Lucie Loves... Theatre // Shooting with light
When Lucie asked me to attend the world premier of a new show from the award-winning theatre company Idle Motion at New Diorama, I was really excited as it was only the week before I was telling some friends that I have really neglected the theatre since graduating from drama school in the early noughties.
I was intrigued to find out what the London theatre scene had to offer aside from musical theatre, which is currently at an all time high. Idle Motion are renowned for being highly visual and incorporate physical theatre with dialogue, innovative video and imagery, as well as keeping human stories at the heart of every performance.
‘Shooting With Light’ explores the untold story of a young Jewish woman who flees Germany to Paris in 1933, and falls in love with a Hungarian photographer who also happens to be a refugee. Through him she discovers the wonder of photography and learns “if your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough”. Unable to secure work with his Hungarian name, they reinvent themselves as Robert Capa and Gerda Taró.
Thanks to Gerda’s belief in Robert’s talent, and her passion to take photographs, he gets them both work abroad to photograph the Spanish Civil War. As a pioneer of frontline photo journalism, he would go on to receive international recognition as the iconic Magnum war photographer, but her work would remain unseen.
Idle Motion use creative simplistic staging to piece together the story of an exceptional woman and showcase the lost photographs she risked her life to take.
I couldn’t think of a better venue than the New Diorama theatre. With it’s intimate seating you feel as close to the cast as Gerda must have been to the action on the front lines. At 1 hour and 20 minutes long, with no interval, the show moved at a steady pace.
The bar has a wide selection of wines and beers, as well as sweet and savoury treats, which we enjoyed before and after the show – as well as during.
Guest editorial and accompanying photos for Lucie Loves by James Barley
Idle Motion has been taking ‘Shooting With Light’ on tour across the country. Were you lucky enough to see a show? What did you think?
Back in 2008, I (Lucie) did a 6 week internship at Magnum Photos in London after studying BA Hons Visual Communication (Photography) at Birmingham City University.
I got to see first-hand some of the incredible work held in the Magnum archives, as well as meet female photographer Olivia Arthur, see inside of Martin Parr’s London studio and meet the man himself, natter with Stuart Franklin and Peter Marlow, take recce photos of Chris Steele-Perkin’s ‘Comfort Women’ and see the other Magnum photographers showing work in the Disposable People exhibition at South Bank Centre. What an experience!
A while back I did a short blog post about my experience of getting into photography, and shared some tops tips for other people wishing to get into the photography profession. If you’ve any questions, please get in touch.