Arts and Health: Hush

In her second instalment on Arts and Health, Renee Liang talks to director Stuart Young about Hush - verbatim theatre which explores the difficult territory of family violence in New Zealand.

“In its short performance life so far Hush has already gathered some impressive stories of empowering those it portrays,” says Renee.

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Recently I had an unusual theatrical experience.  It was unusual because it consciously straddled the line between truth and pretending (also known as acting): a line that actors and directors usually try to blur so the audience believes that what they are seeing is real.  In Hush, a piece of documentary theatre currently travelling the country, the line is actively pointed out, because what is being performed is real.  In fact so real that actors become merely a conduit to the real person speaking, a 3-D mask if you will.

Hush explores difficult territory: family violence in New Zealand.  I am familiar with stories like this, unfortunately; one of my memories as a medical student is interviewing a woman in a GP surgery, around my own age, who had been beaten up. I ended up offering her a lift home, all the while trying to persuade her not to return to her abusive partner (she told me it wasn’t the first time he’d done this).  I was naïve enough at the time to think I could influence her life in the space of one short car ride.  I’ve seen or heard enough since to know that such stories are just the tip of the iceberg, and often reflect pain perpetuated through generations.  And doctors aren’t the people who can fix it.

Hush approaches such stories from an entirely different discipline – documentary theatre. Part research and part theatre project, it’s taken a few years to painstakingly develop the process of interviewing victims (and sometimes perpetrators) of family violence, gaining their trust, and shaping the material into something which reflects the truth of the stories told, whilst remaining theatrically gripping.  The seven actors use ipods to listen to the recorded, edited interviews, doing their best to reproduce the delivery of the story “verbatim, in real time” as told by the subject. They study visual tapes before each performance so that they can reproduce gestures as well.  The subjects (as projected by the actors) tell their stories with the matter-of-factness of people  used to telling their stories many times over.  Although their emotion is flattened, the content is both deeply disturbing and strangely engaging.  As an audience member I felt some of that discomfort of therapist-as-voyeur, but the performances drew me in.

Hush is currently being developed as a theatre piece, not as therapy or even education.  But I wonder how experiences like this could be applied to health.  The idea of theatre is therapy is not new, of course.  It’s long been used as a medium to help the ‘oppressed’ feel heard, or to encourage people to view their life narrative in a different way.  But in its short performance life so far Hush has already gathered some impressive stories of empowering those it portrays, and it excites me to find another intersection between the arts and health.  I interviewed one of the show’s creators, and its director, Stuart Young of the University of Otago.

Renee: Has there been much "documentary theatre" done in NZ?

Stuart: Not much; that's why we wanted to explore the genre, to introduce it to New Zealanders. Miranda Harcourt has done the most conspicuous work, with her play VERBATIM, which creates composite characters and a narrative from people she interviewed, and her (auto)biographical/family pieces.

Renee: What's the history of the genre overseas?

Stuart: Over the past 15 years or so there has been a lot of work done in this area - in the US and in Europe, especially the UK.

Renee: Can you explain your process of making the play - what is a "verbatim play"?

Stuart: Through agencies (Police, Stopping Violence, Women's Refuge) we were put in touch with people who have been directly affected by family violence.  We interviewed those people and from their testimony created our 75-minute play. Nothing is invented; everything is verbatim from those interviews.

Renee: What have been some of the challenges you faced in making a play about such a delicate topic?

Stuart: Protecting our interviewees.  We were always most concerned that our intrusion would not re-traumatise them.  We have been concerned to preserve their anonymity, unless they sought otherwise.

Structuring and shaping the material into a viable play.

Persuading potential audiences that this is something that will intrigue and engage them; that it is not unrelentingly grim and earnest!

Renee: The concept of "actor as avatar" is quite interesting, and throws up all sorts of questions about the role and veracity of theatre.  Have you had any participants watch "themselves" on stage, and what has been their response?

Stuart: All but one or two of the participants (very minor roles) have seen themselves.  Obviously there's been an element of self-consciousness:  "Do I really make all those sorts of gestures?"  More crucially, the most potentially vulnerable people have been very positive about the experience.  Some found it very affirming to have their stories (re)told and believed.  All felt it was very important to share their stories as a way of increasing awareness and debate regarding family violence.

Renee: What has been the response of the audience?

Stuart: Extremely positive.  They have been moved, and pleasantly surprised that it is not harrowing, that the device of relaying the testimony via ipods, through these avatar actors creates a sense of safety and a distance from the rawness of the experiences reported.

Renee: What kind of research questions are you exploring with this production?

Stuart: Questions to do with acting, and strategies with creating and staging documentary theatre.

Renee: Are you looking at any effects of this play outside of theatre topics, for example its role as a tool to raise awareness, or even as therapy?

Stuart: We want to increase awareness of the topic and to present it in a way that people can relate to, in a way that is not the case via media stories of the more horrific examples of family violence, which often present people as monsters.

Renee: What have you got planned next?

Stuart: Another project is in the pipeline for next year - on a lighter topic - something concerning identity.

Related story: Arts and Health - Interview with Bernadette Brewer of Toi Ora Arts Trust.