Don’t Eat the Raw Vegetables: Insights into Research-based Theatre as Methodology

Abstract

Don’t Eat the Raw Vegetables is a monologue adapted from the research-based theatre script Homa Bay Memories (Lea, 2013). Drawing on journals, photographs, and memories I developed the monologue to explore a moment of intercultural learning while on a teaching practicum in Kenya in 2004. In this article I share the monologue and a critical commentary discussing three insights into research-based theatre as a methodology gained through the process: 1) the impact of physicalizing research, 2) the opportunity to return to an experience armed with new theoretical understandings, and 3) the potential of the methodology to bring to light and express the fluidity of narratives and experiences.