"We, as theater artists, have a duty to the world." With this statement, Robbie Saenz de Viteri, '04, sums up his driving force for interest in and creation of documentary theater, a form in which the words and beliefs of real people are placed onstage and performed by actors. These pieces often center on a current event or a core group of issues, and the play is built on interviews, and the resultant words are performed by the company. Through his independent research and research which resulted from a grant he received to study the theatrical form at Muhlenberg in the summer of 2003, Robbie now has the background and increased passion to create his own piece, which will be performed here at Muhlenberg from April 30th through May 2nd.
Frustrated with traditional acting styles, Robbie, a Theater and English double major, was introduced to and became fascinated with the work of Anna Deavere Smith while taking a class with Dr. Francesca Coppa. Beginning with her "Fires in the Mirror", a piece culled from hundreds of interviews discussing the LA riots, Robbie's interest in the process of creating documentary theater grew with his desire to know more than Smith's work, since "no one's in a class on their own". He had read much of Caryl Churchill's work, and became interested in her work with improvisation and ensembles; this interest and research served him well in his work on the Genesis Project in 2002, a special production in which twelve students created a piece of theater without working from a script.
In the spring of 2003, his fascination charged, Robbie presented an idea to the Theater department. In a four-page essay, he outlined the reasons he wanted to study documentary theater over the summer, along the positive effects it would produce on his education and potentially the education of others. With Jim Peck as his faculty advisor, Robbie was given a grant to live at the College throughout the following summer and study documentary theater at a deeper level. "Basically I read and wrote all summer", Robbie stated, studying the first incarnations of the form, which began appearing during the Russian Revolution, through its various alterations today. He also kept a journal of his thoughts and changing views and wrote a series of two to three page papers. All of this work culminated in the creation of an original piece of documentary theater, Oh, My Muhlenberg, currently in rehearsals at Muhlenberg.
Fueled by the belief that actors should be aware and responsive to the world around them, Robbie began looking for the cast of students that would help him create this piece. A major consideration in this process was finding actors who are "awake and alive to the world, not consumed by their art, but can look at the world with a critical eye." A cast of ten was assembled, all "people who are willing to break the boundaries of what they're used to with theater," and rehearsals commenced, comprising at first of a series of improvisations on topics currently of issue on campus, such as alcohol abuse and race relations. A list of faculty, staff, and students who the company believed would have interesting and passionate outlooks on these, and other issues, was compiled, and subsequently divided among the cast. The interviews completed, Robbie took the transcripts and molded them into one cohesive unit, a script specific to those whose words are spoken yet general and anonymous enough to reach a wide audience. The rehearsal process has since become a series of experiments with the script, determining what styles, actors, and techniques best suit each topic and speaker.
Though the words and construction may yet change before the play opens, the intent of this project will remain. It is important to Robbie, and all members of the company, that the world, and our small microcosm of it at Muhlenberg, be examined thoughtfully. As Robbie says, "What I like about documentary theater is it leaves you solutionless-in a way," and through wide reaching interviews, experimentation, and stretching of our own limits as theater artists, this documentary theater project aims to help its audience in that examination while spurring them to find their own answers.