What is Playback Theatre

The spontaneous, creative and therapeutical theatre where the audiences’ stories can be acted only one and the last time.

The spontaneity theatre and psychodrama were born in the beginning of 20th century. Moreno gave the clue for the new life philosophy in the development of spontaneity theatre itself. Those clues were messengers for his revelational concepts.

It was quite natural to emerge those developments in theatre which is the most important place to discuss the life of society. Theatre is not only the place where the life itself is staged, also includes the meaning of art for the human being like ‘question the life ‘, ‘ discover himself’, ‘ display creativity’.

Moreno must have chosen this kind of art since it accommodate lots of specialities. All kinds of roles from the real life can be taken on the theatre stage and also on the spontaneity theatre stage. That gives us a possibility to watch everything from the beginning and sometimes to change it. So the stage may become a healing area. Our need to look things from the outside includes more than the right we reach easily by thinking. It also includes the importance of transcendent roles which human beings are expected to reach eventually.

Transcendent roles that the person does not keep all the time but time to time experience by looking himself from outside, by questioning time, existence and the meaning of life and to have answers. Only the prophets and saints can stay in those roles forever or for a long time. That’s why humanbeing is progressive alive. So theatre helps taking transcendent roles easily. Theatre and especially spontaneity theatre ( playback theatre ) is very specific concept to search about.

Spontaneity theatre looks at the moment the play is being created so it focuses the artistic creation for there all existence. Then it makes this happen on the stage. The key is the moment for creation which seems to belong to the director and the writer in theatre. Player uses his creativity during making the role character then we watch finished play on the stage,every night the photocopies are being multiplied. In this point we discover one of the differences in spontaneity theatre where the creation moment is shared between story teller, director and audience together and naturally is experienced only once. Everybody get his own benefit from this creation.

Conserved roles ( theatre roles ) Moreno mentioned, do not exist in spontaneity theatre. They are the roles whose limits are determined in traditional theatre, do not carry the creativity with a real meanings. If there is no extra problem on the stage, the actor does not have to do creative action by using spontaneous behaviour to solve the trouble. He is the employee doing his job. So what is the attraction for the actor ?The writer and director is responsible for what it is going on.

In spontaneity theatre, everybody is responsible what is happening. The real creativity is only possible for having responsibility and the courage of creativity concept is born from this point. Story teller, players, musician and director can have the same responsibility for this only one play. The play can never be able to be repeated, it goes on like supposed to be happened in real life.

The persons changed the histories, do not look back and do not stick into past. This is the proof of their spontaneities and certainties. Everything is lived,experienced and finished; this is the messenger for new beginnings.

The persons who have got unfinished business, can not be able to make new beginnings.

Deniz Altinay
President of Istanbul Psychodrama Institute
Director of Istanbul Spontaneity Theatre