Real performance: Ordinary people and the ‘problem’ of acting in constructed documentaries

ABSTRACT

This essay takes as its starting point the recent phenomenon of ‘constructed documentaries’, which require participants to act 'as if in a historical time or place that is not their own. Noting that there is little critical consensus about, though much interest in, what kind of ‘acting’ is undertaken, the essay explores some of the problems and issues that arise, drawing on an essay written by the actor/director Michael Kirby (‘From Acting to Non-Acting’). Kirby's methodology is applied to two ‘BBC Cymru Wales’ constructed documentaries, The Coal House (2007) and Coal House at War (2008). It is argued that ‘acting’ in such programmes is not a fixed state; rather, participants move along an acting/non-acting continuum, which frequently requires them to hold two time frames—of their ‘real’, contemporary world and their reconstructed world—in tension. The analysis is informed by research with audiences of both series.

KEYWORDS:

• acting and performance
• constructed documentary
• historical reality programmes