| Ethnographic theatre emerged in the U.S. in the early 1990s and argues for the inclusion of marginalized, oppressed, and excluded subjects in the national cultural imaginary and full rights of citizenship. This dissertation provides a functional definition of ethnographic theatre as a type of performance based in extensive ethnographic research, which uses stylized, non-naturalistic staging and which bears accountability to the studied community. Ethnographic theatre combines anthropological research data with the creative editing, and often the fictional writing, of the playwright(s). This results in a performed rendering of a particular community's life and captures aspects of people's speech, movement, and interactions which could not be fully depicted by the written word. Because ethnographic plays tend to focus on marginalized communities, these performances shed light on the daily lives, identities, and personal, social, political, and historical struggles of people who are often stereotyped and misrepresented. In this manner, ethnographic theatre makes a public, cultural intervention in the traditional discourse, or silence, surrounding the community depicted in a given play. As a means of investigating the significance of ethnographic theatre and the politics of representation, I analyze the work of Anna Deavere Smith, Culture Clash, Michael Keck, Jessica Blank, and Erik Jensen, as well as my own ethnographic play, in terms of how these plays depict and expand notions of community and the nation. |
