The Curtain Rises

The Frontispiece to Crack’s Progress, Charlie’s Progress and A Modern Marriage.

With references to the inspirations from William Hogarth, this tableaux of the trilogy encapsulates moments, peep shows, and frozen actions from the epic saga of Crack and Charlie and their family.

In the spotlight are the main characters. Under the Tragedy and Comedy masks, those symbols of the playhouse which underpin the theatre of life, we focus in on the rehearsals and performances, the onstage backstage interactions, the roles that are assumed, the deaths that are played out under the floodlights, in the dark recesses of the stage, or out in the city.

A proscenium arch encompasses the action but also includes the audience in the story – they participate and applaud, cheer and boo, approve and disapprove. It is their story too: they see their lives reflected back in the fiction before them. Behind the big show are all the little details: the rats, the violence perpetrated behind the windows, the double dealing in dark alleys, the debris floating in the undercurrents of the river, the scandalous skyscrapers, and the streetlights despairing at the life and death enacted beneath their columns.

The greatest show on earth: the theatre of life and death.

A progress from dark to muted light.