Notes From The City: An Abundant Life

A few months ago I went to see a play that an Actress I've known for a number of years was in. She is a very special person to me, and a wonderful actress, not only to watch but to work with, and I know how great she is because I've been on stage with her before. When I heard she was in a new play and I started reading about it, I told her that I wanted to go to a performance and write about it in my blog if possible. She invited me to the invited dress rehearsal, and helped to connect me with the publicist, and so I went to see what turned out to be an extraordinary play and had the chance to meet with the Playwright and Director and write about it. On the night of the invited dress as I was waiting for the play to start, I saw a man who I recognized in the audience. He seemed to recognize me and said hello, and though I couldn't quite place him I had the feeling he was an Actor or Director or someone else who was involved in some way with the production, and as we talked and tried to figure out how we knew each other, I asked him his name and he said, "Gerry Goodstein," and before he could quite finish his explanation that he was the photographer for the play, I finished his sentence for him and said, "You're Gerry Goodstein the photographer who used to work with Circle Rep."

That was the beginning of a much longer conversation, because Circle Rep is one of the dearest places to my heart and soulful beginnings of living in New York City. As I have written in other posts before, when I first moved to Manhattan I had an internship with the Circle Repertory Company, at the time one of the greatest, and honestly I think the greatest, of the theatre companies in New York City. There are so many stories and so much of my personal history that is tied up with the people I knew and the plays I was a part of that I could write a book, and so whenever I have the pleasure to see someone from those wonderful days I could reminisce for hours. But because we were at another theater and another play and the lights would be going down any moment, we held off our longer conversation until another time. That night I had the beautiful experience of watching a beautiful and powerful play that was so well acted and directed and designed that it was breathtaking and deeply moving. In addition to watching that beautiful play, I was able to experience the additional beauty of watching Gerry Goodstein photograph the actors during the action of the play. I had seen him do just that so many times over the years gone by that it was familiar to me in a way that felt like home. He's a marvelous photographer, but it is also the way he moves with the actors, almost dancing as he finds the perfect moments with care and tenderness that create images of extraordinary intimacy. If you've ever seen great theater photography, chances are you've been looking at Gerry Goodstein's work.

When we followed up, I discovered that his first love was acting, and he is very well trained and passionate about the work of an actor. In speaking with him over a late lunch that stretched into dinner time, it started to make perfect sense to me why it was that he is able to work with actors in the way he does, at times getting on stage with them in a way that could be distracting if it was someone else. He told me that it had been an Artistic Director of a theater company that had first encouraged him to do that, and because of his sensitivity to other people, he was hesitant at first, and it was that sensitivity that helped him to take those steps and feel intuitively how to work with actors in that way to bring the most powerful work they were doing right into and through the camera lens.

It is also that extraordinary sensitivity that makes him an excellent actor. I had not ever seen his work on stage or film before, and I asked him if there was any way I could. He connected me with Clara Dubau, the Director of a student film he had just recently completed, and she gave me access to view it. Titled "Fabula Rasa," it is an intensely moving piece, and Gerry's work in it is so powerfully and deeply real and moving that the character comes alive in the way that only actors who take their craft seriously and have the commitment to apply technique to their skill can do. The film itself is beautifully and carefully crafted, and the experience of watching it was a powerful one. I have added some screen shots below, and it's a wonderful testament to his work to compare those with the photographs I took of Gerry when we met at a diner on the Upper West Side. It is the same person, but not the same - it could be an identical twin with a completely different personality. That is the power of actors who have learned their craft and respect the painstaking process of building a character, and it is his love and respect for the work and the process that helps Gerry Goodstein work with actors as a photographer and bring their stories and vision alive.

Gerry Goodstein On The Upper West Side

http://www.gerrygoodstein.com/