Culture

Members: Sandra Turner, Miriam Noonan, Chrissy Hollamby, Karen Jacquard, Glenda Wallace and Penny Warren.

Playback theatre is spontaneous theatre that aims to build community through telling personal stories and exposing shared experiences. This is a bold aim, and in today’s busy world where everybody lives in a little microcosm of one’s own, I can see why this type of theatre would be beneficial.
 
But having today experienced playback theatre for the first time, I am struck by a number of things. I think there are other theatrical forms that could and do achieve the above aim better. In my experience, improvisation troupes are better trained and funnier. Documentary theatre can take people’s stories and rehearse and develop them in a way that truly honours the people involved and their stories. Given that documentary theatre is a newish, growing and arguably more comprehensive theatrical form, it cannot be produced at the rate that playback theatre can. But, the pay-off is that it is superior, more sensitive and more pointed.
 
I am a theatre student, reviewer and practitioner. I would say that 90% of the people in the Dunedin Playback Theatre Company are members of the local community rather than members of the theatrical community. I’m not being elitist, but there are skills, conventions and things that people who are performing on a stage need to know and honour. From what I saw today I would like to offer some suggestions: if you are performing to a specific community, such as an audience of university students, you need your team to be comprised of people who can relate to this; you need students, or people that have been students. Today was kind of like watching a bunch of mums on stage. The stories they played-back were often detached and quite separate to the ones they had been given, which led me to really question the point of this form; why were they doing this?
 
I guess the Dunedin Playback Theatre Company want to help communities and facilitate community spirit and growth. I can respect that. I just really don’t think that the Allen Hall Theatre at the University of Otago is a great place to do it.