With the Photographer" By "Stephen Leacock"

   

Team Star

     

Date: 04.11.20205

"With the Photographer" By "Stephen Leacock"

Introduction:

This play is based on Stephen Leacock's funny story. It shows what happens when a man goes to a photo studio to have his picture taken. The photographer is very selective and makes the man feel uncomfortable. While trying to get the perfect photo. The story is funny and makes us think about how people want to look good in pictures. So, get ready to enjoy a light and funny story about taking photos!

Act - 1

Arrival at the studio:

Man: I wanted my photograph to be taken.

Man: The photographer looked at me without interest... Because he was a drooping man in a gray suit, with the dim eye of a natural scientist.

Photographer: Sit there and wait.

Man: I waited an hour and an hour.

After an hour the photographer opened the inner door.

Photographer: come in.

Man went into the studio.

Photographer: Sit down.

Act-2

Initial posing:

Man: I sat down in a beam of sunlight filtered through a sheet of factory cotton hung against a factory frosted skylight.

Photographer: The photographer rolled a machine into the middle of the room and crawled into it from behind.

Man: only in it a second. He looked at me and then he was out again, tearing at the cotton sheet and the window panes with a hooked stick, apparently frantic for light and air.

Photographer: crawled back into the machine again and drew a little black cloth over himself.

Man: This time he was very quiet. I knew that he was praying and I kept still.

Man: The Photographer came out at last, he looked very grave and shook his head

Act-3

Criticism Begins:

Photographer: The face is quite wrong.

Man: I know. "I have always known it"

Photographer: I think, the face would be better three-quarters full.

Man: I'm sure, for I was glad to find that the man had such a human side to him. So would yours. In fact, I continued, "how many faces one sees that are apparently hard, narrow, limited but the minute you get them three-quarters full they get wide, large, almost boundless

in..."

Photographer: The photographer had ceased to listen.

Man: He came over and took my head in his hands and twisted it side ways. I thought he meant to kiss me, and I closed my eyes. But I was wrong.

Photographer: I don't like the head.

Man: went back to the machine and took

Another look.

Photographer: open the mouth a little.

Man: I started to do so.

Photographer: close it.

Act-4

Repositioning and Adjustment:

Photographer: "The ears are bad." droop them a little more.

Photographer: Thank you.

Photographer: Now the eyes roll them in under the lids. Put the hands on the knees, please, and turn the face just a little upward. Yes, that's better. Now just expand the lungs! So! And hump the neck- that's it and just contract the waist. Ha! And twist the hip up toward the elbow now! I still don't quite like the face, it's just a trifle too full, Man: swung round on the stool.

Act-5

The unexpected portrait.

Man: "Stop." This face is my face. It is not yours, it is mine. I've lived with it for forty years and I know its faults. I know it's out of drawing. I know it wasn't made for me, but it's my face, the only one I have I was Conscious of a break in my voice but I went on such as it is, I've learned to love it. And this is my mouth, not yours. These ears are mine, and if your machine is too narrow here I started to rise from the seat.

Act-6

The photographer is taken:

Photographer: photographer had pulled a string.

Man: I could see the machine still staggering from the shock.

Photographer: "I think" pursing his lips in a pleased smile, "that I caught the features just in a moment of animation.

Photographer: "So," I said bitingly

Man: "features"

Photographer: eh?

Man: you didn't think I could animate them. I suppose. But let me see the picture.

Photographer: oh, there's nothing to see yet. I have to develop the negative first. Come back on Saturday and I'll let you see a proof of it.

Man: on Saturday went back.

Man: Beckoned me in. I thought he seemed quieter and graver than before. I think, too, there was a certain pride in his manner.

Man: He unfolded the proof of a large photograph, and we both looked at it in silence.

Act-7

The final print:

Man: Is it me?

Photographer: yes it is you.

Man: The eyes, "don't look very much like mine."

Photographer: "oh, no," I have retouched them.

Man: "Fine," but surely my eyebrows are not like that?

Photographer: "No," with a momentary glance at my face, "the eyebrows are removed. We have a process now - the Delphide - for putting in new ones. You’ll notice here where we've applied it to carry the hair away from the brow. I don't like the hair low on the skull."

Photographer: "oh, you don't, don't you?" Man: "No", "I don't care for it. I like to get the hair clear back to the superficies and make out a new brow line..."

Man: "What about the mouth?"

Photographer: "with a bitterness that was lost on the photographer."

Man: "Is that mine?"

Photographer: "It's adjusted a little, yours is too low. I found I couldn't use it."

Man: "The ears, though, strike me as a good likeness; they're just like mine. Is it me?"

Photographer: "Yes", "that's so; but I can fix that all right in the print. We have a process now - the sulphide - for removing the ears entirely."Man: "Listen!" I interrupted, drawing myself up and animating my features to their fullextent and speaking with a withering scorn that should have blasted the man on the spot. I came here for a photograph - a picture - something which would have looked like me.

 I wanted something that would depict my face as heaven gave it to me, tremble though the gift may have been. I wanted something that my friends might keep after my death, to reconcile them to my loss. It seems that I was mistaken. what I wanted is no longer done. Go on, then, with your brutal work. Take your negative, or whatever it is you call it - dip it in sulphide, bromide, oxide, cowhide, anything you like, & remove the eges, corred the mouth, adjust the face restore the lips, reanimate the necktie and reconstruct the waistcoat. Coat it with an inch of gloss, strade it, emboss it geld it till even you acknowledge that it is finished. Then when you have done all that - keep it for yourself

And your friends. They may value it. To me it

Is but a worthless bauble...

I broke into tears and left.

TEAM STAR

1) Bandana

2) Anima

3) Anastacia

4) Erina

5) Satyavani