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Shutter

nytheatre.com review by Matt Freeman
August 15, 2005

Shawn Fagan is a fantastic performer, and his truthfulness is outmatched only by his precise physical work. As the sole on-stage performer in Lightbox’s Shutter, that would obviously bode well. But the material to which he brings his considerable talents is beautifully adapted and dovetailed expertly by director Ellen Beckerman. It’s a tour de force: poetic, funny, and challenging.The piece itself speaks to the concept of observation, and weaves the stories of Shawn himself (one can only assume), photographer Peter Beard, and Andy Warhol. It takes us from hospital rooms to Kenya to New York City. The script was forged from a variety of disparate elements, including quotes from the Bible and excerpts from the journals of Beard and Warhol. The effect is a whirlwind of language and imagery, all contained within a single performer and a few deft music cues.Peter Beard’s travels to Kenya have produced photographic monuments to the brutality and beauty found therein. Andy Warhol is, of course, one of the seminal American artists of the 20th century. Beard’s images of endangered elephants (splattered with newspaper and dried blood) and Warhol’s famous Campbell's Soup Cans seem as far apart in form and content as the visual arts can be. It’s the genius of Shutter to find their commonality, their acute sense of wonder, their love affair with the “image.”The piece has three sections, all framed by Fagan’s repeated confessional about the experience of being self-consciously photographed. Between these bookends, the audience is given a kaleidoscope of scenes and commentaries through the mouths and bodies of Beard and Warhol that slowly move toward their other commonality: a near death experience.We hear about Beard’s early life, we watch him muse about what brought him to photography (“I couldn’t draw, so what could be easier?”). While Fagan’s Beard is imbued with both humor and authority, it’s Warhol who steals the show, with his sudden and exposed blank stare, his naive genius, and his odd-bird stance. It’s not just how Fagan portrays him physically, it’s the mildly childlike observations and snippets of language that create this hilarious and touching portrait. Beard, though, is the lifeblood of the piece and is just as specific and candid. His slow crawl towards an elusive shot is one of the highlights of the performance.Fagan’s own skill, though, is what makes this all come together. It’s rare to see a performer get a laugh from simply wiping “paint” out of his eye, or turn a pack of Warhol tics into a dance. It’s moments like these that elevate the piece from biography, and into high theatrics.I will say, as this is a piece that seems in the midst of development, that the ending of the piece felt a little too literary. I won’t spoil it, and it doesn’t actually fail, it just left me a little less sure of what I’d seen than when I watched Warhol’s near death experience or Beard’s work behind the lens, hunting his quarry. That minor quibble aside, Shutter is a powerful success, and it begs to be seen.