Halifax got a special sneak preview last week of a new work by Vancouver theatre company Boca Del Lupo thanks to the Prismatic Festival. Photog: An Imaginary Look at the Uncompromising Life of Thomas Smith draws on the real-life experiences of photographers who travel to war-torn and impoverished parts of the world to capture and reveal the human suffering. The story is told by the fictional Thomas Smith (Jay Dodge, who also wrote the piece), a photographer who has returned from a harrowing assignment to find that he is being evicted from the New York apartment that serves as his refuge. The play incorporates some pretty impressive technological tricks and involves plenty of acrobatic “flying”, which ended up being both entertaining and a little distancing. In the end, while I felt I had learned something about what it means to put oneself in danger for the greater good, the play seemed to be more style than substance.
This article appears in Oct 14-20, 2010.