Defining Theatrical Photography

I recently took a PhD seminar at UCSD called Theatre and Photography. One of the topics of discussion that recurred frequently centered around the questions: What is a theatrical photograph? The essays we read discussed the idea of the theatrical photograph as “encapsulation of everyone else’s efforts” (Donald Cooper), iconic images of the text (T. J. Edelstein), as well as the “truth” of the production (Jim Carmody). We looked at and discussed photographs that were staged outside of the performance space, staged inside of the performance space, and taken during a rehearsal or production. Which of these is the best at documenting the performance? Does it depend on the production? It isn't a question we were able to answer conclusively although we each had our own opinions about strong theatrical photos.

This photo by Max Waldman serves, I believe, as accurate documentation of the production Dionysus in 69, directed by Richard Schechner at the Performing Garage in 1968. This photo is almost certainly staged and not taken during an actual performance. However, it captures the most important qualities of the production. This photo seems to be an ideal image – one in which all of the elements have been orchestrated to depict as much information as possible about the performance.

The environmental performance blurred the boundaries between performers and spectators. Often, the actors would perform scenes while leaning up against or lying on top of the audience members. This photograph places the viewer so close to the action that it evokes the sense that s/he could reach out and touch the actors – as it would have been during the show. By viewing the actors from this particular angle, the viewer of the photograph feels as if the performance is for her/him only. This fits with Schechner’s use of local focus in his productions (a technique in which the actors performed certain lines or actions in such a way that only a few people in the audience could hear or see what was happening.) The nudity and facial expressions (especially on the men at the bottom of the pile) express the overall Dionysian quality of a production that was far more concerned with the physical than the cerebral. Finally, the photo shows a bit of the conflict between the individual and the group that is present in the play. Dionysus is in the process of being born, solidifying his individuality. However, the entire group, working as a unified organism, once again evokes the Dionysian.

This photograph fulfills my requirements for a theatrical photograph: It is an artistic photo that stands alone (outside of its documentary purposes) and it serves as documentation of the theatrical event by conveying a sense of what it would be like to attend the production and portraying an important scene from the play.

Staged Theatrical Photography and Actual Performance Photography seem to be totally different art forms that take different skills. STP seems more like portrait photography and APP seems more like photojournalism. But can both achieve the same end goal – a photo that adequately documents a performance?

Finding the Punctum

One of my favorite photographs is William Klein's "Mayday, Moscow" from 1959, which I first came across in Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida. Like Barthes, I am drawn to the studium of the photograph. For non-Barthes readers, studium is general interest in a photo, perhaps as a historical document. "Studium is of the order of liking, not of loving.... To recognize the studium is inevitably to encounter the photographer's intentions, to enter into harmony with them, to approve or disprove of them, but always to understand them..." (26-7). As Barthes notes, the photograph gives the modern, non-Russian viewer details of Russian dress in the 1950s. The kerchief, the cap, the jacket, all draw the curious eye. This may be why I like the photo, but it is not why I love it.

I find my eyes taking multiple paths through this picture. Sometimes I start in the upper right where I follow the man’s gaze to the man on the left, whom the first man certainly cannot see, though in the two-dimensional world of the photograph they are touching. I then look at the bearded man in the back and my eye roller-coasters down to the hat, the old woman, and then the boy, following the path of their heads, picking up speed as I go. Once I reach the bottom, my eyes slowly climb up to the man in the hat who is looking off to the right of the photograph. I follow his gaze, looking back up the path that I recently careened down. Then I find that I am looking back and forth, back and forth, from one man’s profile to the other, only stopping when I self-consciously notice the man in the upper left who has been staring at me all along. How embarrassing. When I look back at the photo, I am much more polite, giving each face the attention it deserves, while not staring so long as to make the figures uncomfortable. I linger on the old woman. Her face is bright, and the longer I look at her the brighter she seems. A glowing light in a sea of dark (even more so in the printed photo on page 29 of Camera Lucida than in the photo above). Is that why the two men are looking back at her? Like moths to a flame? When I squint my eyes, I see triangles and circles of black, rectangles and squares of grey, all surrounding the oval of light. When I reopen my eyes fully, I suddenly notice the incredible balance, bordering on symmetry, of the photograph. Two men, on either side of the picture, each look back and toward the other side. Both men have another man’s face to the left and back. Then, a gently curved line of heads runs down the middle. And it is only now, after noticing all of these things, that I finally wonder just what these people are doing. Why are they in this particular arrangement? Although it is possible that Klein has posed them, it feels much more like an incredible stroke of luck.

But as easy as it is for me to describe my fascination for this photo, it was difficult to pick out the punctum - what Barthes describes as something in the photo which wounds the viewer. I could see all the parts of the photo that I truly like, but it was too easy to describe why I like them. And like Barthes, I realize that "what I can name cannot really prick me" (51). Barthes explains that he often doesn't realize what the punctum is while he is viewing the photo; sometimes it comes to him in a realization later. I gave myself time away from the photo, hoping that the wound would show itself. Finally, glancing back at the photograph today, I realized it: My punctum is the boy's ear. I spent far less time studying the boy than I did the other subjects, however without him the photograph has merely interesting composition and not the ability to wound. Perhaps it is because the ear stands in for the eyes I cannot see, or maybe it is because the boy resembles my younger brother who also has protruding ears, or maybe it is that the ear blends into the woman's arm, causing the ear to look grotesquely large. Whatever the reason, I have found the punctum - the photograph's ability to wound and delight me.