Swan Song, written by Anton Chekhov, is a one-act play for two actors; the first plays the older actor and the other plays the prompter. In my adaptation the play becomes the lone actors monologue and I, the director/camera operator, am the prompter off camera. I play the rebellious child when I throw the setting sun in my father’s eyes and reveal his vanity, then the adoring daughter when he performs beautifully without interruption. Here I have the chance to describe the nexus of extreme adoration and destruction, of self-aggrandizement and self-deprecation. Camera movement serves to highlight the claustrophobia of self-evaluation, the only real action of the play. It is always the same view: an interior, a bedroom that used to be mine and is now his. My camera lunges towards and then away from my father as he moves in and out of focus.
