ABSTRACT
The incursion of people speaking in public has been marked in theatre by what became known in the US as documentary theatre' and the UK as verbatim theatre'. There is wide acknowledgement of the exponential growth of this kind of theatre. Connected theatrical developments include the use of personal testimony as a resource for theatre production, and the growth of autobiography as part of the extension of performance in postmodernism. Sociologists and cultural studies scholars have long disputed Jrgen Habermas's conception of the public sphere. This chapter describes the Occupy movement mobilized demonstrations in more than 80 countries in response to the financial crisis that affected Western capitalist economies in particular. It presents No Man's Land and Riding on a Cloud below, along with a public declamation during a demonstration and, differently, an intervention by Rimini Protokoll whose power resides in part in its choice not to speak.
