A Resurgence of Verbatim Theatre: Authenticity, Empathy and Transformation

The wave of media mergers and acquisitions from the late 1990s to the present day has created an environment where commercialism, shareholder interest and economies of scale dictate an increasingly homogenised media context. Narrowing points of view and decreasing opportunities for debate and for specific communities to know or own their particular stories, as McChesney warns, are putting democracy at risk. Australian Opposition senator John Faulkner sees democracy coming under threat through the relentless pursuit of the latest scoop: 'News now comes packaged, enhanced with manipulative sound and image. Stories that don't suit simplistic solutions are dropped. Stories about scandals boost circulation, and take priority over complex discussion on policy ... The short attention spans of today's media "consumers" are trained by infotainment that seeks to reduce our political process to a more boring version of Survivor.'2 Not only is content delivered in small, high-impact bites but political communicators must conform to the infotainment format. Graeme Turner elaborates on the pervasiveness of celebrity packaging: 'Public relations consultants, media advisers and press officers have proliferated in western political systems and have become standard components of the contemporary furniture of democratic administrations.'3 This lack of depth, diversity and intelligence in media coverage of areas in the public interest. Faulkner claims, is leading to an Australian democracy characterised by distrust, apathy and ultimately anger.4 These commentators argue that the media are pivotal in creating disenfranchised societies, where power is allowed to become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. A growing interdependence between media empire owners and holders of political power effectively suppresses controversy. Complexity is both expensive to produce and difficult to debate, therefore it is not in either stakeholder group's interest, and it is therefore becoming increasingly absent from the public domain. Audiences in Australia, as in the United Kingdom and in the United States, have responded to the increasingly formulaic television news and current affairs by switching off. In a study of current affairs on Australian television, Turner demonstrates that flagships like ABC's Four Corners lost 44.7 percent of its audience between 1991 and 1998, A Current Affair lost 29.2 percent and The 7.30 Report lost 27.3 percent; these trends have sharpened since. Meanwhile, over the last fifteen years, the only innovation to the standard current affairs format is to make it increasingly tabloid.6 Diminishing cultural capital - the way we understand, relate to and participate in our culture7 - is further reduced in Australia by the decline in local drama content on television. While local content in the USA forms 96 percent of screened drama product, and in the UK accounts for 91 percent, in Australia, local drama content has plummeted to 24 percent.8 In 2003 alone, adult television series production dropped by seventy-one hours.9 Adult drama production at the ABC is down to twenty hours a year in 2005, from 102 hours in 2001.10 The resurgence of Verbatim Theatre This lack of diverse voices and stories in our community may be a contributor to the resurgence and evolution of the Verbatim Theatre form, both nationally and internationally.11 Like the proliferation of bloggers on the Net providing alternative voices to mainstream media,12 Verbatim Theatre13 provides a platform for diverse, authentic voices, unheard in popular media. Evolving from Documentary Theatre, Verbatim Theatre plays began in regional Britain in the 1960s. Complex local stories were told by distilling diverse personal narratives woven into a theatrical framework. Today the demand for specificity in subject matter and a variety of perspectives in its presentation has re-invigorated the Verbatim Theatre form and expanded its application. …