A Verbatim Exploration
This post relates to a number of projects – specifically a video project called This Is Where We Live that aired at the Garneau Theatre on Nov. 22, 2022 and is available for viewing at the link below, and a playscript also called This Is Where We Live (just to confuse people) that is in draft development stages.
Really, however, this all began with Ralph’s World, continued with Starless, evolved into This Is Where We Live the video, and is now moving into another phase of development as a verbatim stage play.
For information about Ralph’s World and Starless, you can look under the Theatre page, or click on the titles and they’ll take you there.
For both the previous plays, despite research into the topic and engagement with people experiencing homelessness, I was still viewing their stories through my privileged lens. The Edmonton Arts Council provided funding for a theatre pilot project that morphed into a video project due to COVID. For a full report on the project, you can see the document here.
For an executive summary, read on.
- This Is Where We Live began as a theatre pilot project, with the intent of piloting a process for interviewing people experiencing homelessness, creating monologues from those interviews, and hiring actors to deliver those monologues to a live audience. We wanted to see if delivering stories in this way could avoid the automatic judgement of the audience.
- Due to COVID, the project partners decided to self-fund an evolution of the project into a video format. Actors were hired and rehearsed on Zoom, and their monologues recorded to camera.
- Due to learnings by the project partners, and for a greater appreciation for a concept called ethical relationality, the process was changed to de-center the artist’s idiosyncratic viewpoint for the creation of monologues. Each interview transcript was reviewed and highlighted by third parties, their input was used to create scripts, and the scripts were read back to the interviewees before taping.
Ethical relationality is not a term I’m using lightly. Dwayne Donald from the University of Alberta conceptualized this term as a vision for re-imagining and re-positioning an understanding of Indigenous and settler relationship, specifically with the intent of forging a “curricular and pedagogical vision for a historicized and decolonial reframing of Aboriginal-Canadian relations” (45). Without seeking to unjustifiably broaden the application of this concept or disrepectfully weaken its focus on pedagogy, something else Donald says about it speaks to its place in this project and in others.
This relationality was something we tried to build into our work with the interviewees, consultants, and actors. The result was a short film that included actor-delivered monologues and a series of focus questions for a live audience. It was presented at the Garneau Theatre in Edmonton on November 22, 2022 to an audience of 250 people. To see the film click the link below.
The next step was an academic one, part of a Masters course through Athabasca University.
I wanted to examine if it was possible to create a verbatim piece of theatre using real-life interviews and other factual material while de-centering my own ego. Using interviews, newspaper articles, government reports, Alberta Legislative Assembly Hansard quotes, and existing music, I created a full-length play examining homelessness in Edmonton over the last thirty years. De-centering the creator’s ego is attempted throughout by using a multi-disciplinary approach to content analysis, creation, and theatrical staging. Three core concepts guided the process:
- A theoretical model from cognitive psychology called Conceptual Integration Networks to help determine the content and how that content is related.
- Theoretical perspectives from Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault to examine the role of a playwright.
- A theatrical aesthetic developed by Bertold Brecht for de-familiarization (alienation), and historicization to bring these concepts and content to the stage.
The result, if anybody wants to read it, is linked to here.
The next steps are to develop the play further and see where it might end up.
Donald, Dwaye. “Forts, Curriculum, and Ethical Relationality” pp 39-46. Ng-A-Fook, Nicholas, and Jennifer Rottmann. Reconsidering Canadian curriculum studies: Provoking historical, present, and future perspectives. Springer, 2012.