Theatre of Fact

Theatre of Fact

 or documentary theatre

Movement to bring social issues to the stage by emphasizing factual information over aesthetic considerations. An outgrowth of the Living Newspaper technique employed in the 1930s by the WPA Federal Theatre Project in the U.S., the form became popular in the 1960s. In Germany Rolf Hochhuth's The Representative (1963), Peter Weiss's The Investigation (1965), and Heinar Kipphardt's In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (1964) examined recent historical events through authentic documentary sources such as trial transcripts and statistics. The movement influenced later political drama in Europe and the U.S.