psychoPEDIA: Inside the Outpost

Vienna Triangle by Brenda Webster

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:53:10 -0500

Interview by Rebecca Wells with Laura Albert

Vienna Triangle is a brilliant novel that combines fact with the author's ingenious imagination to bring to life the historical figures of Freud and his disciples through the journey of a young academic in the 1960s. Kate, a young graduate student at Columbia University, is hard at work on her dissertation when a chance encounter brings her into contact with Helene Deutsch, one of the first prominent women analysts and one of only a few surviving members of Freud's inner circle.

As Kate begins to interview Helene, the narrative falls back into the mysterious and compelling world of Sigmund Freud and his disciples, where Helene introduces us to the humanity behind the masks of theanalysts. This journey becomes increasingly personal to Kate, as she begins to suspect a link between her own family and the world of the enigmatic Freud. At the same time, she is embroiled by the tangled set of questions raised by Helene's story. Who was Freud, really? Was his paranoia justified? And were his ideas even his own?

Vienna Triangle is a captivating experience. Part fact, part fiction, part imagination, this novel is a wonderfully detailed portrait of history for anyone interested in delving into the time of the analysts. Brenda Webster paints her characters effortlessly, allowing us to peer briefly into that space which any history devotee must be frustrated to miss: the space between historical portraiture and what really happened. And Kate is the perfect lens through which to view this story; her dual journey of historical and self discovery draws us intimately into the narrative and encourages us to care, deeply, both about Kate and those whom she studies. Below is an interview with author Brenda Webster.

Where did the inspiration for Vienna Triangle come from? Was there something specific about this historical period and its characters (Freud etc.) that sparked your interest?
I had written two books of psychoanalytic criticism, one on Blake, one on Yeats, so I was very familiar with Freudian theory. Then in 2000 I wrote a memoir, The Last Good Freudian, which chronicles my history in therapy and what amounts to abuse on the part of my therapists. I had gone on to other things in my next novel, The Beheading Game, and certainly had no conscious intention to do anything further about psychoanalysis. But one day I was in Rome reading Thomas Mann’s Lotte in Weimar, Mann was describing how the great Goethe sucked the life out of people close to him and used them for his own purposes. This made me think of Freud and Viktor Tausk. I wondered if genius couldn’t tolerate the existence of great talent in its vicinity. Since my artist mother thought of herself as a genius this had some resonance for me. Also, Helene Deutsch who briefly analysed Tausk and adored Freud, was my mother’s analyst.

Then I had to create a way of telling the story…how to engage the reader and that brought in another time period, the 1960’s. I created a frame in which a young scholar, Kate, gradually finds out what happened between Tausk and Freud while interviewing the elderly Helene Deutsch. So Kate’s research roughly echoes mine.

Did you find it difficult to allow yourself the freedom to craft fictional characters out of historical figures?
Helene Deutsch was difficult at first. I got bogged down in her biography and the result was wooden. I was simply transcribing facts into fiction. That went on for several months. But after I had created a narrator, Kate, and set her to interview Helene, the character came alive and I ended up being very fond of her. Tausk on the other hand was easy. I started writing a diary for him and it just flowed. Critics steeped in psychoanalysis have told me that they can't distinguish his fictitious diary from the real documents. That is one of the miracles that sometimes happens. You feel as if you are channeling someone. After the book was published an astonishing thing happened. Someone wrote from Amsterdam asking if any of the relatives of my 60’s heroine were still alive because she wanted to meet them. She was the great grand-daughter of Viktor Tausk! I had to tell her that Kate was a fictional character.

What sort of research did you do in order to prepare?
I read everything I could get my hands on about that period biographies of Deutsch and Lou Andreas Salome and Tausk--background material. My own analyst, Kurt Eissler had written two books defending Freud’s treatment of Tausk. I had no impulse to write a polemical book—either pro or con. I wanted to explore what happened, to re-create the people and the situations to decide for myself what motivated them, what their conflicts were. For me fiction was from the beginning a way of answering questions, a way of gaining insight. And as I researched my story, I came to feel that Freud had really played an important role in Tausk’s suicide and a subsequent cover-up. It became clear to me that because they feared Freud’s power, no analyst dared talk about what happened.

What is your favorite part of Vienna Triangle?
Brenda: I like the last part where all the strands of the double plot come together with what I hope is striking effect. Kate who has idealized Helene Deutsch as a model for her own life has to face the fact—along with the reader who must re-evaluate her feelings about Helene-- that Helene has colluded in hurting her friend, had put her career above everything. The question is what lesson will Kate take from that? What does she learn?

Beyond an entertaining book, do you hope your readers would also come away with perhaps another way to understand this time period and its characters? And who do you imagine as your audience?
I think I have given a fairly accurate picture of the very closed, hermetically sealed analytic world that may startle some people: The incestuous nature of their interactions. As when Freud analyzed his daughter, Anna. But beyond that, the way they put each other under the microscope, watching for slips, interrogating each other’s dreams. Freud kept a tight hold over them, not allowing the slightest deviation, banishing opponents and labeling them as psychopaths. I would imagine that many people don’t realize these things and it might cause them to wonder whether Freud, by keeping such a tight hold not only hurt people but kept psychoanalysis from developing freely.

There are other things I would want readers to think about, too. As my heroine, Kate develops a close relationship with Helene Deutsch, I was able to explore Deutsch’s views about women, about masochism in particular,which I had written about earlier defending her to the feminists. Now she was able to defend herself to Kate. Other issues came up: the conflict between motherhood and work, female loyalty and friendship how strong or weak it was in relation to a bond with a strong man. Thinking of my potential audience, these subjects should appeal to women more generally. The book became Tausk’s story filtered through the eyes of two women, one old, one young.

When did you discover you wanted to be a writer?
When I was little I thought my mother was a magician. She made things come to life on canvas. Branches weighed down with fuzzy peaches, blue-green bulls, enormous lilies, goldfish in an underwater world. Naturally, I assumed I would be able to do that too—but I was hopelessly bad at it. By the time I was ten, I’d resigned myself to painting with words. I started writing seriously when I was in High School. I was fourteen. My father had just died and my mother was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I wrote to save my sanity, alternating between Laurentian hymns to my boyfriend’s body and images of despair: black pools, screaming gulls wheeling over a lonely place. The poems were extravagant but they gave me a feeling of control. I was hooked.

When you write, do you find, beyond the story you tell, you have particular themes or a goal?
Several of my books have dealt with mother/daughter issues but my only longterm goal is to improve with each book. It has been a slow process. When I was in my twenties I wrote two autobiographical novels. I had a good agent and got encouraging letters from big presses but they mostly wanted me to change things I thought were essential and I wouldn’t. At that point I had no idea that much of writing is re-writing. I thought you just wrote down your story, typed it up and that was that. Discouraged I veered into criticism and wrote Psychoanalytic Studies of Blake and Yeats. It wasn’t until twenty years later after a divorce and re-marriage that –with the encouragement of my new husband–I dared go back to fiction. With my autobiographical novel Sins of The Mothers, I was fully aware of re-writing but took too much wrong advice and compromised too much. I think the subject, a masochistic marriage, was too painful and I didn’t yet have the tools yet to carry it off. I By the time I got to my memoir, The Last Good Freudian, I was able to put things in perspective and situate my life—much of it spent in analysis—in a historical and social context. But it is only with my new novel, Vienna Triangle, that I’m starting to do what I was meant to do: meld my understanding of psychoanalysis with what a lifetime has taught me about my subjects and my craft. Of course there is always more to learn and as one of my characters says in Vienna Triangle: “It is hard to get things right.” But trying and getting closer, is what makes writing so compelling.

What is your writing process?
Brenda: I work every morning for a couple of hours. In the beginning my thought is very fluid. Sometimes the “idea” is very slight. For instance for the novel The Beheading Game, I knew that I wanted somehow to revise the classic tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and make it more favorable to women. Otherwise, all I knew was that my hero Ren must be a drag queen. His voice came to me almost immediately but it took me many drafts before I decided that he would have to so something other than fantasize about the Green Knight. So I made him a theatre director putting on a transgendered version of the play. From there it was clear that the conflicts in his life should echo the events in his play and the book took off. The fact that I don’t work with a real outline and that I don’t know ahead of time how a novel will end makes it exciting to write. Unexpected things are always happening.

What literature do you read?
For the last 8years I have been on the Northern California Book Reviewers committee for the annual prize and so I have read a great many California authors. When I am feeling worn down and need nourishment, I tend to go back to certain old favorites, Tolstoy, Mann. Proust and especially Virginia Woolf. Every year in Rome, I treat myself to a re-reading of one of her books.

Is there a story that you are waiting to tell?
Again, chance came into it. When I finished Vienna Triangle, I was very unclear about what would come next. Then a producer in New York called and told me she loved Vienna Triangle and asked me to collaborate on a play. And that’s what we are doing! All I can say is that it turns out to be full of new stories.

Theater Review: "South Pacific"Theater Review: "Rent"

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:02:42 -0500

South Pacific

"There are moments where music is so haunting, so absolutely pure, that it
literally sends chills through one’s body. For me, “Bali Ha’i,” sung by
Keala Settle, is one of those moments. The song -- dark, sensual, and
dreamy -- is only one of the many gems in the performance of South
Pacific, which I saw last Tuesday at the Golden Gate Theater in San
Francisco. This production, directed by Bartlett Sher, is the first Broadway revival of the
classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, and will run in San Francisco
through October 25.

The story of South Pacific is simple enough. In the midst of World War II, a
number of lost souls are gathered on a lonely island in the South Pacific,
waiting – for orders, for a war, for peace, for freedom. Among them are
Ensign Nellie Forbush, a nurse from Little Rock, Arkansas; Emile de Becque, a
French plantation owner; Lt. Joseph Cable; and Bloody Mary, a native woman
trying to make a living among the soldiers who have overtaken her island.

As is the case in musicals everywhere, romance blossoms. However,
what makes South Pacific unique is its depiction of racism driving a
wedge between the lovers.

Nellie Forbush, played with verve by Carmen Cusack, falls deeply in love
with Emile de Becque (Rod Gilfrey), and is forgiving even when she learns
that he fled France after killing a man – but she cannot stomach the idea
that he was in a relationship with one of the native women, with whom he
fathered two children. And Lt. Joe Cable, played by the silver-tongued
Anderson Davis, is immediately enchanted by Liat (Sumie Maeda), the
charming daughter of Bloody Mary (Keala Settle), but he cannot even
begin to consider how he would go about introducing Liat to his mother
back home in Philadelphia.

Rodgers and Hammerstein did not shy away from tackling the topic of racism
when they first unveiled this musical in 1949, and this remarkable
theme remains one of the most serious threads in the production today.

Bringing lightness to South Pacific are the ensemble pieces by the sailors,
led by the indomitable Luther Billis (Matthew Saldivar), a goodhearted
sailor hopelessly devoted to Nellie. Their songs, most notably “Bloody Mary”
and “There is Nothin’ Like a Dame,” are show-stopping numbers that easily
draw delight from the audience. Other gorgeous pieces include “Younger than
Springtime,” sung by Lt. Cable, “Some Enchanted Evening," sung by Emile, and
of course, “Bali Ha’i.”

The infectious energy of South Pacific is accented perfectly by the staging,
flawlessly evokes the beauty and mysticism of the South Pacific. In
short, Bartlett Sher has unearthed an excellent production, notable for the
seriousness of the themes it tackles, the pure entertainment delivered by
its musical numbers, and the cast which delivers a seductive South Pacific that
you won’t want to leave."

Rent

"At precisely 8:00 on Wednesday night, a theatre crowded with Broadway
aficionados went insane. Why? Because two people had just walked
onstage. Who? Gandhi, perhaps? President Obama? Or even, dare I say,
Santa Claus? No. No, no, and no. It was Adam Rapp, accompanied by
Anthony Pascal, playing the parts they originated (Mark Cohen and
Roger Davis, respectively) in the latest national tour of RENT.
Accompanying them is the talented Gwen Stewart, who reprises her
original role as the soloist in "Seasons of Love," which is arguably
the most famous song of the musical.

This limited run in San Francisco will run through October 18 at
Curran Theatre, and the latest incarnation of the groundbreaking 90s
rock opera does not disappoint. RENT itself is the rock opera of rock
operas, the show that defined a generation of Broadway-goers, the
story that spoke to all 20-somethings trying to make it in the Big
Apple. And then, of course, we can't forget that RENT is the musical
that dealt so sympathetically and candidly with the AIDS epidemic that
it earned a Pulitzer Prize for its troubles.

Although most RENT lovers will be beyond thrilled to see Rapp and
Pascal just exist in the same theatre again (and don't get me wrong -
they give excellent performances), to me the strengths of the show are
in the ensemble pieces, as well as in some unbelievable standout
performances by the rest of the cast. Every time the company is
together and singing (as in "Rent," "Another Day," "La Vie Boheme,"
and "Seasons of Love"), the energy of the stage explodes. Justin
Johnston as Angel steals every scene he's in with his flashy antics
combined with genuine kindness, as well as his acrobatic vocal
stylings. Lexi Lawson plays Mimi with a touching strain of innocence
and a voice of pure gold, and Nicolette Hart as Maureen brings the
house down with her fabulous performance of "Over the Moon." Other
fantastic numbers to watch for include "Tango: Maureen," "Light My
Candle," and "What You Own."

There are many messages one can take from RENT, and the beauty of this
musical is that there is something for everyone. Yes, part of what
initially defined its popularity was the sudden emergence of a musical
for the youth, for the struggling artist, for the lost who are just
trying to find meaning in their lives. But there is more than that.
RENT is about forgiveness, about kindness, about giving, and most of
all, about love.

Die-hard RENT fans, you won't be disappointed. This production of RENT
features an energetic and passionate cast that promises to gather an
entirely new generation of devotees to its curtains. And to the rest
of you: this is perhaps the last time you will see three original cast
members in a national tour of this brilliant show. The time to see
RENT is now. No day but today."

~Rebecca Wells

Bathing in Primordial SoupA Review of Hotel Kabuki and O Izakaya Lounge

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:52:46 -0500

I craved infinite pools way before they were the ideal of luxuriant swimming. Maybe it's the longing for the good old days that arouse my craving for overflowing waters. And I mean the massive olden days when a very great grandma Ardipithicus ramidus launched herself from the primordial soup. I suspect there is some vague genetic echo of longing for that pure abundance of sloshing water, which means more than just, Dude, check out how well off we are, we can waste water! I think it's pleasing because, in our deep unconscious, we equate it with moving on up to the East Side, Darwin-style – lifestyles of survival of the fittest! We evolved out of the vast roiling ocean, and it's nice to be reminded of where we came from, like an evolutionary Jenny from the Block – when a tub overflows, I am Laura from the Sea.

Maybe my craving is just as simple as a desire to return to the womb and the constant flow of liquid. There is nothing to do but be nakedly warm, safe, and snuggly. In my momma's placenta sack, I was never troubled by any enraged superintendent banging on her belly and accusing me of causing a flood. But in the bathrooms in which I grew up, tubs were not meant to be turned into infinite pools, and the neighbors in the apartment directly below us furiously reminded my parents' insurance company of this fact...

I settle in the tub and the water starts flowing in. I am floating in a comatose state of abiogenetical bliss, only to awake from my reverie as my parents and the building superintendent bang on the bathroom door. I gasp in horror that my tub indeed runneth over – rushing the ramparts of my bath, streaming onto the floor tile – and it is clear that my waters have invaded the ceiling of the neighbors' bathroom below us, creating what I would regard as a lovely rainforest effect, but they have no appreciation for it.

Bathing was not an option in my home in San Francisco – lead paint dripping with black mold that peeled from the walls with any extra moisture; the tub so overrun with mold that a bath would be the equivalent of soaking in a sod pond. My bathroom was more of a car wash: a fast in-and-out experience.

After a court ordered clean-up, my home was sealed off as toxic-menace wasteland. Men in space suits entered as I left with my belongings in protective garage bags.

I am to stay at a hotel, and I pick the Hotel Kabuki. The description of this boutique hotel, "inspired by the rituals and customs of Japanese culture," evokes not the samurai's battle for survival, but the geisha's attentive delicate care. The staff does not offer to dispose of my Hefty trash-bag luggage; instead, they handle my sacks as if they were antique Louis Vuitton. Along with a breathtakingly lovely view of the city, my room has delicate paper shoji screens, sliding closet doors, and a Japanese-style tea service that I normally would get all fetishistic over. But the mannered polite orderliness of the property only increases my feeling of displacement. I want to be home, with my stuff, in my disorder.

Then I peer into the bathing room. It is not the usual bathroom – the tub is its own room! They even have a special name: furos, or deep soaking tubs. There is even a bath butler who will draw your bath – but I Vanted To Be Alone. Serenity, Love, Courage, Zen, Awareness are the heady titles of the bath salts they have at hand, but I have the scent of LUST waving under my nose, rousing me into a prehistoric frenzy – my primeval soup beckons.

No one is enraged as teeming water crests the porcelain walls of my furo. But my inner Al Gore forces me to halt this carnal water waste after three minutes, with loud calculations of how rapidly I am contributing to our species' extinction in an ironic return to primal mush.

But I'm able to sustain a cocoonlike sensuality, for in the elegant lobby every evening is a complementary sake tasting. Nobody minds if you don't ask what the differences are and just knock back the rice wine like whiskey shots. They indulge me with glowing smiles of good will, which only consecrate the knowledge that I am now in an alternative universe of love and pampering for all anthropoid types. (The five sakes have no influence at all, I assure you.) My joyous bountiful bliss reaches new crests when I join in a group activity hosted by the Kabuki Hotel. The Taiko Drum instructor graciously smiles as I respond to his prodigious beats by slipping rather quickly into the depth of my unconscious to pound the beat beat beat of my mother's heart on the drum. Who knows what primitive creation I fashion in Bonsai Lessons, Origami Instruction, or Sushi Preparation?

My need for nourishment is easily sated – I only need to stroll into the hotel's O Izakaya Lounge. With huge screen hangings of animated traditional Japanese baseball cards, the sense of play is immediate, yet there's a careful attention to detail: cork floors, bamboo trim, welcoming leather booths and communal tables – this is no iHop! Executive Chef Nicolaus Balla's menu for O Izakaya Lounge is meant to be shared with friends. This is the rare find of gourmet bar food, and I sip the most perfectly made Sake Mojito. Then my friends and I gasp at what is at least gastronomic proof of evolutionary genius.

Berkshire pork belly braised with house-made kimchee, Mendocino seaweed salad with mustard greens and umeboshi, and saba with beets, cucumbers, and freshly grated wasabi is a long way from club and catch. The presentation alone would impress Jackson Pollock.

If our planet does return to the sea, engulfed by global warming – a massive undulating liquid that was our world – perhaps one day a species will evolve out of our leftovers. If they ever start excavating to uncover what our civilization was, when they come to beer tempura mushrooms and spiced ginger chicken wings, they will know we were a lucky tribe, loved by our Gods and chefs. Oh, if only we kept to our furo tubs to overflow our delicate boundaries. Then life could go on forever.

~Laura Albert

Hotel Kabuki, 1625 Post Street, San Francisco, CA. (415) 922-3200
For reservations, call 1 (800) 533-4567
O Izakaya Lounge, (415) 614-5431

The Many Reincarnations of JT Leroy

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:00:13 -0500

Model: Laura Albert
Photographer: Trevor Traynor
Styling and Hair: Rudy Rivera, Hair of the Gods (SF)
Clothing by Miss Sixty Makeup by Smashbox

First row, center:
Hat by Jasmin Zorlu for Cassel Goorin "Legionnaire"
Second row, left:
Sunglasses by Richard Walker for Blinde "Obviously Oblivious"
Second row, center:
Sunglasses by Richard Walker for Blinde "Apparently Arrogant"
Third row, center:
Sunglasses by Richard Walker for Blinde "Sweet Vendetta"
Hat by San Diego Hat Co. "Jersey Knit Newsboy"
Third row, right:
Hat by San Diego Hat Company "Wool Felt Cap with Bow"
Fourth row, left & right:
Sunglasses by Richard Walker for Blinde "88 Special" in Olive and Blue
(left) Hat by San Diego Hat Company "Canvas Baker Boy with Trim"
Fifth row, left:
Sunglasses by Richard Walker for Blinde "Obviously Oblivious"
Hat by San Diego Hat Company "Jersey Newsboy Hat"
Fifth row, center:
Sunglasses by Richard Walker for Blinde "Lickety Lips"
Hat by Jasmin Zorlu for Cassel Goorin "Asymmetrical Fisher Girl" in Brown and Cream Tweed
Fifth row, right:
Sunglasses by Richard Walker for Blinde "Apparently Arrogant"
Hat by Jasmin Zorlu for Cassel Goorin "Asymmetrical Fisher Girl" in Black Suede with Fishskin Leather band

Album Review:Nat Baldwin's Most Valuable Player

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:28:10 -0500

The feeling people work so hard for, and sacrifice so much for, is the feeling of accomplishment, winning, knowing you're the best, knowing it'll be okay, and overall euphoria. I get a fine share of all the previously listed feelings when I put on Most Valuable Player. It is peace of mind itself.

Most Valuable Player's vibe gives you that feeling when you are looking out the window of your car as you drive by a deserted field, whose only inhabitant is the wind. Nat Baldwin - the vox of it all - has a most unique voice. The only comparison I can make to his voice is that of Robert Smith of The Cure, minus the accent, and the towering, misplaced hair. It has Robert Smith's male calming effect, but there is a major difference. Nat Baldwin sings in many tones, groans, and uncommon sounds. It sounds almost foreign, as if speaking in tongues.

This has a plus side though; these hymns and tones have a relaxing effect, as does that of a mother hymning her baby to sleep. Backed by either a trumpet, or clarinet in all but a few songs, it seems orchestrated. This only adds to the successful feeling like the slow-motion moments of people crossing the finish line, or "We Are the Champions" by Queen. When you listen to this, you have won. Just like the title of the CD, you are just that; you're the Most Valuable Player and you've got it all.

~Patrick Chamberland

Patrick Chamberland is a 14 year-old, freshman in high school. He lives in the most northern point of Maine.

Most Valuable Player will be released April 29 on Broken Sparrow Records.

VIDDYPoetry In Motion: Paranoid Park

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:17:27 -0500
"Paranoid Park", the latest feature from auteur Gus Van Sant, could teach bohemian wannabes a thing or two about "experimental" filmmaking. Shot on both super 8 and 35mm by one of cinema's greatest living DPs Christopher Doyle, and using an ingenious mix of soundscapes (mostly by Ethan Rose) and music ranging from Nino Rota to Cool Nutz, the film follows a simple, if morally weighted, storyline about a teenage skateboarder named Alex and his possible link to the murder of a security guard near a notorious skate park known as Paranoid Park. Because the film, based on a novel by Portlander Blake Nelson, is so straightforward, anchored in its plot, Van Sant is able to go as "avant-garde" as he pleases, playing not just visually and aurally, but with structure and time, without losing focus. What most likely would have been a cluttered mish-mash in the hands of an overly cerebral director becomes a poetic revelation with visceral Van Sant at its helm.

The film's opening has a 70s feel, a no-nonsense static shot of a bridge as the credits roll. The score shifts as effortlessly from Fellini to a breaking glass soundscape, from Alex's (35 mm-shot) school day to his super 8 skate stunts, as day to night, as waking life to a dream. Christopher Doyle, who seemed to sprout wings working with Wong Kar Wai all those years, doesn't move his camera a quarter inch without a reason. There's a terrific two-shot near the beginning of "Paranoid Park" that occurs after Alex has been called out of class for a police interview. The camera fixes on an empty classroom and pans right to reveal Detective Lu sitting at a table before Alex slowly takes a seat in the frame across from Lu. As the interview moves along the camera creeps closer and closer until only Alex is left in the frame. The scene started with Lu but ended with Alex. Psychologically, this is all you need to know, the easygoing realistic dialogue rendered merely peripheral.

And with a natural believable script matched by an equally convincing cast led by Gabe Nevins as Alex, Van Sant's idea to use MySpace as a casting service seems to have paid off. Nevins is equally lanky, angel-faced and serene, as in the moment as an improv performer. Dan Liu's Detective Lu avoids all movie clichés, more a benevolent social worker than murder investigator. Equally innovative is Alex's story, shown and "read," not "told," since Alex recounts his tale in a notebook, a sort of creative writing project with a gruesome homicide at its center. And Van Sant's attention to teenage detail is right on the mark. From the awkward low-angle shot of Alex picking up a newspaper to read about the murder to the lovely composition of the skate kids as they're called out of class for questioning, a horizontal lineup forming in the hall as one by one they join at each end, move forward with youthful musicality, visualizes adolescence itself. From the flashes of lightning during a thunderstorm to a shower scene in which cleansing water becomes heart pounding loud, "Psycho"-like in its horror, we can practically hear the scream of teenage angst.

As Van Sant glides back and forth in time, showing us the same scene more than once, the second time around with information that changes everything, we realize we're never really watching the same scene twice. With new meaning and profound resonance, we're forced to confront the fact that perspective is everything. After Alex loses his virginity to his girlfriend Jennifer, shot in a maelstrom of long blonde hair and noise from the crowd of teens goofing around outside, Jennifer compliments Alex, pulls on her jeans and goes to the bathroom – where she immediately calls a friend on her cell to brag about getting laid. The scene is hilarious, not least because it's so thoroughly realistic. (In this Facebook/ text-message obsessed age, isn't that what one is supposed to do?) And when Alex finally breaks up with Jennifer it's done with the camera frozen on her tearful face, music in lieu of words (for what could she possibly say that hasn't been cried a million times before?) Van Sant is all heart, a director who wants you to feel through sight and sound. And he understands something often lost in this "Grownups do stuff for money. There is no other reason," (as one character puts it) blockbuster society – the sheer weight of simplicity.

~Lauren Wissot

Lauren is a film critic, screenwriter, and author of the memoir Under My Master's Wings

Album Review:Marilyn Manson's Eat Me Drink Me

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:07:32 -0500
I know that music is one big influence-- One that can change your mood from song to song. This album's influence on me is that of co-dependence. In just about every song it seems like he is talking about a certain girl or drug. Something he needs to continue on and function, something he needs to remain alive. Which of course is not the case, but in the mind of a co-dependent it is. We all have this in a way I think, maybe even just a tiny bit. With titles like “Putting Holes In Happiness,” I get the impression that he's saying he'd never be happy without that object. In a way Eat Me Drink Me sounds like the predictable Manson, full of anguish and his home-hitting bitter looks on life that make you say to yourself, "I couldn't agree more." Messages that he sends are clearer in this album, as if he is more of a story-teller; a story teller trying to warn his listeners about the dangers and fears of the world. Eat Me Drink Me sounds different to me here because compared to his other albums, he isn't drowned out by the rest of the band-- his lyrics are clearer. This changes the whole outlook of what the listener interprets of the song’s meaning.

Going back to the co-dependent vibe-- Eat Me Drink Me sounds like it’s about his personal experiences in life, painful ones full of mistakes. The popular hit "Heart Shaped Glasses" seems to be a good example of this when you listen to the lyrics: "Don't break, don't break my heart/ and I won't break your heart-shaped glasses/ little girl, little girl you should close your eyes." It sounds as if he is talking to a girl, telling her not go hurt him because he's easily hurt. But she has these metaphoric "heart-shaped glasses," which say that she isn't hurt that easily, because the sunglasses are used as protection-- and since they're the heart-shaped, this means that she doesn't take things as deeply. But if she hurts him, he'll make her vulnerable. That's what this song says to me.

Eat Me Drink Me also speaks to me, mostly of despair and of co-dependence in different situations. For every song the story seems to change, but the punch-line is still right in your face. It is a lonely-sounding CD which sounds sort of painful with its low, depressing tones and synths. On the other hand it can speak to you deeply, like it does to me at some points. Music tells stories and Manson happens to be a genius at it. He is great for being able to write these stories that I think everybody can relate to. And if no relations are made, that's also fine-- because his lewd, crude, and surprising stories entertain. That’s why I recommend this album.

~Patrick Chamberland

Patrick Chamberland is a 14 year-old, freshman in high school. He lives in the most northern point of Maine.

Watch Marilyn Manson's Video for "Heart-Shaped Glasses"

Roots Restaurant

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:36:45 -0500

This aint HOJO's! Street cred begins ground floor of San Francisco's first and only "green" hotel - The Orchard Garden. It's Cinderella's cozy (56 seats) pumpkin transformed into luxuriant stagecoach; fall squash colors, turret like mirrors, soft coach seating which invite a new gastronomic ritual -- enmeshment into the joyous labor-intensive artistry of Chef Rummer (MC2_). Sustainable, local, organic means nothing without lick your plate and beg for more artistry. Scallop Ceviche with Blood Oranges and Buddha's Hand Oil?! The carpet is low VOC, ready made dropping to ones knees in prayer for more.

Roots Restaurant, 466 Bush Street (at Grant Avenue, in the Orchard Garden Hotel), (415) 659-0349

~Laura Albert

VIDDY: Cloverfield

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:51:11 -0500

Let me just cut to the chase (as I feel this movie should have) and say that Cloverfield fails to be redeeming on any level except, perhaps, as a near thirty second blip of a trailer that I and others witnessed prior to a screening of the live-action release Transformers last summer. Designed to spark curiosity in its audience based on its omission of content, the trailer to Cloverfield remains to be the film's only indicator that could possibly place it within the realm of this hyper-realistic style of visual storytelling that one sees on a daily basis if one happens to watch "reality television" or stream a video on Youtube (I am pretty sure that this was exactly the intent and feel that the filmmakers were attempting to reach in order to give the film urgency). The shaky hand-held camera combined with loud, uncomfortable sounds coming from off-screen can do wonders for an advertising campaign but does not even begin to sustain itself as an effective (or even a watch-able one, for that matter) form. It irritates, nauseates, and then ultimately bores an audience when relied upon too much.

However, there is an anecdote available to such a conundrum: a sharp script and talented actors—both of which, Cloverfield lacks. From the film's start to the film's end, one hopelessly searches for respite from the annoyingly shaky camera style through the story and characters, but only dwindles down to young twenty-somethings running and screaming on a story trajectory that is just what one would expect from such a shlock film: young man must find young woman amidst the death and destruction, blah, blah, blah, heterosexual coupling, blah, blah, blah...
Needless to say, Cloverfield (based on the trailer that I had seen) had the potential to use a form of visual storytelling that has become so widely accepted as reality that it is, in fact taken for reality to great affect. It could have been a film that carried a social commentary with it. Instead, Cloverfield carries bad acting, awful scriptwriting, and exhausting visual storytelling.

~Michael Rodriguez

The Stanford Inn

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:14:47 -0500
In Elizabeth Gilbert's autobiography Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert eats, turns a pinched starved-look into voluptuousness. She turns a desire to experience the divine into some intense physical discomfort - verging on torture and finally seeks love in Bali with guidance from a guru and someone with whom to make sweaty sex.

I am not so sure that it’s about a destination for people who need so much from the outside. The Stanford Inn is a gorgeous, leisurely 3-hour drive from San Francisco. At the Stanford Inn, folks tend to congregate around the roaring fireplace on the way to or from a sumptuous organic breakfast - when you start talking about their stay, they use the language of experiencing insight of some sort. Some report epiphanies. Those who went there just to kick back, take a hike, eat, watch a movie with someone they care about, or just have a place that allows their pets - these are the people who will at the end of their stay say they had a wonderful experience; and they look almost confused. It is a certain something they are not used to articulating. Food – Fantasist! Spa – wondrous! But it was something intangible; it is that their time here was meaningful beyond, R&R. For this reason, they will return – and plan to return more often even though they live at such a great distance. Something happened here, for them. They didn't try to do or be anything. It sneaked up on them like the one too many martinis.

And one day I found out what it is… That's the effect of the Ley line - it innervates; it accentuates; it eases. It is like grease. Whatever is going on it facilitates. If you hate someone or something, you might experience intense loathing - that is, the loathing will intensify and that can lead to a release - break through, followed by acceptance and peace. If you have been looking for meaning, you might experience that all is meaningful: just laying back in bed and staring at the redwood beam on the ceiling is filled with meaning. If you feel shattered, you might suddenly realize that each shard is a part of a beautiful whole, you - and you get to see the process that the shattered feeling leads to the realization of true wholeness. That's Ley line energy. You don't have to paddle up the estuary, though that option is open to you and enhances the experience. The energy is "grace of the earth" (the planet's grace). But paddling in the silence, with the sound of a harbor seal breaching to look at the canoe - this, too, can provide an added experience of oneness - of connectedness, of MEANINGFULNESS. It is full of meanings. It is all expression of consciousness.

Wait, about Ley Lines! Sounds a little "aura'ish"! Well, I don't know what they are other than what I have read. They seem to be lines of earth energy. They form a grid much like the lines of longitude and latitude - they are the energy meridians of the planet. Animals like to hang out along this swath of energy and trees grow along it, too. The energy swath is dynamic - moving like a flag looked upon from above, waving in the wind. The flag's edge is only 1/32 of an inch. The width of the field is 30 or more feet.

Is it possible to have Eat, Pray Love without Trader Joe's? The Stanford Inn has created an organic sustainable garden and use much of the produce, fruit and herbs in their Raven's dining room. The garden is an expression of love of life. They do not try to spray life away: rather they provide habitats for the coast's animals - allocate some produce to gophers. The love is in the gourmet but nurturing (nutritious) food. The dining room itself is vegan at night and mostly at breakfast. They love animals (not in a carnal sense) and thus the restaurant is an extension of that - and in so being the Ravens' is about eating and loving. Their idea of inn-keeping is to provide perfected service, renowned food, and celebrated gardens - without the disharmonies of pesticides, herbicides and death to create meat. They are troubled by the inherent torture to calves and goat kids as a result of dairy practices but still serve dairy calling themselves a "nexus of change" from the animal/cruelty based lifestyle to one that is animal friendly and plant based - to be more specific – whole food/plant based. But this aint info you get without digging for it. Nothing is pushed at you. There is no preaching. There are opportunities for their guests to open, to experience - and they step out of the way: they don't lecture.

You can rejoice in the environment: love the land and the waterways, they provide access for guests by canoe and bicycles. We can get on the back roads and on to the River and experience the beauty: to get to know it, without billboards or other encroachments of civilization. The physical aspect of love - they accentuate the natural - rooms are mostly paneled in wood. Colors are earthy and even the textures are paid attention to – it should all pamper without impingement. This is a country inn (four diamond at that), they are not some city-enclave on the North Coast. Wood burning fireplaces are themselves romantic, is the ocean in the distance, the archetypal small town.

If a guest wants - if they feel like it they may "practice" or receive "practice" - they may do yoga, canoe or kayak, just wander through the gardens - this is all practice, receive a massage (benefit from the practice of others). When you eat you might get into the nature of what it is you are eating - an expression of mindfulness. Or you might just dig being away…

~Bruce Stewart

First photo by Librarian In Black via Flickr
Second photo by Cindy R via Flickr
Third photo by JH Decker via ePodunk
Fourth through sixth, and tenth photo, courtesy of The Stanford Inn
Seventh photo by CB Castro via Flickr
Eighth photo, courtesy of Ravens' Restaurant
Ninth photo by Judy and Paul via Flickr

VIDDY: There Will Be Blood(And Sweat and Tears)

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:59:12 -0500

Paul Thomas Anderson's films always inevitably devolve into a cinematographic game of "name that director." And There Will Be Blood, his latest film based on an Upton Sinclair novel [Oil] about an oilman's obsessive, cancerous lust for the black gold, is no exception. Fortunately, what sets There Will Be Blood apart from other pseudo-homages like Magnolia and Boogie Nights, and what makes it his most mature film to date, is a result of the blood, sweat, and tears of one man. Daniel Day-Lewis is one of those rare actors able to rise above his directors' deficiencies. As the oil baron, Daniel Plainview, he grounds the film with the heavy weight of his character's soul and forces Anderson's attention-deficit-disorder directing to remain as sharply focused as the steel bit on a rig.

This is a performance far more nuanced and less showy than Day-Lewis' turn as Bill, The Butcher in Gangs of New York. Daniel Plainview has a back-story a thousand dusty miles long. You can see it in his hunted animal eyes, his clenched jaw, and his stoop and stagger. This is a broken, spiritual “dead-man-walking,” with Day-Lewis treading nothing less than Academy Award territory. Anderson took a big risk in the wordless opening, eschewing dialogue for rich, long shot images of the old and Wild West – a chance that pays off when we're jolted into the story by the sound of Plainview's oddly cadenced baritone. His voice is so unfamiliar and untraceably foreign that we treat it with unwavering attention. His proclamations about being "an oilman" become sermons from on high. Like in No Country For Old Men, the theme of man coming to terms with the notion that anything outside of fate is just a mirage is up close and personal. Day-Lewis as Plainview (every bit as bizarre as Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurgh) is himself often out of control. But some actors – like Brando and De Niro in their youth – a director can let get out of control. That's where they shine. These actors are artists who can devour without chewing scenery. (And then of course there are those like Jack Nicholson, clearly not in their ranks, as everything from The Shining to The Departed can attest.) There's a scene in which Plainview is awakened in the middle of the night to the news that one of his workers has been lost in the well. After receiving the crucial details he's about to return to sleep when he's startled by the realization he hasn't asked the most important question of all, "Did you get the bit?" Everything about this character is crystallized in the delivery of that line. Up until that point we're not quite sure if he's going to be able to pull off this strange performance. Afterwards, you can't imagine the character being played any other way. Day-Lewis is simply that brilliant. And Anderson has every reason to blindly trust him – he's that good.

But there's another preacher in the film whose sermonizing is just as powerful as Plainview's– a second antihero in this darkly brilliant tale. Paul Dano, as the young minister Eli Sunday who must match wits with the oilman else lose his community, has mastered the art of going up against a giant like Daniel Day-Lewis. He's a smart David in the face of this Goliath, choosing to go under Day-Lewis instead of over, lowering the tone and volume in an effort to shrink him down to his own size. Dano is a young
Edward Norton playing Ali to George Foreman, the water antidote to Day-Lewis' fire. Their acting is 100% physical – Dano preaching with his body, Day-Lewis' posture changing as his body begins to deteriorate, making physical his character's spiritual disintegration. (And the manipulative preacher versus the hustling baron is indeed a delightful prizefight, each testing the other to see if he's a man of his word or whether they're simply two sides of the same coin.) Dano knows he can't knock him out, so he just quietly waits, lets Eli take the punches (literally), until the monster wears himself out. Though Day-Lewis is an acting machine who never grows tired, by the end he's psychically battered and bruised. Paul Dano is the best thing to happen to Day-Lewis in a long time– the new kid on the block forcing the master to step up his game. (Actually, the casting is nearly perfect– the only misstep being not wooing Willem Dafoe to the role of Plainview's long-lost brother Henry. What I wouldn't give to see Day-Lewis and Dafoe in an acting showdown!)

I only wish Paul Thomas Anderson would have been so inspired. Though he benefits from a script founded in great literature, he's a risk-averse director relying on the fearlessness of his leads to overcome his own shortcomings. His camera often draws attention to itself instead of serving the story, moving on top of the script rather than with it (which is why Day-Lewis' voiceover works every time, with the narration serving as a focal point for when the lens wanders too far). He's an inorganic filmmaker, the separate pieces of cinematography, screenplay, and music never quite flowing together. (Though he has his moments. The suspenseful, Jaws-like music is fitting for the oil well blowup. Things finally get organic with stringed instruments drawing us in, not distracting, as the multiple POV images seamlessly segue into one another. But that's just one scene in a two-hour-plus film.) Yes, Anderson is able to employ the stillness of Sayles – didn't I see some of that footage in Matewan? – isn't afraid of the silences anymore. He's learned a lot from Altman about using the camera to probe a character's conscience. He shares his love of shooting the overwhelming landscapes of the west with Malick. In fact, his constant referencing of these directors through the visual only serves to remind that Paul Thomas Anderson will never be any of them. He's simply traded in his Scorsese shots of Boogie Nights for a course in Days of Heaven.

Only when Anderson takes the next step of absorbing the legendary filmmakers' directing – then making it his own – does the movie truly succeed. The film's finale is such a disconcerting, twisted mix of Scorsese's The Age of Innocence with Kubrick's The Shining, complete with decrepit gilded mansion and trailing, low angle, Big Wheel shots in a surreal bowling alley (and a mob rubout to boot!) that you can't help but sit back and admire it. Anderson has finally created something new like the best, DJ remix. The filmmaking has risen to the level of Day-Lewis' performance. "The third revelation? What is the third revelation?" Plainview mockingly terrorizes Eli. I can only hope that the Academy voters see that the answers in plain view.

~Lauren Wissot

Lauren is a film critic, screenwriter, and author of the memoir Under My Master's Wings

Rejouvenance Skin & Body Day Spa Version 2.0

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:47:10 -0500
In preparation for a hot date the best advice I’ve gotten was to either lose ten pounds or get a spray tan. Whether at the original, or its new (open as of Sunday, 12/2) sister spot, with one visit to Rejouvenance you can do both. Rejouvenance boasts the kind of attentive, personalized care that is unique to a female owned, non-corporate business. They have the best spray tan – the only one where you don’t look like an overcooked carrot. And, as far as the immediate wait loss – who would think a treatment from behind the old Iron Curtin would save our behinds? The Russians invented Whole Body Vibration (WBV) to form muscle mass on their cosmonauts – now 50-years later we being let in on their secret weapon. 20 minutes on a vibrating plate at 50 hertz per second = 1 hours of resistance training. Build muscle, reduce cellulite, increase collagen, and augment groovy human growth hormones without a doping scandal! Serotonin even gets a boost (you might not need your Prozac!).

Explore the mystery for $20 for 20 minutes.

As of this Sunday, also find Rejouvenance at its new location 1500 Vallejo Street, San Francisco, (415) 567-7222

Vegan Cupcake Comes to Rescue of Troubled Author

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:26:01 -0500
By Jack Rake, UPI, San Francisco, Oct. 4

In a striking development that sheds light on the emergence of purely vegetal matter in the literary world, a so-called vegan "cupcake" all but saved the life of a California fiction writer who was found liable for fraud in a Manhattan courtroom this past summer.

The authorities said the cupcake, a chocolate-vanilla swirl made of rice flour with a soy-based icing, was instrumental in stopping the writer, Laura Albert, 41, from checking herself into a state psychiatric ward this week. "Without that cupcake there's no doubt in my mind that crazy bitch would have committed herself to the bughouse again," said one investigator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It's a nifty bit of work for a baked good."

While cupcakes have long served as the dessert of choice for the writerly set, the selection by Ms. Albert (author of the novel "Sarah" and creator of the fictional persona, JT LeRoy) of a strictly vegan cupcake suggests, however dimly, that animal products from eggs to milk to cheese may finally be falling out of favor among authors. In a related development in Burundi, a little-known writer of East African situation comedies was discovered to have hanged himself last month in his blue Mini-Cooper with what the authorities in Africa have said was a suicide note taped to the steering wheel, stating he could "not go on" given the lack of vegan sweets in the region.

"I wouldn't say it's reached the level of a trend yet, but it's undeniable that things are popping at an almost alarming rate," said Demetrius T. Beauregard, professor of forensic gastronomy at Harvard. "We've seen an unprecedented rise in aggressive veganism not only among nonfiction writers but, unfortunately, among those who make shit up as well."

How this leaked to the press, I don't know, but nothing is sacred any more. You can't drive with a baby in your lap or try to jump off bridge in privacy! It is true; I had had a hard day. I had no more dark chocolate in supply. I couldn't even find a suitable fictional persona to get me through the day.

So I had one of those George Bailey It's A Wonderful Life moments. I live in San Francisco and thus I went to the Golden Gate Bridge. Leaning over the rust colored railing snow crusted my face – well, actually, it was fog frothing in – a small unromantic detail.

"I'm worth more dead then alive…." Did I say that aloud? I must have because suddenly a chocolate with white frosting cupcake sailed over my shoulder. It did not sally forth toward the water, but alongside me, heading into oncoming traffic! I instinctively jumped to the rescue of cupcake – the way anyone would if a baby were tossed toward you. I grabbed it, the vanilla butter crème frosting swooshing against my palm just before it would have collided with a Hummer.

I looked up – manna from heaven? A man-boy's form made its way toward me through a bluster of fog.

"Are thou an angel and art thou in search of wings?" I held the stigmata-like dripping mess on my palm out to the gangly being in front of me.

"Yes I am," the being said. A starched white cloth cape flapped behind him.

"But my name bee'th Sasha: Protector of Men." His eyes had a blue marble gloss.

"But I am not a man," I sighed, "Or have you not heard?"

"I have heard rumor of such, indeed." He stepped forward. "Your breasts are a clue as well. But I am not really a protector of men. That's just what my name means."

I noticed what I initially took for a cape was really an apron. It was just tied on like a cape.

"I am a provider of cupcakes!" He wore clogs, not the wooden little boy type, but the chef laboring in a kitchen kind.

I gulped, realizing who this was and what was smooshed all over my hand.

"Good humored sir," I held up my hand, "Is this vegan?"

He nodded. "How did you know?"

The chocolate under the frosting was the color of peat soil. It had an allure of something not sickeningly sweet yet still maintaining the promise of intense oral joyous satisfaction.

"I hear the call of all that need The Vegan Cupcake Treatment." He thrust his hand out, clutching a brown paper bag holding more of its kind. Six more to be exact.

"You are sent from the gods," I gasped.

"Kinda. Actually we have a deal with the Golden Gate Bridge – I have a jumper phone at my restaurant, Lettus. Someone reported you. Said you had that fraudulent fiction writer despondency vegan aura to you."

I nodded solemnly as I licked my fingers.

My attention was suddenly taken by police sirens. By the time I turned back, Sascha had vanished. I tried to assure the police I was not really going to jump, I was just into --chasing cupcakes.

Alas it was too late. An AP reporter now stood in the space vacated by Sascha.
Upon my release, I took to strolling into the habitat/restaurant, Lettus, in search of my vegan cupcakes, where I sometimes catch glimpses of the legendary clogs and apron/cape of Sascha Weiss as he jousts out of his kitchen toward bridge duty. Sometimes he is joined by Elizabeth Falkner of famed Citizen Cake. It turns out there were too many old-schoolers that balked at the sacrilege of a vegan cupcake – even though you would never know if you bit into one. (Midwesterners-- they can tell five feet away.) So Elizabeth's cupcakes can reach the purist suicidals. They are thick and juicy, the steak of cupcakes, but in the aesthetic San Francisco perfection way. Would-be jumpers often report, that after their first bite of a Citizen Cake cupcake they hear a big band playing swing – the taste of nostalgia that accompanies the senses.

I myself found redemption patrolling the ramparts of the wind- swept Golden Gate Bridge in search of fellow lost artists craving a leap into the beyond. I freed up Elizabeth and Sascha so they can stay chained to the kitchen and make more compact missiles of grace - no more bridge duty. My heart overflows to know that I can be of service. It matches the ache of my overstuffed stomach as I usually eat my supplies of cupcakes, both vegan and not, my melancholia getting the better of my virtue.

I have found delight in my work, except when I encounter a journalist. For them, there is only one thing that will work, which is not in my repertoire - I don't stock Twinkies.

~Laura Albert

Go There:
Lettus, 3352 Steiner, San Francisco, (415) 931-2777
Citzen Cake, 399 Grove Street, (415) 861-2228

The Color Purple

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:00:00 -0500
by Laura Victoria

Music & Lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, & Stephen Bray; based on the novel by Alice Walker.

Early in the show, The Color Purple, there is a line in the song, "What About Love" - a duet between Shug and Celie – that goes, "I want you to be a story for me that I can believe in."

And I am in tears. The setting is early 1900s, but the theme of holding on to another in order to survive the seemingly unbearable is timeless.

The power of the songs, performed by a standout cast headed by Jeannette Bayardelle, who plays Celie, offers a spiritual high that makes the upwards of $100 ticket price pale in comparison. The Color Purple is threaded with themes of darkness and despair, but, what shines through are glimmers of faith and hope.

The spirit of Oprah Winfrey, who is a presenter of this performance, frames the musical. After having been nominated in 1985 for Best Supporting Actress, thanks to her role as Sophia, Miss Winfrey went on to launch her now increasingly popular and successful namesake TV program. Thus, it's impossible to separate our feelings for The Color Purple from our appreciation of the work of Oprah Winfrey. Few among us get to Chicago to give Oprah a standing ovation, but we can go to her show right here in San Francisco and leap to our feet when the cast comes out for it’s final bow.

The title is a belief that a God who created the beautiful color purple could never be cruel and unloving, and that prayers of a bewildered and obedient young Celie will be answered. Forty years of faith is furthered by a quartet of lively Church ladies (Lynette DuPree, Kimberly Ann Harris and Virginia Ann Woodruff) singing, clapping and stomping. Paul Tazewell’s costumes are stunning - from the ladies' handsome hats, to "Miss Celie's Pants," a business that brings our heroine financial independence in post-WWII Georgia. This reminded me of an essay by Alice Walker, "In Search of our Mother's Gardens," which examines the way in which woman often find a way to endure by finding an outlet for their artist’s voice. Celie takes problems of the soul and spirit and transforms them into problems of craft. She makes art in clothes, and subsequently finds joy and satisfaction.
Comparing The Color Purple to the Gershwin folk opera, Porgy and Bess is in order. Music heightens poetry, giving emotional breadth and depth to mere words. This aspect justifies this new version, even though much of the story is simplified (for example, Sophia's disfigurement and partial blindness evaporate in the musical). Instead, we applaud Sophia's stubborn, "Hell, No!" even though we know that her independent spirit in that place at that time would cause her serious trouble.

The most rigidly Puritanical viewer must cheer for Celie when she finds love with her husband's ex-mistress (Michelle Williams), or when Celie finally stands up to his brutish behavior. We are overjoyed and satisfied when Celie is ultimately reunited with both her own grown children and the long-lost sister who raised them.

Direction by Gary Griffin keeps the show fluid, as do John Lee Beatty’s evocative set pieces. When the story moves to Africa, the choreography of Donald Byrd proves equally exciting. Performers are uniformly excellent, from the leads to supporting roles.

But, in the end, the real question is: is it worth up to $100 a ticket for a show based on a movie you probably have already seen, based on a book that you have probably read? As one character, Sophia (Felicia P. Fields), would put it – “Hell, Yes!”

Orpheum Theatre

Running October 9 - December 9
Tue - Sat eves at 8pm
Wed, Sat and Sun - mats at 2pm
Sun eve, 10/14 at 7:30
Fri mat, 11/23 at 2pm

Running time:
2 hours 40 minutes (including intermission)

Tickets: $35 - $99