Stage Play
PHOTOGRAPHY/DRAMATURGY
The stage play THE GALLOW OF HALF TRUTH written by photographer and director Jonas Golfeto is a book that is strong in its theme and distinct in its structure. It combines art of photography and dramaturgy, and through fictional scenes, it discusses the power of images in Brazilian history, especially that of journalist Vladimir Herzog, who was killed in 1975 in a staged suicide that became an icon of the lies and brutalities of the military regime.
Released by Mireveja publisher with graphic design by the award-winning designer Luciana Facchini, the book features two covers and is composed of five photographic albums, where linearity or a possible reading order are not required for enjoying the narrative.
Moreover, each of these albums is related to a color – blue, green, black, red, and white – and presents a different version of the original image, with interference in its texture and the matrix elements, which are suppressed, distorted, erased, illuminated.
The theatrical scene is presented based on these photographic images recreated by the author.
Thus, Jonas Golfeto proposes an intense reflection on the act and discourse of photography – “What is the responsibility of the photographer’s finger on the image he witnesses while voluntarily pressing a deceitful button?” says the play’s narrator.
For the author, one of the purposes of his work is to provoke the interpretation of the discourses produced by the photographic images of the book, guiding the reader to relate these discourses with the text of the play and the political facts involved. “I believe this is a good stimulus for a future staging, as well as a warning that photographs should be analyzed with the skepticism they deserve, as they are an interpretation of reality, not a reproduction or evidence of it,” he concludes.