It is a historical debate whether an actor should draw on his or her own experiences and feelings when trying to create a believable character. It is most notably associated with Stanislavski and the early developments of his system. If one taps into one’s own thoughts and memories to construct a fictional personality, the result can be extremely believable.

It does, furthermore, seem natural to bring into play our true experiences when being creative – it makes a piece more believable, more watchable. However, most people would, I think, accept that distancing oneself from a creative process is perhaps a healthy thing to do. I know that I would find it extremely difficult to use my deepest secrets in their entirety to write, perform, or be creative in some way; there is always an element of having to decorate our truths with imagination and focus on achieving something that is interesting, entertaining and thought-provoking. Nonetheless, there is something about bringing reality into the world of theatre that is extremely captivating.

When sat in the Finborough Theatre last week watching Sometimes I Laugh Like My Sister – a play about Rebecca Peyton’s sister, BBC journalist Kate Peyton, who was murdered in Somalia – I discovered a new kind of theatre constructed from real life events. It was a theatrical experience like no other, darkly comedic and glaringly real, and certainly a piece that uses Rebecca Peyton’s own emotional memories to create something absolutely mesmerising.

Before going to see the production, I knew absolutely nothing about it – sometimes it is nice to go into a show blind, unaware of what you might be getting. I didn’t realise at first that Rebecca Peyton was actually being played by Rebecca Peyton herself – surely someone could not dramatise their own grief? How could someone bear to do such a thing?

The one thing about traumatic experience that I am thankful for is that when I look back on it, I can barely remember what happened. No matter how hard I try, it is mostly a blur. To pour colour, life and energy into a past tragedy would be the most painful of all; the ability to give structure to something that, by its very nature, will always seem unjust and then re-live it over and over is inconceivable to me. Peyton had, however, done just that to her own tragedy, weaving her every thought and reaction into a coherent dialogue and colouring it with dark humour, perfect clarity of expression and deeply considered bodily movements.

In Michael Billington’s article ‘E is for Experiment’ he muses on the paradoxical nature of controversial theatre in our society today – he suggests that it isn’t experimental anymore because “it is often critically praised, subsidised and welcomed into temples of high art like the National”. I know what he means – nothing is really shocking anymore: politics, religion, violence… we’ve heard it all before. Billington then goes on to talk about theatre companies that he believes do have more of a “radical purpose”, such as Cardboard Citizens which creates plays with homeless people – theatre companies that bring theatre into society and tell a true story. I also think we could talk about verbatim theatre here. Docu-plays, such as those from iceandfire, are amazing because they are a platform that can be used to give a voice to people’s real-life experiences – people who ordinarily would never be able to speak out.

So, why is this kind of theatre appealing? Why is it radical? It is because it invites the audience into the performance on a different, and more personal, level whereby we enter into the real lives of the performers in front of us. Something that, if done well, pushes the audience into a new level of experience.  Rebecca Peyton has achieved this, and I hope to see more of it in the future.