Documentary = arbitrary: A few practical-theoretical impulses

The 2014 Mladi levi international festival directed its overall programme scheme towards documentary and participatory performances, and it also offered a workshop on documentary theatre. The formats of documentary and participatory theatre (with all their variants) don’t just trace the artistic maturity of a certain environment in itself but are always also indices showing the broader picture of the social (political, cultural, etc.) and thereby mental situation of a certain space and time. This contribution combines theory and practice; it considers documentary theatre in various theoretical frameworks, compares its various staging approaches (personal memory, collective memory, simulations, reconstructions) and offers a brief insight into the creation and the procedures of this genre.