Memoria virtual

Like most testimonial playwrights whose work I studied, I did not have spe- cific ideas of what testimonies gathered through the fieldwork interviews would ultimately look like. During the course of the fieldwork and through the transcription, I did not know how I would shape the material. The the- atrical framework could not be decided before hand, since such a decision could only be made in view of the material gathered. Together with possibly

114

many others working from the same premise, I could do no more than tell the subjects that I am a playwright, divulge the research topic and then ask for an interview. This being the case, I am inclined to suggest that the consent granted is not complete, since the request is made on incomplete grounds. In other words, if the playwright does not have any idea in advance of what would be on the tapes or how they will subsequently use the recordings, the interviewee cannot really know what they are consenting to. Making the call on what to include and exclude led me to wonder whether, if they had known, interviewees would have agreed and would they have given the details they did?

I suggest that there are inherent dichotomies in promising somebody com- plete anonymity in the finished product and asking for consent to use the tes- timonies in unspecified ways. Testimonial playwriting, in a manner of speak- ing, asks for people who agree to participate in the research to sign ‘blank confessional’ pieces of paper and trust the playwright to fill in the blanks in their absence. As the case of David Hare and the bankers in The Power of Yes

illustrates, the playwright may ask for consent and manipulate the signed consent. It is contradictory, then, to ask for complete cooperation and then ask somebody to sign away all and every right to the material. It is not often that a playwright produces a second copy of the interview for the interview subject.

In any case, this may not necessarily be possible given the fact that pseudo- nyms are used, and, in the case of my work, no details that would tie or allow for people to tie the interviewees to their testimonies were captured. If one was to suggest consent given initially in part, or in stages, then anonymity should it be desired, would be compromised. If asylum seekers use their real or legal identities, they further subject themselves to the mercy and integrity of the playwright, which cannot always be relied on. In the case of political asylum seekers, security of persons overrides such a possibility.

This study further suggests that there is a difference between being granted an interview or an audience by a person who has no prior knowledge of the- atre or testimonial theatre in particular – who may take the playwright re- searcher as a confidante – and interpreting this rapport as consent to restruc- ture their testimony through performance. There seems to be a tendency for playwrights in general and in the case of this study in particular, to mistake the interview process for an intimate connection between the two parties. While it is true that the interviews lead to intimate disclosures, testimonial playwrights and critics alike valorize this as a necessary bond of trust. This

study suggests that the intimate disclosures happen because people find it easier to disclose such detail to strangers. The strangers, in turn, ought to be responsible in how they handle the material.

As highlighted in earlier sections, the prevailing use of consent forms is hard- ly adequate. If, for instance, the interviewees sign the release forms with an alias, the legitimacy of documents become suspect. This leaves the process open to manipulation by the playwright, who can then solicit for interviews and switch on tape recorders on unsuspecting individuals and capture sen- timents and stories which may be ‘true’ but trample on ethical or even legal rights. This study suggests that the current formulation of testimonial theatre presents a problematic working frame that valorizes disclosure, but sits on uneasy ethical and methodological grounds. Testimonial theatre, in a sense, is constructed on the commodification of ‘otherness’. Through this commodi- fication, Thompson asks theatre makers who solicit for testimonies ‘by asking to hear, must we retell?’ (2005: 25).

Finally, the study suggests that the granting of permission is not, in itself, ev- idence of due ethical process. For instance, it is possible that interview sub- jects might be motivated to help out of a sense of obligation or parental duty. In the case of this study project, the fact that in a foreign land I spoke the home language of some of the interviewees and was a student at a reputable institution, probably helped in ways that cannot be quantified and constitute part of the researcher’s positionality. Playwright positionality becomes cru- cial as Alcoff warns, the desire to protect those perceived as weak might be ‘born of a desire for mastery, to privilege oneself as the one who more cor- rectly understands the truth about another’s situation or one who can cham- pion a just cause and thus achieve glory and praise’ (1992: 29).