Real people as actors: Actors as real people

In seeking to establish authenticity, certain documentary theatre forms cast real people, as opposed to actors, to perform or present their own stories. This essay explores the tension between veracity and verisimilitude in terms of the framing of the performer's identity, with reference to some examples of documentary theatre in post-1998 Northern Ireland. Further it considers what happens onstage when actors appear who themselves have social agency as real people in the public sphere (outside the theatre). In so doing I seek to foreground the possibilities for the actor's public profile to contribute to affect and ultimately meaning construed in the transaction with a knowing audience in performance.