Introduction to The Paper Birds

The Paper Birds is a UK-based theatre company, much like Frantic Assembly, that focuses their work on deeply realistic Social Justice plays. One of their most well-known practices is verbatim interviews, wherein they take direct text from research of an event and words from the people involved to create a script. They also utilize different items and symbols for motifs, which serve as a consistent reminder of the  theme that has been narrowed down from the original umbrella theme.
Although the idea of verbatim theatre is not entirely new to me, I found it very interesting that The Paper Birds take a very direct approach to sourcing information and how carefully they copy people. Not only will they take words exactly as they are said, but even a person’s posture and mannerisms will be replicated as accurately as possible. Personally, I am very drawn to this practice because of how involved it requires an actor to be within their character. While there is always a level of performance and separation from a role, I would love to see how deep an actor can go into another person’s life. 

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