PAMELA GORDON: MISE-EN-SCENE / January 12-February 10, 2008

The theatre is a complex site, completing a different set of expectations for each group of people involved in it, whether director, actor, technician, or viewer. To a young girl growing up within the theatre, it can be both a real place and a site for dreams. Mise-en-Scene, is an expression of Pamela Gordon’s love for the backstage as a playground. Growing up, she aspired to become a famous actress and spent a lot of time in theatres. In retrospect the artist cherishes the time she spent discovering the backstage places more than the brief moments she spent on stage as an actress. The silhouettes of scenery, secret doors, and stairways placed her in the middle of her own theatrical performance. The backstage had become a childhood fantasy land. Mise-en-Scene allows us to see the theatre as she did, for which acting a part and acting out were one and the same, and in which the commonplace and the fantastic share the same physical and emotional space.