Talk to Me About "Home"
by Estelle Rosen
Joel Bernbaum is an actor, playwright, journalist and the co-artistic director of Sum Theatre. He is a graduate of Carleton University, where he did his Master's Thesis on Verbatim Theatre's Relationship to Journalism. Later this year Dancing Sky Theatre will produce his play Operation Big Rock and Sum Theatre will tour My Rabbi (co-written with Kayvon Kelly) to the Edinburgh Festival. Both of these plays have also received workshops at the Belfry Theatre.
CHARPO: Clearly verbatim theatre has long been of interest considering it was an element in your thesis. What was the process for this play particularly the follow-up interviews asking participants to pose questions as well as answer, and your holistic look at homelessness.
BERNBAUM: Verbatim theatre is thriving. When I was writing my thesis on verbatim theatre's relationship to journalism, there were several examples on the Canadian theatre scene alone of powerful and popular verbatim theatre productions. Oonagh Duncan's Talk Thirty To Me - about aging. Annabel Soutar's Seeds - about a Saskatchewan farmer's fight against big business. Andew Kushnir and Project:Humanity's The Middle Place - about shelter youth. Among others, these examples show the appeal of the real. The theatre is a place where we come to imagine, and to believe in lies. But it can also be a place where we come together to hear real people speak their truths.
