Output details

Beyond Verbatim: Dramatising the Search for Jean McConville

Bill Hopkinson – artistic and project director; Jane McNulty, playwright.

Research Imperatives: the project was funded by Edge Hill University and supported by The Lowry Theatre, Salford and during script development by Northwest Playwrights. For the purposes of this document the research question is: can there ever be a site of authenticity in verbatim theatre? However this was an open-ended process beginning in a laboratory situation with actors, the script developed over a period with Hopkinson’s role shifting from dramaturg to production director. The wider imperative being to find an appropriate theatrical form for the material.

Research Context: precursors can be found in David Hare’s Via Dolorosa (1998); Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van; and Gregory Burke’s Black Watch (2008). The script was developed with an awareness of the evolving possibilities of Verbatim and advocacy theatre.

Outputs: This project is a result of nearly a decade of conversations between Jean McConville’s daughter Helen and playwright Jane McNulty. It presents a subjective view of the issues filtered through the daughter’s and subsequently the playwright’s sensibility. The project takes the form of a playscript and production and post-performance discussion platforms. Shown/exhibited/disseminated: national tour: Ormskirk; Halifax; Liverpool; Manchester. The text was published in a limited print run with accompanying essay and disseminated as a programme/playtext to audiences.

The submission is completed with complementary academic writing: a peer-reviewed journal article which explores the limits of Verbatim practice when exploring the subjective experience of trauma in war. The form is deliberately and appropriately a hybrid: critique of current practice and scholarship in the field and a dialogue between playwright and dramaturg/director.