Master of Education (Research) / Using arts-informed/narrative inquiry as its methodology, this thesis examines the creation of a performance text using verbatim theatre techniques. The play, Remembering One Day in December, evolved from the interweaving of personal narratives taken from volunteer participants, who were impacted by the 1999 Glenbrook Rail Disaster, when a crowded commuter train collided with the almost stationary Indian Pacific. It also includes documentary extracts from the first of three Public Inquiries into the event. From multiple perspectives, yet with shared motifs, the play tells the story of the day, the disillusionment with anticipated trauma support and concludes with the participants’ slow but inspiring journeys towards healing. The thesis also explores the increasing interest in performance as a research tool, because of its capacity to comprehensively present a multiplicity of complex truths. Also at this time of centralized media ownership and homogenized, reductionist media content, this thesis also suggests that the verbatim theatre form, so particularly dependent on complex cultural narratives, could be evolving as a bridge between mainstream stages and community concerns, where community can be either global or regional and some of its concerns are no longer the province of news and current affairs. Lastly this thesis offers the researcher an opportunity to reflexively examine the editing process in the construction of the play text. It describes the researcher’s journey from interviewer to story custodian and analyses how this shift in relationship affected the text’s content and structure, where the intention to deliver an authentic and compelling piece of verbatim theatre remained paramount.

Master of Education (Research) / Using arts-informed/narrative inquiry as its methodology, this thesis examines the creation of a performance text using verbatim theatre techniques. The play, Remembering One Day in December, evolved from the interweaving of personal narratives taken from volunteer participants, who were impacted by the 1999 Glenbrook Rail Disaster, when a crowded commuter train collided with the almost stationary Indian Pacific. It also includes documentary extracts from the first of three Public Inquiries into the event. From multiple perspectives, yet with shared motifs, the play tells the story of the day, the disillusionment with anticipated trauma support and concludes with the participants’ slow but inspiring journeys towards healing. The thesis also explores the increasing interest in performance as a research tool, because of its capacity to comprehensively present a multiplicity of complex truths. Also at this time of centralized media ownership and homogenized, reductionist media content, this thesis also suggests that the verbatim theatre form, so particularly dependent on complex cultural narratives, could be evolving as a bridge between mainstream stages and community concerns, where community can be either global or regional and some of its concerns are no longer the province of news and current affairs. Lastly this thesis offers the researcher an opportunity to reflexively examine the editing process in the construction of the play text. It describes the researcher’s journey from interviewer to story custodian and analyses how this shift in relationship affected the text’s content and structure, where the intention to deliver an authentic and compelling piece of verbatim theatre remained paramount.

On January 30, 1972, in Derry, Northern Ireland, British soldiers opened fire on Irish citizens participating in a peaceful civil rights march, killing thirteen men and injuring as many others. This event, called “Bloody Sunday,” was the subject of two formal inquiries by the British government, one conducted by Lord Widgery in 1972 that exonerated the British soldiers and one led by Lord Saville, which published its findings in June 2010 and found the British troops to be at fault. Before the second investigation gave its report, a number of dramatic productions had contradicted the official British version of events and presented the Irish point of view. Two films and two plays in particular—the drama The Freedom of the City (1973), the filmed docudramas Bloody Sunday and Sunday (both 2002), and the documentary theater production Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry (2005)—were aimed at audiences that did not recognize the injustices that took place in Derry. All four dramatic presentations in some way replicate the words and actions of one or more significant individuals involved in the march or in the investigation that followed it. This report examines the possibilities and limitations of the three different genres the authors used to present the truth about the atrocity that the British government refused to acknowledge for thirty-eight years. It also reassesses the success and value of each production in the light of the Saville Inquiry findings. / text

Background: Empathy is essential to forming strong patient-physician relationships that enable physicians to provide better healthcare. In the medical education literature, empathy consists of cognitive, affective, behavioural, and moral domains. Studies have measured declines in empathy during medical training. Researchers speculate that factors within formal, informal, and hidden curricula contribute to empathic decline. Several frameworks suggest that empathy in the moral domain (i.e., the inner motivation to accept patients unconditionally, commit to understanding patients, and help patients achieve their needs) is the most fundamental to the empathic response. Studying the factors that influence moral empathy during training is important to developing insights into the reasons for the demonstrated declines in resident empathy. Methods: Descriptive phenomenology was used to address the research objective. Medical residents from various specialties participated in lightly structured interviews concerning their experiences. Interview transcripts were inductively and collaboratively analyzed to construct a preliminary set of factors that influence moral empathy. These factors informed the creation of a script for a verbatim theatre play that was performed for an audience of residents, educators, learners, researchers, and scholars. Following the play, audience participants completed a survey that served as a member-check of the factors that contributed to the final construction of factors. Results: The results were constructed as three categories under which seven factors are nested. These categories are: Innate Capacity, Previous Personal Encounters, and Specific Patient Encounters. With the exception of a few, most factors do not directly influence residents’ moral empathy but rather challenge their ability to act on their moral empathy. Discussion: These results offer unique insights into the declines in empathy that have been previously reported in the medical education literature, while also highlighting a moral-behavioural tension that has implications for competency-based medical education, the four-factor model of empathy, and the assessment of empathy in medical education. Future work may build on the results of this study to develop an assessment tool for moral empathy and to elucidate the relationships between the domains of empathy in order to arrive at a more refined conceptualization of the construct. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Empathy—the ability to comprehend the experiences of others—is an important tool that enables physicians to build relationships with patients, which helps them provide better healthcare. Studies have shown that empathy declines during medical training due to a variety of factors. Frameworks describing the empathic response suggest that one’s inner motivation to accept patients unconditionally, commit to understanding patients, and help patients achieve their needs may be fundamental to providing clinical care with empathy. As such, the goal of this study was to explore the factors that influence these inner motivations of residents in order to gain insights about the evidence that purports residents to demonstrate less empathy as they progress in their training. To address this objective, 10 medical residents from various specialties were interviewed about their experiences, the data were analyzed by way of a descriptive phenomenological methodology, and the initial findings were presented as a verbatim theatre play as a means of member-checking the proposed results. After viewing the play, an audience of medical residents, educators, learners, researchers, and scholars provided feedback through a survey that contributed to the final conclusions of the study. In this regard, the study shows that, apart from a few factors, residents’ inner motivations to be empathic are not significantly influenced during medical training. Rather, certain factors associated with residency affect their ability to deliver on their inner motivations. This study offers insights into the role of motivation in empathic decline, assessment of empathy during medical training, and potential significance of a tension between one’s motivation to be empathic and the opportunities that they are afforded to be empathic during residency.

This research-creation thesis describes and analyzes the dramaturgical methodologies of verbatim theatre – a form of documentary theatre that uses transcripts as the dominant source of its dialogue – through the practical exercise of play writing. This paper marks the theoretical component of my thesis, which analyzes both the dramaturgical process and the historical context of my play Exhibit A. Using verbatim transcripts from legal evidence for its dialogue, the play examines the psychology of two teenage boys responsible for the brutal rape and murder of an 18-year-old Canadian woman in 2010. As documentary theatre emphasizes socio-political themes, this thesis considers the dramaturgical, aesthetic, and ethical considerations of verbatim theatre through my experience as a playwright and researcher. Acknowledging both the historical antecedents of documentary theatre and its contemporary examples, this thesis will define an original typology of verbatim theatre entitled the “Subcategories of Verbatim Theatre”. These subcategories are identified as Tribunal, Literary, Historical Drama, Expository and Participatory. Each privileges different types and usages of documents, which are further defined as being primarily related to “text” or “aural” based testimony. The thesis relates the dramaturgical principles of each subcategory to artistic choices made in Exhibit A. A description of the various incarnations of verbatim and documentary theatre, as well as an analysis of my experience as a documentary playwright examines the dramatic representation of reality as highly constructed in this form of theatre where the selection and editing of a documentary play's archive is a creative process that is not dissimilar from the creation of fictional drama. In that sense, the documentary genre can be said to present a dramatic representation of the playwright's subjective version of the truth. Exhibit A thus stands as my creative reconstruction of the evidence presented in the Kimberly Proctor murder trial.

This research-creation thesis describes and analyzes the dramaturgical methodologies of verbatim theatre – a form of documentary theatre that uses transcripts as the dominant source of its dialogue – through the practical exercise of play writing. This paper marks the theoretical component of my thesis, which analyzes both the dramaturgical process and the historical context of my play Exhibit A. Using verbatim transcripts from legal evidence for its dialogue, the play examines the psychology of two teenage boys responsible for the brutal rape and murder of an 18-year-old Canadian woman in 2010. As documentary theatre emphasizes socio-political themes, this thesis considers the dramaturgical, aesthetic, and ethical considerations of verbatim theatre through my experience as a playwright and researcher. Acknowledging both the historical antecedents of documentary theatre and its contemporary examples, this thesis will define an original typology of verbatim theatre entitled the “Subcategories of Verbatim Theatre”. These subcategories are identified as Tribunal, Literary, Historical Drama, Expository and Participatory. Each privileges different types and usages of documents, which are further defined as being primarily related to “text” or “aural” based testimony. The thesis relates the dramaturgical principles of each subcategory to artistic choices made in Exhibit A. A description of the various incarnations of verbatim and documentary theatre, as well as an analysis of my experience as a documentary playwright examines the dramatic representation of reality as highly constructed in this form of theatre where the selection and editing of a documentary play's archive is a creative process that is not dissimilar from the creation of fictional drama. In that sense, the documentary genre can be said to present a dramatic representation of the playwright's subjective version of the truth. Exhibit A thus stands as my creative reconstruction of the evidence presented in the Kimberly Proctor murder trial.

One-Third of a Nation, the Second Amendment, a Living Newspaper Play Thesis By Linda Ann Watt for a MFA Degree in Theatre Pedagogy Documentary theatre, including living newspapers and verbatim theatre, use socio-political commentary at critical moments in history to disseminate facts and offer ideological critique dramatizing the crisis through the lens of emotion, which can incite societal change. This thesis explores this didactic medium with a written play about the second Amendment and gun violence.

This research project comprises a stage play Section 24 of the Criminal Code, and accompanying exegesis, which focuses upon the experience of a woman accessing the Criminal Justice system after she is raped. The play is in the verbatim model and draws upon court transcript, which is deconstructed to reveal the workings of Defence counsel 'storylines' and meta-narratives of gender, sexual availability and power. The exegesis investigates attitudes toward rape and rape victims perpetuated by Australian popular culture, and the way that myths about false rape complaints and 'deserving victims' continue to influence the reporting and conviction rates for rape. The thesis argues that recent reforms have yet to make an impact on the conviction rate or experience of women accessing the Justice system, because of entrenched misogyny within the system itself. Several factors contribute to widespread ignorance of the reality of our own Criminal Justice system, and the thesis proposes that a work of verbatim theatre may redress the paucity of understanding that enables the dysfunction of the current system. The paper explores the different approaches taken by Verbatim theatre practitioners and the appropriateness of the Verbatim theatre model for communicating this particular (lived) experience. Questions of ownership over one's story, and representation in that story indicate the emancipatory potential of a work. Where practitioners do not have a personal connection to their subject matter or material and access material that is already in the public domain, they may feel a greater freedom to manipulate story and character for dramatic effect, or to suit an activist agenda for change. It is shown that a playwright with a personal connection to her material and subject must address issues of ownership, ethical representation, veracity and verisimilitude when creating a piece of verbatim theatre. Preferencing the truth of the Complainant Woman's experience over the orthodoxies of the well-made play may contribute to a negative response to the work from male audiences. However, the thesis concludes that the subject of rape and its prosecution invokes a gendered response in itself, and ultimately questions the desirability of presenting a play that delivers a palatable story rather than an unpleasant truth.

Le théâtre verbatim, une pratique scénique dont le texte repose entièrement sur les mots exacts énoncés par des personnes réelles, est au coeur d’une renaissance remarquable et inattendue du genre en Grande-Bretagne depuis le milieu des années quatre-vingt-dix. Au même moment, les metteurs en scène britanniques contemporains ont déclaré avoir trouvé de nouvelles approches pour une pratique du théâtre politique par son entremise. En dépit de la dominante anti-réaliste qui semble encore à l’heure actuelle caractériser la culture postmoderne, on admet le plus souvent que le réalisme documentaire est resté le mode par excellence de représentation des pièces verbatim sur scène. Il va donc de soi que ce théâtre, ainsi défini, ignore du même coup les récents bouleversements survenus sur la scène théâtrale britannique. À travers une étude comparative de sept spectacles que nous considérons comme représentatifs du théâtre verbatim, il est affirmé qu’il y a bien eu, malgré tout, des spectacles verbatim dont la nature discontinue implique l’éloignement du réalisme comme élément fédérateur de la représentation. Ces spectacles, qui font appel à l’expérimentation esthétique sous de multiples formes, approfondissent et transgressent ce que nous pourrions entendre par « théâtre verbatim ». Le but de cette analyse est donc d’étudier le théâtre verbatim à contre-courant de ses propres affirmations d’authenticité et de véracité et de suggérer la nécessité d'un discours qui articule mieux l’interdépendance entre les impératifs esthétiques et les possibilités d’un engagement social. Enfin, cette thèse rend compte de l’existence d’une diversité de variables esthétiques dans le théâtre verbatim d’aujourd'hui qui vise un public habitué aux nouveaux médias. À cet égard, ces variables sont regroupées selon trois positions théoriques, chacune étant analysée et traitée de manière distincte et illustrée par des exemples concrets. Par le biais de cette étude, nous espérons ainsi mettre en lumière les esthétiques mouvantes du théâtre verbatim, afin d’en établir une histoire critique et de contribuer à la formulation de ce champ de recherche si riche, autant d’un point de vue scientifique que du point de vue de la pratique vivante de l’art théâtral. / Beyond Documentary Realism: Aesthetic Transgressions in Contemporary British Verbatim Theatre Verbatim theatre, a type of performance based on actual words spoken by ‘real people’, has been at the heart of a remarkable and unexpected renaissance of the genre in Great Britain since the mid-nineties. Simultaneously, contemporary British theatre-makers claimed to have found a renewed avenue to politics through this particular medium. In spite of recent shifts in the British theatrical landscape as well as the much-vaunted postmodern culture of anti-realism, documentary realism is generally conceded to have remained the normative mode of presentation for verbatim plays on stage. Through a comparative examination of seven representative verbatim productions, this dissertation argues, however, that there has been an equally persistent strand of verbatim works that involves a move away from realism as the key element in performance. These productions make use of a wide variety of aesthetic experiments that broaden and transgress what we might understand as verbatim theatre. The strategy adopted by this study is thus to read verbatim theatre against the grain of its claim to ‘authenticity’ and ‘truthfulness’ and to suggest the need for a discourse which better articulates an interdependence between its aesthetic imperatives and the possibilities of social engagement. Finally, this dissertation accounts for the existence of a range of aesthetic variables in present-day verbatim theatre which is aimed at more media-aware contemporary audiences. These are grouped into three theoretical positions, each of them being analysed and discussed in a separate part and illustrated by case studies. It is hoped that, through this argument, the changing aesthetics of verbatim theatre will be illuminated and that – on however small a scale – this doctoral dissertation will contribute to a critical history and theoretical formulation of the complexity of this rich field as both a scholarly discipline and a lived practice.

VOLÁK, Jiří."Acts of Resistance": Productions by Belarus Free Theatre from 2005 to 2015 as an Alternative Articulation of Belarusian National Identity. Praha, 2016. 74 s. Diplomová práce (Mgr.) Univerzita Karlova, Fakulta sociálních věd, Institut mezinárodních studií. Katedra ruských a východoevropských studií. Vedoucí diplomové práce Mgr. Daniela Kolenovská, Ph.D.. Abstract The study aims to make sense of contemporary conceptions of national identity in Belarus via their cultural manifestations. For that purpose, the case of Belarus Free Theatre (BFT) has been chosen as an example of alternative culture in 2005-2015. Five plays are analysed with respect to the employed verbatim technique, and conclusions concerning the alternative society and its relation to language and other national issues are drawn. Key questions are: What are the major competing projects regarding the (supposedly weak) Belarusian national identity? Does Belarus Free Theatre use culture to promote a certain vision within the national identity debate? What language policy does Belarus Free Theatre employ and what does it say about the national development? After setting theoretical background, the study follows attempts to characterise Belarus under the rule of president Aliaksandr Lukashenka, offering basic facts about how he came to...