Performing the testimonial: Rethinking verbatim dramaturgies

by Amanda Stuart Fisher, Maggie B. Gale (Editor)

Overview

Providing one of the first critically sustained engagements with the new forms of verbatim and testimonial theatre that emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s, this book examines what distinguishes verbatim theatre from the more established documentary theatre traditions developed initially by Peter Weiss, Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator. Examining a wide range of verbatim and testimonial plays from around the world, this book looks beyond the discourses of the real that have tended to dominate scholarship in this area and instead argues that this kind of theatre engages in acts of truth telling. Through its analysis of a range of international plays from UK, Germany, America, Australia and South Africa, the book explores theatre’s dramaturgical interrogation of testimony and how the act of witnessing itself is reconfigured when relocated outside of the psychoanalytic frame and positioned as contributing to a decolonisation of testimony.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526145734
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	08/04/2020
Series:	Theatre: Theory - Practice - Performance
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	216
File size:	402 KB

About the Author

Amanda Stuart Fisher is Reader of Contemporary Theatre and Performance at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Maggie B. Gale is Professor and Chair in Drama at The University of Manchester Maggie B. Gale is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham

Table of Contents

Introduction: Performing the ‘promise’ of truthfulness: the hybrid practices of contemporary verbatim and testimonial theatre Part I: Verbatim theatre and its histories 1 Germany and the pre-histories of contemporary verbatim theatre: Piscator, Hochhuth and Weiss 2 The genealogy of contemporary verbatim theatre: shifting dramaturgies and performances of truthfulness Part II: Towards testimonial theatre 3 Theatre of witnessing: Towards the decolonisation of testimonial theatre 4 Testimony as speaking out: Performing the ethico-political imperatives of witnessing Conclusion: Performing witnessing in a post-truth era Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

‘This book makes important contributions in developing understandings about the dramaturgy of truth claims and testimonial theatre.’ Rand Hazou, Research in Drama Education

‘Performing the testimonial is not only an innovative work of performance philosophy regarding truthfulness in verbatim and testimonial theatre, it is a must read for anyone interested in contemporary discussions of epistemic and testimonial injustice as such.’ Maurice Hamington, Professor of Philosophy at Portland State University

From the Publisher