My Own Attempt at Verbatim

I notice little things about Claire's speech patterns each time I listen to or read parts of her interview, which I found really interesting. I started picking up on the way she talks; the rhythm of what was spoken; her accent; the verbal ticks she uses, so much so, that each time I re-listened to a certain sentence, I found that I was becoming more and more familiar with it and was almost able to join in, copying what she was saying and how she was saying it. This got me thinking, that maybe it wasn't as difficult as i'd imagined, I wanted to give it a go myself. So I picked out a few memorable lines from the interview and began repeating it a few seconds after the recording of her speaking. I continued to do this until I found I was able to say it at the same time. It took a considerable amount of practice to get it right but it wasn't as difficult as I first thought it would be. However, I cannot imagine being able to learn 2 hours and 10 minutes worth of speech with that much precision, some of which is set to music, AND have the pressure of performing in front of an audience. I really admire the cast for being able to retain that level of performance.

JOHN- DV8: Review

Lloyd Newson's DV8 physical theatre play, JOHN, showing at the National Theatre from the 30th October 2014 to the 13th January 2015, follows the incredible life of one man, John. Based on interviews from the drug use helpline, Frank, Lloyd Newson, DV8's Artistic Director, combined movement and verbatim spoken work to create a moving theatrical experience.The play follows themes of home abuse, compulsion, addiction, loneliness, HIV and sexuality. With all of this very deep and personal subject matter, you'd expect a rather bleak, depressing experience. However Newson's innovative take on the material, allowed you the emotion, yet, very cleverly, offered moments of much needed comic relief.

I asked a friend, who I went to see the play with, what he thought of it:

"It was a really great example of narrative interpretation. The minimalistic set complimented the abstract movements to really bring to life the humorous, yet dark life of John. I liked the matter of fact style depiction of Johns struggle with the stigma surrounding homosexuality, whilst trying to fulfill his own sexual urges in the 80s. All of this expertly communicated through incredibly creative, yet technically and physically challenging dance pieces really made full impact of ever nuance of the interview."

Why was going to see this play useful for my research?

Press Reviews:

• "Engrossing, elegant. Astonishing physicality"- Time Out
• ''Lloyd Newson tells us John's story through interwined passages or verbatim speech and fluently choreographed movement"- Observer
• "Outstandingly effective and gripping dance theatre. A brilliant performance by Hannes Langolf"-Dagens Nyheter, Sweden
• "You can't leave this performance without being touched by John's life"- Deutschlandfunk, Germany

Recorded Delivery

ABOUT:
Recorded Delivery was founded in 2003 by Alecky Blythe. Having been inspired by Mark Wing Davy's teaching of the verbatim technique at his Drama Without Paper workshop, she quickly fell in love with the style and wrote and put on her first verbatim show, Come Out Eli, which she also performed in, herself. The play was about the Hackney siege and was presented the Time Out Live Awards Best Production on the Fringe in 2004. Having a successful experience with her first play, Alecky continued to experiment with and explore the verbatim technique, finding new ways of approaching material and performance.

PAST PRODUCTIONS:
COME OUT ELI
Come Out Eli was a play following the residents of Hackney during the longest siege in British history. The event brought a the community together, regardless of the difference in background, race, age or culture of the people, and they were united with the phrase 'Come out Eli'.

Two of the people who had characters made of them in the play expressed their views on the show:
"We thought Recorded Delivery's portrayal of us was brilliant. It was authentic and caught the immediacy and spontaneity perfectly. We thoroughly enjoyed watching is and were able to laugh at ourselves."

STRAWBERRY FIELDS
The stage drama Strawberry fields in 2005 raised political issues surrounding the use of migrant labour on industrial scale strawberry farms. The script was constructed by first hand testimonies from various people effected by the topic.

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE
The Girlfriend Experience is a comedic, yet eye-opening play about prostitutes working in a brothel. The show reveals the opposite to the stereotyped lables most people

DO WE LOOK LIKE REFUGEES?
Do We Look Like Refugees?

LONDON ROAD
London Road

Resource Log

VERBATIM THEATRE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbatim_theatre
The playwright interviews people that are connected to the topic that the play is focused on and uses their testimony to construct the piece. In this way they seek to achieve a degree of authority akin to that represented by the news. Such plays may be focused on politics, disasters or even sporting events.

-Because I already knew quite a lot about verbatim theatre as a whole, and what it is, I didn't feel I needed to use much information from this website for a definition. However, it was useful for refreshing my mind and it confirmed my thought.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui3k1wT2yeM

-This video was very interesting and contributed hugely to my research on the verbatim style. It was very helpful because it gave me multiple practitioners' opinions on the topic and information on how they approach a verbatim show.

LONDON ROAD
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/london-road?play=3

-This video was incredibly insightful into the way the writer, composer and director, devised the show. It gave me a chance to hear their actual reasons for making the musical, how it was done, and the struggles and obstacles that faced along the way, which was incredibly helpful.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3573598/
-I only used this website for information on when the feature film of London Road is coming out in cinemas.

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/london-road?play=2

-It was interesting to hear some other people's reviews on the show, however, because it was a promotional video for the musical, it only showed good reviews to draw people in and persuade them to buy tickets. Theatre is a very opinionated industry, meaning there must have been some negative thoughts of the play, however, this video was very one sided, on the positive side.

http://oxfordstudent.com/2014/10/16/interview-alecky-blythe-im-interested-in-ordinary-people-in-extraordinary-situations/
-I didn't use any information from this interview, as such, however, it was a good interesting read helped me to understand Aleckey's method in more depth.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/adam-cork-the-man-behind-theatrelands-oddest-musical-7973254.html
Does he regret the outcry that initially greeted London Road? "The problem with the word 'musical' is that it's so loaded with implications of dancing, spectacle and fun. Some people, quite rightly, found the notion of making entertainment out of what had happened disgusting," he says. "We didn't want to be seen as doing it for sensational reasons or as doing the Chris Morris thing of indulging in extreme bad taste in order to mock it."

-It was useful to get a quote from Adam Cork about London Road, and was interesting to read about some of the concerns they had about the musical.

https://soundcloud.com/nationaltheatre/london-road-platform
-This audio recording of an interview with Aleckey Blythe, Adam Cork and Rufus Norris was extremely helpful and informative on the subject of verbatim theatre and London Road.

JOHN:
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/john
-I only used this website to find out what dates the play was running from and until. This information was clear and easy to find.
-My only other research source for information on John, was going to see the actual show itself. This was obviously the best kind of research you can do on a play, and was very insightful into verbatim theatre.

RECORDED DELIVERY:
http://www.recordeddelivery.net/about.html
In 2003 Alecky Blythe founded Recorded Delivery and created her debut show Come Out Eli. She had been inspired to make it having learnt the verbatim technique from Mark Wing Davey in his innovative workshop Drama Without Paper. The show premiered at the Arcola winning the Time Out Award for Best Production on the Fringe and later transferred to the BAC for the Critics Choice Season.
After its success, she has continued to explore the verbatim method in various mediums. The term 'recorded delivery' has now become synonymous with the verbatim technique she employs.
-This information was very useful for my research into Recorded Delivery. It was a useful source of information for finding out the background information on the theatre company and how it started up.

http://www.recordeddelivery.net/come_out_eli.html

http://www.recordeddelivery.net/strawberry_fields.html

-I used this information in my research on past productions from Record Delivery. I found this information helpful for giving me an over view of this specific play, and explaining the synopsis. It was also helpful as it gave me a cast list so I didn't have to search elsewhere for this piece of information.

http://www.recordeddelivery.net/the_girlfriend_experience.html

-Again I used this information for my research into past productions from Recorded Delivery. This synopsis of The Girlfriend Experience was very helpful for my research as it gave me a clear understanding of what the play was about and who was involved.