With a show that primarily revolves around recreating images, a lot of attention must be paid as to exactly how these images are translated onto the stage. Whilst working on George Seurat’s painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-1885), the cast spent a vast amount of time critiquing and readjusting one another in order to mould themselves into the perfect replications of the people within the image. Every angle of the characters body, every slight twist in direction and the proxemics between each person was considered in depth, and from these simple adjustments, new relationships were able to be explored.
When working with images that contain human beings, the cast seem to slip into character more comfortably. However, not all famous images contain people. So what happens when an ensemble must recreate an image that doesn’t depict any specific individuals? Taking into account the famous image of the Atomic Bomb that looms over Nagasaki, Japan in 1945, it is possible instead to consider the shapes found within the image. As King notes in his blog, “photographs [have] the potential to show us something that existed out there, at a certain moment, in front of the cameras lens” (2015). One extraordinary moment is sometimes caught only by the coincidental clicking of a button. As is the beauty of photography; it remains motionless and allows time for investigation. The cast are then free to find for themselves the important lines that help to identify the image and then, with the use of their bodies, work on creating the same essential shapes.
In one scene, the actors are fully focussed on building up a photograph that has already been placed within a secondary frame (see image 1). With the original image already superimposed with the informational outline commonly found in televised news broadcasts, we worked with firstly portraying the people held hostage inside the coffee shop. This was essentially, the bare minimum; just two individuals on stage. Then as the depiction of the image began to zoom out, we then stepped outside of the coffee shop and created a sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’ by placing a transparent plastic screen in front of the couple, representative of the coffee shop window. Finally, the third and final layer was added and the intended image completed, with the addition of the ‘Breaking news’ cardboard cut outs being placed in front of the transparent plastic. All of this is captured by a live camera, feeding into a television downstage stage left, effectively framing the unfolding story in the way that many people would have viewed it worldwide as it was happening.
This is a big game changer for us as a company. The realisation that sometimes, you have to consider how many other layers and inputs have been placed over an image before your eyes are viewing it.
And then you have to decide what you believe in, and what you don’t.
Works Cited
King, J. (2015) What is a Photograph? [blog entry] Available from http://www.aperture.org/blog/jacob-king-icps-photograph/ [Accessed 19 February 2015].
Frisk, A. & Tucker, E. (2014) Sydney siege over after police storm café; gunman, 2 hostages dead. [online] Available from: http://globalnews.ca/news/1727132/sydney-siege-over-after-polive-storm-cafe/ [Accessed 19 February 2015].