Ethnotheatre

Research from Page to Stage

Johnny Saldaña

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315428918
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Research & Methodology in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Ethnotheatre transforms research about human experiences into a dramatic presentation for an audience. Johnny Saldaña, one of the best-known practitioners of this research tradition, outlines the key principles and practices of ethnotheatre in this clear, concise volume. He covers the preparation of a dramatic presentation from the research and writing stages to the elements of stage production. Saldaña nurtures playwrights through adaptation and stage exercises, and delves into the complex ethical questions of turning the personal into theatre. Throughout, he emphasizes the vital importance of creating good theatre as well as good research for impact on an audience and performers. The volume includes multiple scenes from contemporary ethnodramas plus two complete play scripts as exemplars of the genre.

CHAPTER ONE

An Introduction to Ethnotheatre and Ethnodrama

What a verbatim play does is flash your research nakedly. It’s like cooking a meal but the meat is left raw. …

—Max Stafford Clark¹

The following dramatic text is the beginning of a one-man play about competition in a high school band titled Second Chair. Notice how the italicized stage directions specify the actor’s movements and describe the simple yet carefully chosen visual and aural elements of the theatrical presentation.

(setting: two metal folding chairs with metal music stands in front of each one; the music stands hold all necessary props for the production; first chair appears shiny and pristine; second chair appears worn, rusty, and beaten)

(pre-show music: various selections composed by W. Francis McBeth (The Feast of Trumpets, Praises, Caccia, Flourishes); lights rise; JOHNNY enters at the beginning of Flourishes, looks longingly at first chair, then sits in second chair and looks occasionally toward the empty first chair; music fades out; he speaks to the audience)

JOHNNY: In high school band, Tammi Jo thought she was so special. She played an ebony wood Selmer clarinet with a glass mouthpiece, while all I had was this cheap-ass plastic Bundy. Her family was typical middle-class and she was the only child, thus receiving all of the attention and all of the spoils. My family was transitioning from lower class to middle, but that was kind of hard with so many children to take care of.

In our junior year, I was second chair;

(looks at and scowls at the chair next to him)

and Tammi Jo was first chair.

(brief pause; to audience)

And I think you know where this story is going.

(adapted from Saldaña, 2008, p. 179)

This format is quite typical of the beginning of many one-person plays, but its content is quite different from fictional dramatic works. This is a true story. It was performed by the actual person who lived the experience. And everything that will be told to the audience really happened—though the names of others have been changed to maintain their anonymity. This is an example of a literary genre called ethnodrama. And its performance on stage in front of a live audience makes it ethnotheatre.

Ethnotheatre: Research from Page to Stage is a playwriting textbook for the ethnodramatic genre of literature. The content is geared toward a broad readership in fields such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, education, human communication, health care, theatre, media, and performance studies.

It is very difficult, even for full-time theatre practitioners, to stay current with the ethnodramatic and ethnotheatrical literature. Sometimes a new play script becomes known through word of mouth, and sometimes through systematic searches of online catalogs. At other times, an ethnodrama appears in a journal to which you just happen to subscribe, and at still other times you find one serendipitously through a nonrelated Internet search. It is difficult to document all that happens in this unique field because ethnotheatrical productions are sometimes local performances or signature works whose scripts never get published. I hope to provide in this book some guidance to accessible, published plays because you become a better playwright by reading exemplary scripts.

An individual also becomes a better playwright by writing monologues, scenes, and extended play scripts. Throughout this book is a series of playwriting exercises I strongly encourage you to explore. They will attune you to the craft and art of writing for the stage, especially when adapting qualitative data or empirical materials such as interview transcripts, field notes, and written documents for ethnodramatic work.

Terms and Definitions

I define two key terms as follows:

Ethnotheatre, a word joining ethnography and theatre, employs the traditional craft and artistic techniques of theatre or media production to mount for an audience a live or mediated performance event of research participants’ experiences and/or the researcher’s interpretations of data. The goal is to investigate a particular facet of the human condition for purposes of adapting those observations and insights into a performance medium. This investigation is preparatory fieldwork for theatrical production work.

An ethnodrama, a word joining ethnography and drama, is a written play script consisting of dramatized, significant selections of narrative collected from interview transcripts, participant observation field notes, journal entries, personal memories/experiences, and/or print and media artifacts such as diaries, blogs, e-mail correspondence, television broadcasts, newspaper articles, court proceedings, and historic documents. In some cases, production companies can work improvisationally and collaboratively to devise original and interpretive texts based on authentic sources. Simply put, this is dramatizing the data (adapted from Saldaña, 2005, pp. 1–2).

Ethnodrama is a specific genre of dramatic literary writing, yet its ethnotheatrical performance on stage or through media permits various artistic interpretations and styles.

Notice that this chapter’s introductory quote included a related term: verbatim play. A specific definition exists for this form, but it depends on which text you read and which artist or scholar you’re listening to. In my research about the genre, I’ve located approximately eighty unique terms (and I’ve developed a few on my own) that relate to ethnodrama or ethnotheatre, or suggest variations on the form. My goal is not to review each term’s origin and its nuanced definition, but to make you aware that the literature contains an abundance of these which can be considered siblings or distant cousins of what this book is about. Filewod (2009) calls these “a rhizomorphic archive of procedures and perceptions rather than a genealogy of forms” (p. 62). In alphabetical order, these terms follow.

autodrama	ethnodramatics
autoperformance	ethnodramatology
commemorative drama	ethnographic drama
conversational dramatism	ethnographic performance text
conversational performance	ethnographic theatre
docudrama	ethno-mimesis
documentary theatre	ethnoperformance
docu-performance	ethnostorytelling
dramatic commentary on interview	ethnotainment
data	ethnotheatre
dramatized report	everyday life performance
embodied methodological praxis	everyday theatre
ethnodrama	factual theatre
generative autobiography	performing autobiography
heritage theatre	presentational theatre
historical drama	public voice ethnography
historical reenactment	reality theatre
informance	reflexive anthropology
interview theatre	reminiscence theatre
investigative theatre	research as performance
life review	research staging
life writing	research-based theatre
lifeworld theatre	scripted research
living newspaper	self-revelatory performance
living theatre verbal art	self-performance
memory theatre	semidocumentary play
metadrama	social drama
metatheater	stand-up storytelling
mystory	stand-up theory
narradrama	testimonial theatre
natural performance	theatre as representation
nonfiction playwriting	theatre of actuality
nonfiction storytelling	theatre of fact
oral history performance	theatre of re-enactment
performance anthropology	theatre of reportage
performance ethnography	theatrical documentary
performance science	theatrical research-based performance
performative inquiry	transcription theatre
performative social science	tribunal play
performative writing	verbatim theatre
performed ethnography	word-for-word theatre
performed theory

The common thread that weaves through all of these terms is that the script or performance text is solidly rooted in nonfictional, researched reality—not realism, but reality. Be aware that if you conduct a literature review about this subject on a search engine, you may have quite a task ahead of you. I will presumptively label all plays I discuss in this book as ethnodramas, though their original playwrights may prefer other terms for their unique work.

I should also mention that the terms drama and theatre will each be used purposefully throughout this book, for there are distinct differences between the two. Theatre most often refers to the formal play production process and performed product, while drama usually refers to dramatic literature and improvisational studio work. And for those who may be wondering about spelling differences, theat er generally refers to a building or production company; theat re generally refers to the art form itself. These distinctions are generally preferred among the theatrical community but are not standardized in any way.

Why Ethnodrama and Ethnotheatre?

An ethnodramatic play script and its ethnotheatrical production are deliberately chosen as representational and presentational meth...