AustLit

'This script combines stage and television story-telling styles to investigate how we tell and how we receive ‘the truth’ in different mediums. The script juxtaposes interior monologues, duologues and performance workshop scenarios to convey the plot, which centres on the role of performance as a data-gathering tool for a fictional research project. Unlike in research, character positionality is intended to provoke questions of credibility to illuminate the risks generated worlds of memory and its re-enactment are blurred. The first draft of the script was designed to stimulate discussion on the ethical challenges inherent in performed research within a cash-strapped research environment. The additional content included in this draft reflects both the interest in the issues the script raised and the interest in ‘Maxine’ particularly. To accentuate the thematic concern of dramatic truth, all the stories in this draft, as opposed to the script’s over-arching scenario, are from documentary sources in the public domain or from interviews with others working in different capacities with post-traumatic stress disorder. It is our intention to question the dynamic relationship between authenticity, engagement and story content. Therefore the script deliberately strays from naturalism to test the relationship between believability and mode of story delivery.' (Publication abstract)