Placed horizontally on the floor? the painted outline of the dead body is a finished piece of work for public showing and expects itself to be seen. rlhe pictured subject in the picture is dead? decomposed? objectiFied and imprinted onto the floor. Picture-making belongs to the spatial world in the strict sense? while the intended message of the picture belongs to the temporal world. The spatiality of the picture is self-evident? while the temporality of the picture is included in its spatiality. The painted picture represents the scene? conveys the message? gives its viewer a pre-defined image and raises the viewer's curiosity. It anticipates the restoration ofits original meaning and the addition of new meaning to it. Two detectives?Pablo and Louis? come to Niles's apartment to investigate the case? but all they can obtain as evidence is the painted picture. They examine the visual and the visible elements closely and strive to construct the invisible of the picture.
As a visual expression in natural and simple form? the overall conFiguration of the oudine is easily discernible as an image of death? because the picture bears certain specific characteristics of death. It appears to the detectives that this picture is produced to designate the end of a human life. Taking into account what they see? the two detectives endeavor to reconstruct the imagination of the death. Louis is playing dead and dragged across the stage
by Pablo as an instrument? but what come out of Louis's falling are his allusion of the oudine to hieroglyph and his insight of the similarity between birth and death in terms of position.
Later? Louis tries to fall into the shape of the oudine when Pablo rushes to fetch his briefcase.He even adjusts his body according to the awkward position in the picture. They struggle to discover the invisible by building a main storyline the picture connotes. Ihey bring the temporality of the picture into play? by extending the framed scene to the moments before and after the picture was produced. In this sense? they are "more than detectives looking for
evidence? they are characters in search of an author" ?Mottram 123?? the producer of the picture along with the intentions.
Confronted with the visual form? Pablo and LOLUS regard the pictured subject as the famous jazz musician Niles? since the picture stays on the floor of his apartment. As they scrutinize the details of the presentation? an overwhelming sense of uncertainty begins to dominate? since no concrete detauls could assist with the contextualzation of the death? Louis reasons with reference to the studium of the picture and the corresponding associations. He questions the fact of the man's death and puts forward his theory? when he falls onto the floor consciously for the third time. According to his theory? the subjea of the picture just disappears and fools people off by laying low? after producing abundant un-heard-of before symphonies? concertos and qLuntetS. However? he is unable to provide an adequate answer to Pablo's question concerning the reason ofdisappearing when his career reaches its climax.
Ihe bewilderment at the outset clearly touches upon the mystical status of the subject.The detectives rack their brains for speculations and hypotheses to probe into the causes for the death. The visual and the visible of the picture are discernible? but the invisible complicates the situation to a large extent? since locating its producer is notoriously difficult.
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山姆·谢泼德（Sam Shepard），原名塞缪尔·谢泼德·罗杰斯（Samuel Shepard Rogers），1943年11月出生在美国伊利诺伊州的谢里登堡（Fort Sheridan），2017年7月因肌萎缩侧索硬化症的并发症（Complications of ALS）离世。谢泼德一生创作了50余部舞台剧，剧作《被埋葬的孩子》（Buried Child）获得1979年普利策戏剧奖（Pulitzer Prize for Drama）。他曾11次获得奥比奖（Obie Awards），是美国历史上获此殊荣最多的作家。谢泼德被誉为“外外百老汇最成功的剧作家”（Bigsby，“Twentieth-Century American Drama”221），是“继田纳西·威廉斯、亚瑟·米勒、爱德华·阿尔比之后又一位伟大的美国剧作家”（Wade，“Shepard and the American Theatre”1），1994年谢泼德入选美国戏剧名人殿堂。 谢泼德集剧作家、摇滚乐手、电影演员、编剧、导演于一身，被誉为“美国大众文化的偶像”。他凭借电影《太空先锋》（Right Stuff，1983）中扮演的航天员查克。叶格（Chuck Yeager） 一角获得第56届奥斯卡最佳男配角提名，由他担任编剧的电影《得州巴黎》（Paris，Texas，1984）获得第37届戛纳电影节最佳影片金棕榈奖。作为大众文化的参与者和见证者，谢泼德在戏剧创作中融人大量大众文化要素，为戏剧舞台增添了富有活力、充满实验性的新鲜力量。 “我喜欢从其他艺术形态（如音乐、绘画、雕塑、电影等）中获取素材，但是深知自己创作的剧本是要被搬上舞台的”（Shewey，“Sam Shepard”7），空旷戏剧舞台上的图像、声音、光谱都在叙述故事，影像效果融入文字书写，给人以强烈的视觉和听觉震撼力。谢泼德戏剧中的图像形式多样、表意丰富，有的图像为舞台布景的一部分，有的图像为舞台道具，有的图像仅存在于人物的脑海中，或是对过去的记忆，或是对未来的憧憬。 谢泼德的戏剧作品晦涩难懂、令人费解，写实性的平面图像缓和了剧作的破碎感和怪诞性，缩短了读者、观众与戏剧的距离。图像蕴含制作者的意图，具有叙事性、表演性、象征性、示意性、被动性。本书借助图像理论，将图像与特定语境联系起来，依托舞台提示和人物对话对图像的描述，探讨图像与罪责、图像与表象、图像与梦想等话题。观看赋予被观看之物意义，本书也将考察观者（剧中人物）的观看活动（观看理论），探究图像、观看活动、观者、图中人、图像制作者之间的复杂关系。
