Overview

What distinguishes documentary theatre from other forms of drama? How has it integrated different media across the years, and to what effect? What is its relationship to truth and reality, and defining moments of civic unrest and political change? In this short, authoritative book, Andy Lavender surveys a century of documentary theatre and performance and analyses key productions. Arranged in 3 sections that take a broadly chronological approach, the volume considers the nature of documenting, forms of intervention through theatre, the presentation of lived experience, and issues of truth, reality and representation. The book includes a variety of case studies, beginning with Piscator’s In Spite of Everything! (1925) and tracing the work that followed in Europe and America, including the tribunal and testimony plays of the 1990s and 2000s. It examines the relationship of 3 key productions to moments of civic and political crisis: Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights Brooklyn and Other Identities (1992), Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1993) and The Colour of Justice: The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry (1999). Finally, it looks at the impact of digital technologies, social media and hybrid artforms in the 21st century, to explore the engagement of documentary performance with mediations and experiences of cultural change and shifting identities across a range of case studies.

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9781350137134

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Reviews

This book not only introduces students to the history, theory and practice of documentary theatre in a style that is simple but never simplistic, but also invites teachers and researchers to reassess and expand their understanding of the form — a rare double feat. * Caroline Wake, UNSW Sydney, Australia *

Author Information

Andy Lavender is Vice-Principal & Director of Production Arts at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, UK. His publications include Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement (2016), and the edited volumes Making Contemporary Theatre: international rehearsal processes (2010, co-edited with Jen Harvie), and Mapping Intermediality and Performance (2010, co-edited with Sarah Bay-Cheng, Chiel Kattenbel and Robin Nelson).

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