A Study of Mise-en-scène and Actor Directing in Contemporary Documentary Theater

Contemporary documentary theater can be considered a kind of social struggle to reproduce, shape and remember history. Documentary theater is a branch of modern theater that acts as a catalyst for social and political change, addressing issues such as government, power, behavior, customs, and public opinion Documentary theater relies on documents such as reports, records, statistical tables, and interviews to develop the form of performance and tries to engage the audience, which is one of the most important elements in theater, objectively and concretely. This article aims to identify new methods in the development of documentary theater and examines the mise-en-scène and directing in the theater based on verbatim.Verbatim seeks to raise and challenge the social and political issues and problems of the present age with a new form and method and in accordance with modern technology. This article raises the main question whether the structure of the mise-en-scène and the direction of the actor in the documentary theater based on verbatim essentially follow a certain definition or not while describing documentary theater and analyzing the different forms of verbatim.Considering the fact that verbatim is a form of theater based on recording and interviewing, directing the actor in this method happens in such a way that the characters on the stage represent real characters, and therefore the actors are obliged to observe the tone and manner of expression of the person.This research is descriptive-analytical and the result shows that the structure of verbatim consists of a triangle of technology, text and body. In the relationship between these three, we can understand the importance of the position of mise-en-scène in the process of creating a verbatim play and especially in directing the actor. Also, the actor’s play in the form of this structure is believable.