship with the real, and how that representation is achieved in a theatrical context. The genre, as Janelle Reinelt observes, “is in touch with the real but not a copy of it” (2009:8). The critical part of this thesis takes the form of a study of the issues raised through the genre’s dramatisation of reality. Specifically, it examines the tensions generated by the representation of the real within an artistic medium. The study places adherence to facts against the creative impulse, and analyses how these tensions are resolved in the creation of the genre. Through an appraisal of the intentionality and methodology of a number of verbatim plays, and the 8 empirical analysis of writing Trash and Cuts , it asks two questions: Is there room for imaginative expression in a genre that promotes itself as a form of theatre predicated on a literalist interpretation of testimony and document? And to what extent does fidelity to the testimony and the document limit the form of the genre? The creation of this thesis also illustrates a second set of relationships between the creative and critical aspects of the work itself. The plays and the critical study demonstrate the way in which an exploration of verbatim theatre can feed into the development of a creative aesthetic for the genre, and how that creative practice then, itself, becomes the subject of empirical analysis. The tensions that arise from the practice of verbatim theatre may be inferred from unpicking David Hare’s assertion about the amount of work required in the creation of his monologic narrative Via Dolorosa (1998) 1, based on his visits to Israel and Palestine. Hare claims that “It was a play like any other” (2005:78), a statement that is both correct and incorrect. It is accurate in that the structuring of any play calls on a number of narratological devices, and a play based on verbatim material requires structure and form. Yet, because a verbatim play is derived from original testimony and document, and purports to be a precise representation of those sources, it is not “a play like any other”. There are questions of authenticity and veracity and issues of authorship not necessarily inherent in other theatrical genres. A debate on the authorship and ownership of a text cannot ignore issues of power and control over the meaning and interpretation of that text. Verbatim theatre, which bases its dialogue on authentic speech, adds an additional level of authorship to imaginative writing, that of the original 1 The date given with the first citation of a play is that of the first production. The date used thereafter is that of the published text as listed in the bibliography. 9 testimony. This study examines authorship in terms of who controls what is said through the manipulation of original testimony. It tests to what extent it can be said that the playwright is the controlling influence and how much control is invested in those whose words (given orally or through documents) provide the primary texts for the plays.