Creating and rehearsing WOMENSwear, from reading through the first drafts of the script to getting it up on its feet, has been both an exciting and daunting experience for me as a performer – mainly because verbatim theatre requires certain things from an actor which I had not previously experienced.
WOMENSwear is a compilation of stories from several places in the world, focusing on women and perceptions of their culture specific and universal roles in society. Through our process, we have injected little pieces of ourselves and our own lives, as cast members, into the show through writing down stories and translating them into script, and this has built a new dimension to the experience of performing verbatim, and the show as a whole. However, having our own personal stories prodded and directed has at times been a challenge for all of us as a company, and trying to tell the stories of other women honestly and sensitively has also been a big focus point to work on during our rehearsal time in the studio.
Performing verbatim gets rid of the wall between what is real and what is not, for it is not a made up script, or a made up story – it is a person’s real life, typed out on paper and put in front of an actor to embody and perform.
Verbatim does not hide anything, it is quite simply that particular person’s views and emotions, their circumstances, at that time in their life. We are conveying this to the audience by telling each story through a microphone in different areas on the stage, without any movement or blocking in that sense – the staging of WOMENSwear is complicated, but the actual telling of the stories is deliberately stripped back and raw. As an actor, I have found that this takes immense concentration and focus. I am naturally quite fidgety, and I don’t like standing still for too long, so to stand in front of a microphone reading a speech is actually quite daunting for me. To be standing in front of a microphone reading and reacting to someone’s experiences, or indeed my own experiences, is sometimes completely terrifying.
Working on this play has been an incredible experience, but our approach to the text, and my approach to performing it as an actor, has been very specific. Our rehearsals have consisted of talking about the stories, partaking in conversations about the issues which are brought up, and helping each other to understand the emotions and purposes we are trying to convey during each speech. Because we are performing the stories very simplistically, we have been able to spend a great deal of time focusing just on the words themselves, relating parts to our own lives, learning to understand the impact they will have on our audience, and thinking about our purpose for telling them in the first place.
Verbatim theatre has its challenges, in the form of the pressure I know I have felt to think about each and every word I’m saying throughout this process. But is is also extremely rewarding, because I have felt a connection with every story I am telling on the stage, and I know that I am making a connection with the audience as well, and with the other actors.
Lauren x