The Girl in the Photograph: a powerful investigation of sexual coercion or liberation
16 Jul 2018

by Drew Rowsome -

#MeToo can be muddled and The Girl in the Photograph dives fearlessly into questions of complicity and guilt and seduction and coercion and . . . The play, which is also autobiographical, doesn't shy from the complications of love, lust and guilt. 

A 14-year-old girl is seduced by her theatre teacher/director. Or does she fall in love? Is the inequality of the relationship, he is a cad who has done this before, worth it as he opens her eyes to both her sexuality and to the power of theatre and creating? Tough questions that are thought-provoking, daring, and refuse easy cathartic answers.

Andrea Cabeza, who is also the creator and is drawing on life experience, gives a raw performance that moves through intense emotions at a rapid speed. If she isn't baring her soul, she convincingly acts it. She has able support on what must be a rough journey from Tamara Alemeida as the wisecracking teacher's assistant, enabler and former victim, and Erin Roche as the interrogator and also the other woman (ie: the wife. There is always a wife or significant other).

But it is David Chinchilla who has the most difficult, and slippery, role. He is the seducer, the villain, the emancipator, but also has to be appealing to explain how this happened. With his glistening eyes, smooth patter (he makes the dissection of Shakespearean prose sound like an erotic act), and slabs of pecs just barely revealed, he is the quintessential bad boy. You know he should be resisted but he is just so damn sexy and smooth.

Director Victoria Urquhart takes a text that is still forming, a strict dramaturge would be helpful, and moves the cast through some awkward scene transitions all while keeping the emotions and performances pitch-perfectly real. There is some toying with dance as a transitional device and some help from guitarist Owen Gardner but a little more faith in theatricality and the suspension of disbelief would have let the ideas shine. And alas the mystery alluded to in the title is mcguffin and falls flat.

There is a very clever bit where the two watch a telenovela and Cabeza's character realizes that she has become a melodramatic cliché. It is shocking and funny. Because of course life, love affairs, and particularly 14-year-old versions of the two, are melodramatic and right out of a telenovela or cheesy soap opera. Portions of The Girl in the Photograph are in Spanish and it adds a realism that boosts the drama. If the entire play were in Spanish with surtitles, it would be hailed as a revelation. 

Tragically the night I attended the air conditioning in the theatre was underused. While the sheen of sweat on Chinchilla's chest certainly added to the experience of The Girl in the Photograph, it also underscored the length of the piece and a certain amount of repetition. The story and themes are powerful and achingly familiar to anyone who has ever fallen for the wrong person, and the performances are strong and razor sharp powerful, with a polish and a bit more nerve (and comfortable temperatures) The Girl in the Photograph will be extraordinary and a contentious addition to a debate that we should be having.