They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But what happens when you combine photography with live art? This is one of the core questions that is explored in the new Neo-Futurist play “I Am a Camera” written and directed by Greg Allen.
One of the great things about this Neo-Futurist play is that it requires the audience to really intellectualize what they are viewing. “I Am a Camera” leaves room for interpretation from the audience as well as the interpretation of its two person cast. Jeremy Sher and Caitlin Stainken lead the audience through various photographic exercises that lead us to ask “What is photography?” “Can a picture convey more meaning than words?” “Can a picture accurately replace an emotion?” “Can a single image depict an entire experience?” “Can a photograph capture a memory?” “Can we replace memories, or diminish the value of them, with a photograph?” All of these questions and concepts are explored throughout “I Am a Camera.”
The play uses still photography as both “the medium and the message” to convey abstract emotions and experiences to illustrate issues of vulnerability and identity in the 21st century. Set to a background of eclectic music, a mix of classic modern rock, and using all aspects of photography from Polaroid snapshots to digitally projected images onto objects, screens and human bodies, “I Am a Camera” is as much a visual experience as it is a thought-provoking one.
One of the best scenes in the play seemed more improvised than rehearsed. Sher and Stainken sat together at a wooden table, dozens of 8x10 photos in front of them, and the booth technician coached them with a buzzer about the exercises they had to do. In exercise one they asked one another questions and had to find still photos that described the emotion they felt, the next exercise asked them to find photos that conveyed what they thought the other was feeling when sharing a memory. In one instance, Sher asked Stainken “how did you feel when you farted in English class and cried?” She then, laughingly, finds a photo of herself curled up in a ball in the corner of a room, an image that the audience could both laugh at and empathize with. Another question had Stainken asking Sher, “where do you see yourself in five years,” to which he finds a photo of a small hand reaching up to grasp a man’s finger, leaving the audience to interpret a family, a child, a future of hope. This was one of the more hilarious, yet simultaneously provocative moments of the play.
Sound confusing? At times I thought so too. While the visual experience of the play was incredible, at times it ventured so far into the abstract that the interpretation of the play began to drift away from the core concepts. But Allen’s play is nothing short of beautiful, and one that theater goers would be sad to miss. Sher and Stainken provide the perfect balance of humor and charm, offering an accessible and relatable experience for the audience, one of the more intriguing common aspects at the heart of Neo-Futurist plays.
So go, enjoy, and experience the Neo-Futurist interpretation of photography on our lives, and don’t forget to bring a Smartphone (you’ll see why as soon as walk into the waiting room…)
