Documentary dramas, performed on local stages
Two were based on interviews - with inmates and with teens living with crime.
The particular hybrid sometimes referred to as documentary or interview-based theater is alive and well - for better or worse - with recent local productions by InterAct Theatre Company and the New York-based Ping Chong & Company.
You know the genre from Anna Deavere Smith's 1992 Twilight Los Angeles, or The Laramie Project, a 2000 play by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project about the reaction to the torture-murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.
Both the local productions use a similar template to create a fact-based theater of reportage.
First, a community of concern is identified - a neighborhood (North Philadelphia, for example) and/or an age group (say, teenagers). Then oral histories of members of that community are taken, and from there the playwright creates a piece that is, at the least, relevant to those involved, and at best resonates more broadly.
The production might be a solo show or one in which the interviewees appear on stage - in chairs or on stools.
City of Numbers is of the one-man-show variety, developed by Sean Christopher Lewis in 2008, during his tenure as emerging-playwright-in-residence at InterAct, and created in collaboration with the Mural Arts Program prison outreach.
Over 90 minutes, Lewis, a graduate of the University of Iowa's MFA Playwrights Workshop, struts and strides against a backdrop of the city skyline, struggling to draw insight from his many interviews with inmates, academics, neighbors, crime victims and their families.
City of Numbers was performed Feb. 19-21 at InterAct's home in the Adrienne Theater at 20th and Sansom Streets; further performances - not open to the public - are planned this week at St. Gabriel's Hall, a juvenile detention center, and Graterford Prison.
The other example of documentary theater recently on offer locally is Secret History: The Philadelphia Story, the latest from New York-based Ping Chong & Company, who have been doing this all over the world for years.
Chong, now 62, developed his template in 1992 under the ironic title Undesirable Elements.
Since then, he has created more than 30 "Undesirable Elements" productions using a routine so established he calls it a haiku: He and his small crew swoop into a community for six to eight weeks. They take oral histories on a particular subject (in this case, what it's like to be a teenager living with crime) and write a script that the interviewees read on stage in chorale-like fashion.
Secret History: The Philadelphia Story was commissioned by the Village of Arts and Humanities in North Philadelphia - where a March 13 performance is scheduled - and created in partnership with People's Light & Theatre in Malvern, where the Friday performance already is sold out.
Chong's initial intent - to compare the lives of urban and suburban teens - had to be scrapped when People's Light could not provide enough suburban teens who were right for the project. And one of the six teens initially cast dropped out (although the sixth seat was left on stage during a Feb. 21 performance at the Painted Bride Art Center).
These productions share an admirable goal - to help communities confront and overcome problems by encouraging dialogue and giving voice to individuals whose stories may otherwise go unheard.
And Sara Zatz, a 32-year-old Bryn Mawr graduate who works with Ping Chong, says the trend toward such interview-based performances is likely to grow.
"You'll see more one-person shows, because there's less cost involved," Zatz said. "[And] as we come to rely more on citizen journalists, you'll see more documentary plays."
Remaining Public Performances
Secret History by Ping Chong
7:30 Friday at People's Light & Theatre, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern - sold out.
7:30 p.m. March 13
Village of Arts and Humanities
2544 Germantown Ave.
Admission is free, but reservations are necessary.
Contact Ayoka Quinones 215-225-7830, Ext. 205
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