A field theoretical approach to deformation and fracture of solid-state material is outlined, and its application to diagnosis of deformational status of metal specimens is discussed. Being based on a fundamental physical principle known as local symmetry, this approach is intrinsically scale independent, and capable of describing all stages of deformation on the same theoretical foundation. This capability enables us to derive criteria that can be used to diagnose transitions from the elastic to plastic regime, and the plastic to fracturing regime. For practical applications of these criteria, an optical interferometric technique known as electronic speckle-pattern interferometry is proved to be quite powerful; it is able to visualize the criteria as a whole image of the object on a real-time basis without numerical processing. It is demonstrated that this method is able to reveal loading hysteresis as well.