This is a group picture from The Dybbuk, the famous Yiddish play, at the Temple Emanuel. The actors were mostly amateurs, many of them from the well known Jewish families in San Francisco. What this scene represents I can't quite remember, but there were all sorts of scenes in the play which include supernatural voices and this picture, depicting the actors' astonishment, may relate to that. In taking pictures I have questioned my eyesight, wondering why many were not sharp, and in terms of technique I wonder if I wasn't awfully careless with washing prints, mounting them and storing them. I don't understand why so many are so badly stained and others are not. I wonder whether some of the badly stained ones should be destroyed. There is a Jewish museum in Berkeley (Judah Magnes) and I think this entire series of pictures on The Dybbuk is there, but probably those prints are just as badly stained as this one. (Roger Sturtevant interview with Joyce Minnick, 1977)