Essen
British photographer Simon Annand shows acting stars before appearing on London stages: intimate moments that we can share.
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Perhaps you remember those distant, beautiful times: the hustle and bustle in front of the cloakrooms, the corridor over the heavy carpet, then stumbling through the rows, map and program booklet firmly in hand – and then the moment when the hall darkens, the curtain rises, the whole world becomes a stage. We’ll have to wait a little longer; and then maybe a little longer.
Not only do we miss these moments of expectation. Far, far more painful is the forced break from the theater for the actors: These moments when it is time to act have a magic of their own that we non-performers will never experience.
At least we can now catch a glimpse of it: The British photographer Simon Annand has accompanied actors on their way onto the stage, capturing the increasing tension: “Time to Act” is the name of the opulent illustrated book, which suddenly becomes a monument to one The era came, namely that casual pre-Corona period in which the theaters did not yet have to fear for their existence.
The photographer Simon Annand, born in 1955, worked as a bartender in a London theater after studying photography in the 80s – and thus got his first pictures backstage. As a theater photographer, he has worked at the Old Vic Theater and the Royal Shakespeare Company, among others.
Cate Blanchett wrote the preface
“It is just as difficult to catch actors and creative teams in complete freedom as it is to catch birds in flight,” writes none other than Hollywood actress Cate Blanchett in the foreword to the illustrated book. Over the past few decades she has repeatedly followed the work of photographer Simon Annand in the cloakrooms and masks of numerous London theaters. “His sensitivity to mood is simply amazing,” he said, “to understand an incredibly exciting process in a world obsessed with results”: “A journey from the so-called real world to this, our deeply unreal reality of the half hour before the beginning of the first Act in which we get in the ring and just see what happens. What surprises will tonight bring with it? “
The photos are not sorted by celebrity, but by time: half an hour before the performance we see gymnastics exercises and cigarette breaks, we see rope jumpers and headstanders. Of course, however, these intimate and completely casual insights tempt you to look for familiar faces. Jake Gyllenhaal cuddles a little longer with his German shepherd, Jeremy Irons carefully blows the smoke out the window, Juliette Binoche dreams, Judi Dench drinks a cup of tea in a bright red checked nightgown.
Rachel Weisz tugs at her dress
How much more intense, however, seems to be looking inside five minutes before the start of the game! The relaxed pose of Jim Broadbent, already in the costume of the curmudgeon Scrooge, cannot hide the fact that his hands are gripping the arm of the chair very tightly – an inner tremor that becomes visible. Stephen Fry looks almost frightened out of his Shakespeare collar shortly before the premiere of “Twelth Night”; after seventeen years of abstinence from the stage – reason: stage fright! – for the first time he dares to go on a theater stage again.
With high concentration, Rachel Weisz tugs at her red dress, she is already the Blanche who will be on stage in “Endstation Sehnsucht”. “Mind the Step” is written on the door that Daniel Radcliffe (pale, nervous) pushes open on his way onto the stage, and that’s what these images are about: about the step, the many steps that people transform into stage characters. Let’s hope that we too can transform ourselves again soon: into spectators.
Simon Annand’s illustrated book is called “Time to Act” and was published by Salz und Silber. The book has 256 pages with 262 photographs and costs 40 euros. Hollywood actress Cate Blanchett wrote the foreword. A part of the income from the sale goes to # coronakünstlerhilfe.
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