Performing the Archive: Red Kettle Theatre Company Waterford

Dr Una Kealy, Dr Kate McCarthy and Dr Richard Hayes considered in this paper the challenges of working with an archive of performance related artefacts. This team investigated how regional theatre is documented through theatre practice using artefacts from the Red Kettle Theatre Company archive. The paper drew parallels between how meaning is constructed through the processes of research and interpreting the archive and interrogate both in its content and physical delivery how what is archived can remember, reinterpret or remake the past. The paper played with the ways in which academic papers are traditionally delivered, the different media potentials of contemporary theatrical performance and the audience’s experience of performance.

The paper contributed to the discussion about the nature of research in drama, theatre and performance studies, the ways in which performance or aspects of performance are or might be preserved and archived by practitioners and the need for academics to develop the appropriate skills to interpret these archives.