Abstract
This chapter reviews various types of documentary theatre that record actual events in the lives of refugees, relying mainly on interviews and verbatim speeches. Such plays try to create a sense of authenticity in their representations even when the scenes have been slightly modified for dramatic purposes. Illegal Helpers, which focuses on helpers in the host country who act illegally to assist immigrants in danger of being deported, Tribunal 12, and Case of Farmaconisi resemble judicial inquiries to investigate how justice is denied in current legal procedures. Other types of documentary theatre include productions devised and performed by refugees who recount their past experiences and ambitions, using their own bodies as evidence, such as in Letters Home in Berlin and Dear Home Office in London.
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Notes
- 1.
Derek Paget, True Stories?: Documentary Drama on Radio, Screen and Stage; Attilio Favorini, Voicings: Ten Plays from the Documentary Theater; Carol Martin, Dramaturgy of the Real on the World Stage; Alison Forsyth and Chris Megson, Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present; Freddie Rokem, Performing History. Theatrical Representations of the Past in Contemporary Theatre; Will Hammond, Verbatim, Verbatim; Tom Cantrell, Acting in Documentary Theatre; Marvin Carlson, Shattering Hamlet’s Mirror.
- 2.
Florian Borchmeyer, head dramaturg at the Schaubühne, told me that he did not know of any other refugee group in Berlin that had done something similar.
- 3.
I am currently making a documentary film about Samee Ullah called One in a Million, which is due to be finished in 2017.
- 4.
According to Seremba (2008), members of the ‘G’ branch of Ugandan military intelligence shot him.
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Wilmer, S.E. (2018). Documentary Theatre by and about Refugees. In: Performing Statelessness in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69173-2_4
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