Reality theatre as a method for social science research: the Vietnamese diaspora in central europe

ABSTRACT

This article examines the use of reality theatre and its seemingly distinct categories, ethnotheatre and documentary theatre, within the social sciences. Reality theatre employs qualitative methodology, data production, and factual information as a basis for the staging process and interlinks social science research with creative practice. This approach, I argue, results in performances that are not only entertaining but informative, educational, or function pedagogically as a stimulus for social change. I argue that the division of reality theatre into several categories can be omitted in favour of a broader approach, in order to analyse the sociocultural realities staged through performance. This is demonstrated through analysis of two theatre projects from Central Europe focused on the Vietnamese diaspora – Rimini Protokoll’s Vùng biên giới (Border Area) (2009), and the Czech part of the What’SAP project (a two-year project connecting Czech Republic, Serbia, Hungary, and France in an exchange of knowledge creation and audience participation in intercultural dialogues) called Každý má v sobě dva vlky (Everyone Has Two Wolves Inside of Them) (2023). By examining and analysing how each project utilises reality theatre, I present them as important examples of the links between social science and contemporary theatre practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnotheatre
• performance ethnography
• documentary theatre
• reality theatre
• Vietnamese diaspora

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. What’SAP – Exchange of Social Practices was a two-year international project. The project was co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. During the years 2020–2022, the partnering organizations provided platforms for selected artists to explore and create a social theatre performance along with representatives of a specific community.

2. Author’s translation: Everyone Has Two Wolves Inside of Them, working title.

3. As the school performance was a part of a larger project including multiple performance versions, in this article I focus solely on the production designed for students from the beginning of Autumn 2022.

4. Author’s translation: Border Area.

5. Sapa is the largest shopping and cultural centre run predominantly by members of the Vietnamese diaspora in Czech Republic. It is located in Prague and serves both as a market for anyone interested in Vietnamese cuisine and goods and as a service hub aimed inward to the Vietnamese diaspora.

6. Viet Up is an alliance providing services connected to education, integration, and communication among young Vietnamese living in Czech society.

7. As mentioned above, many different terms can be used to describe the individual reality theatre approaches. The distinctions between them are, however, tenuous. The differentiation might possibly serve individual theatre practitioners when addressing their personal performance style, but when referring to the wider concept, I prefer not to divide it by terminology.

8. I am following the generational divide according to Freidingerová (2014). The first generation consists of Vietnamese immigrants who arrived to Czech Republic (or Central Europe) during their adulthood either for studies, practise, or work. The ‘one and a half’ generation is defined by immigrants who came to Czech Republic when young, approximately around ten years of age. And finally, the second generation includes children, who either migrated when very young (around five years of age) or were born in Czech Republic.

9. The first generation Vietnamese migrants often work as owners of family businesses; convenience shops, restaurants, or nail salons are the most common cases in the Czech Republic.

10. The term banana children is sometimes used to refer to the difference between one’s look (yellow, indicating Vietnamese descent) and one’s inside – upbringing and culture (white, as in the Czech influence on these children). Initially appearing in internet discussions and blogs written by young Czech-Vietnamese in the early 2000s, the term has been used more colloquially than as some kind of official title. Not all Czech-Vietnamese are comfortable with the term and view it more as a slur (Homoláč and Sherman 2020).

Additional information

Funding

The funding for the present research paper was provided by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports for specific research [IGA_FF_2022_062].