By Page Talbott, Remer & Talbott

On September 10, HPP took a number of historians to ROMEO & JULIET by the Nature Theater Company of Oklahoma.  In this unique production conceived and directed by Pavel Liska and Kelly Copper, the script of this play was derived from interviews and memories of ROMEO & JULIET rather than Shakespeare’s original text.

HPP asked Page Talbott to talk about how this use of memory and research process might inform our practice as public historians in some way.

Was I the only person in the audience who couldn’t remember what happened in Romeo & Juliet? Thank goodness things began to come back to me, but only as tidbits of the story were revealed slowly, cleverly, and occasionally exasperatingly. The first interviewee knew painfully little, but only a bit less than me, and the subsequent storytellers recounted enough of the narrative—albeit often grossly incorrect—that I was gradually able to retrieve from distant memory the outline of the play that I had read—yes, in Freshman year (didn’t everyone?)

Other than feeling inept and a bit dull as I listened to these hilarious attempts to tell this iconic story, I also wondered what else we were observing about how an individual’s memory of historical events informs his/her current understandings of the world. What this interview technique reveals is that people are suggestible, vague, eager to create their own narrative, even if it means making up facts, being reluctant to demonstrate a void in memory.

Recently I’ve noticed how differently my three siblings and I remember events from our childhood. Sharing these memories creates a whole that is significantly greater and more accurate than the original parts. The creators of Romeo & Juliet understood this phenomenon, and although those interviewed didn’t seem to have the benefit of hearing other renderings, the segments were rolled out in a progression that built towards a fuller story line.

This process suggests that historians have an opportunity to capture individual stories that can lead to a larger, fuller history of shared experiences.  Imagine the staff at an historic house museum asking a number of stakeholders who have participated in an event over many years to separately share their memories; then, as a follow-up, sharing these stories among the stakeholders, and later convening this group to ask them to respond to the collected stories. Would people’s memories change? Would participants argue over facts, then come to a consensus?  How might the professional staff at the house use this process to inform their own understandings of the history of the place and to interpret these disparate memories to their visitors?

As public historians, we can help our visitors understand that there is more than one way of viewing the present, more than one way of interpreting history, and that each individual’s history is unique. Memory-gathering is one way to demonstrate this in a powerful and engaging way.