Our Lady’s Folk: Creating authoritative aesthetic communication in documentary theatre

In 2014 there was a constitutional anniversary in Norway. The documentary theatre Vår Frues Folk (Our Lady’s Folk) was based on a hypothesis that staged experiences by people who function and live on the margins of the welfare state serve as a critical contribution to the celebration of the constitution. The director is at the heart of any theatre production, and is therefore at risk of colonizing the material and reproducing the interviewees’ voices from their own perspectives and artistic interests. A major question was therefore how ownership and authority could unfold thematically and aesthetically in collaboration with the interviewees. The theatre project was inspired by Hannah Arendt’s thoughts about authority and about creating arenas where the potential for spontaneous actions, dialogue and aesthetic experiences can be linked to debate about democratic politics. This article explains and discusses how design-based artistic strategies safeguarded the ability to act as an authority, act with authority, and create authoritative, aesthetic communication in documentary theatre.