version 1.0's 'Deeply offensive and utterly untrue' details released
Comments
Anonymous said…
The dream becomes reality...or waking nightmare?!?!? Thanks for the insights into the process.Love to hear more as it goes through performance. Chookas
Thanks Noam! I don't feel that I've been able to write all that much about the process, at least not writing that will be able to give 'insights' into this process. Sanity and lucidity have been in somewhat short supply this time round unfortunately.
But thanks for your thanks, and I'll try and post something more soon.
dw
Anonymous said…
Hi David, I'd love to hear more about this work. Is it verbatim theatre? Or uses verbatim but mixes it up with other stuff? I've been writing and researching on theatre that uses "evidence" in various ways and would be really interested to hear more about how and what you do here. My own play Slow Falling Bird is about Woomera but moves away from testimony and evidence to non-realist modes of writing... so I've been thinking a lot about political theatre and how to address current questions on stage and would like to hear from you on this!
Definitely not verbatim theatre a al Paul Brown, Tricycle, Alana Valentine, David Hare etc. Your description of "uses verbatim but mixes with other stuff" is more accurate. We do devise from public documents (parliamentary transcripts, royal commission testimony, media interviews etc), but there's also a deconstructive theatricality at work, and a heavy use of mediation and image manipulation. Think a bit of Wooster Group meets the Sydney Front meets a bunch of actors and scholars at the bar arguing about politics and representation. As much about interrogating the possibility of theatre to provide the 'truth' of any major issue of political and/or social concern as with producing 'verbatim' theatre. I share Stephen Bottoms skepticism about much verbatim theatre in his TDR article (though am disappointed that his discussion includes no Australian examples, given the large volume of such work here over the last five years, esp. in relation to refugees).
Anyway, our work is always group devised, and as such there are always quite different understandings within the group about how our theatre 'truly' operates...
In both theatre and politics, compromise is indeed our business!
dw
ps: if you wanted to read more about our past work, check out the v1.0 website (link in the side bar), and also an article I wrote for Performance Paradigm (link in side bar also) about our performance 'The Wages of Spin'. I have a piece coming out on Arts Hub soon about the current project, and there's some writing on CMI archived on the v1.0 site.
Comments
Thanks for the insights into the process.Love to hear more as it goes through performance.
Chookas
But thanks for your thanks, and I'll try and post something more soon.
dw
I'd love to hear more about this work. Is it verbatim theatre? Or uses verbatim but mixes it up with other stuff? I've been writing and researching on theatre that uses "evidence" in various ways and would be really interested to hear more about how and what you do here. My own play Slow Falling Bird is about Woomera but moves away from testimony and evidence to non-realist modes of writing... so I've been thinking a lot about political theatre and how to address current questions on stage and would like to hear from you on this!
Definitely not verbatim theatre a al Paul Brown, Tricycle, Alana Valentine, David Hare etc. Your description of "uses verbatim but mixes with other stuff" is more accurate. We do devise from public documents (parliamentary transcripts, royal commission testimony, media interviews etc), but there's also a deconstructive theatricality at work, and a heavy use of mediation and image manipulation. Think a bit of Wooster Group meets the Sydney Front meets a bunch of actors and scholars at the bar arguing about politics and representation. As much about interrogating the possibility of theatre to provide the 'truth' of any major issue of political and/or social concern as with producing 'verbatim' theatre. I share Stephen Bottoms skepticism about much verbatim theatre in his TDR article (though am disappointed that his discussion includes no Australian examples, given the large volume of such work here over the last five years, esp. in relation to refugees).
Anyway, our work is always group devised, and as such there are always quite different understandings within the group about how our theatre 'truly' operates...
In both theatre and politics, compromise is indeed our business!
dw
ps: if you wanted to read more about our past work, check out the v1.0 website (link in the side bar), and also an article I wrote for Performance Paradigm (link in side bar also) about our performance 'The Wages of Spin'. I have a piece coming out on Arts Hub soon about the current project, and there's some writing on CMI archived on the v1.0 site.