Review of Still Shakespeare and the Photography of Performance by Sally Barnden.

This 2020 Cambridge University Press book is so dense, closely argued, heavily theorized and documented that it would take several thousand words to review it properly. This short response must treat the book and my reservations in broad strokes, doing both a disservice. If the book has an overall argument, it is that scholars do not understand theatrical photographs, but these pictures are illuminating when properly understood, which is to say, when understood Barnden’s way. Much of this review presents how Barnden views some of the photos discussed. I end with my deep skepticism about her approaches but with the suggestion academics may wish to read the book anyway.

The bulk of the first chapter looks at photos from Royal Shakespeare Company productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream staged between 1954 and 1977 to establish distinctions between early glamorous theatre photography and later pictures taken after photojournalistic theory directed that theater photos be shot onset, usually during dress rehearsals. Barnden asserts that photographers mediate even these later photos, invalidating the “liveness” assumed by theater historians. Barnden would be correct debunking such assumptions if she allowed for exceptions. More on that below.

The second chapter argues that photography drove Charles Keene’s desire to present historically accurate stage productions in the mid-nineteenth century and further notes that Keene and some in his casts were photographed in costumes for portraits that did not accurately depict the…