Telling Stories in Historical Interpretation and Site-Specific Theatre

Abstract

Visit any living history museum, and you’ll find yourself surrounded by costumed historical interpreters. By demonstrating the appearance of life in the past, these interpreters perform history. While not always considered a form of theatre, first-person historical interpretation contains some of its key hallmarks: liveness, mimesis and storytelling. Specific moments – such as demonstrations and shifts in body language or terminology – can be classified as “twice-behaved behaviours,” an integral process of performance, according to Richard Schechner. By embodying historical figures, interpreters essentially become actors. This research engages with such scholars as Schechner, Alan Filewood and Freddie Rokem. Additionally, I draw on my own experiences as a historical interpreter to look at the ways in which first-person historical interpretation not only falls under the definition of theatre, but also is a unique and successful storytelling tool due to this theatricality.