Dramatis Personae
This series of large full-length staged portraits plays up the artifice of portraiture by drawing an analogy to theatre: painter as director, subject as actor, viewer as audience. The portraits emphasize the typically overlooked involvement of the subjects by requiring them to act their chosen roles and thereby become active collaborators. The audience for portraits is often limited to those who know the subjects—only they can evaluate the likenesses. But by depicting recognizable character types whose traits can be evaluated, the paintings invite the judgment of a wide audience. Even an audience unfamiliar with the actors will be able to judge how well the characters succeed. The paintings include only the figure and one or two symbolic props in a shallow, neutral space. Because archetypal roles are shaped as much by textual reiteration as by repeated images, the actors in each painting contributed texts which had in some way shaped their own understanding of their roles. These texts form a barely legible backdrop for the characters and become a literal subtext underwriting the roles.
Click here to view a PDF of the Dramatis Personae playbill
Click here to read Director's Cut: A Conversation with Shannon Reynolds by Derek Weiler