September, 2007

 

Dear Friends and Readers,

 

 

In August of 1994, I wrote:

 

(My friend, the actress Priscilla Alden from San Francisco, had come to Oaxaca for visit, and one day ...) I was walking by the old Teatro Alcalá, where I’ve worked a lot and always loved, and I remembered that Priscilla said she would like to visit some time.  I had told her about working there and loving it so and the old counterweight systems of flies and drops and sandbags.  So I stepped up to the stage door on the side and halloed into the dark.  There were some workmen standing around (the theater is undergoing restoration) and I introduced myself and said I was with the Teatro Vivo and gave them some stuff about a famous actress who is in town and how the Teatro Vivo would really like to show her a good time and could we bring her by the theater?  OK.  Tomorrow?  OK, tomorrow.  OK, tomorrow at ten?  OK, but no photos!  Great, no problem!  (No photos?)

 

            So the next morning I had some final stuff to do at the printer's and then met Priscilla in a cab in front of the theater at 10:00 sharp.  She paid the cab and together we tottered off to the stage door which was open and up into the dark bowels of the building, me halloing on ahead.  We paused for a minute or two but nobody showed up and so I said, well come on let's just go.  So here we are in the dark on a steep ramp and Priscilla can't walk and neither of us can see but I said, here we are back stage, Priscilla.  No, she said, this isn't back stage.  I don't know where she thought we were but having been in the theater a lot I assured her I was right and just then we stepped into the dim light of the great auditorium and she gasped.  A tall scaffolding had been erected up one side of the boxes from the stage to almost half way around the side but the rest of the theater was visible and of course, just stunning.

 

 

 

Taking her arm and looking around for a chair or something for her to sit on and thinking, brother I bet we get thrown out of here, when a young guy emerges from the shadows.  I greet him and it turns out he's one of the guys I had met yesterday and we introduce ourselves around and he smiles real nice, of course, at Priscilla.  And he brings out a couple of chairs and we sit down.

            Well, we had a great time, Priscilla and I swapping old theater stories and looking up into the dark flies overhead.  After awhile we began slowly making our way around to the front of the theater and finally out the front doors and much thanking of the guy and complimenting him on his beautiful theater.  I don't know what he was thinking of all this but Priscilla and I went off happily to have a coffee in the zócalo where of course, Mauro greets us to his table and making a big to do over us and saying how he hopes Priscilla is enjoying herself and such. 

            It was a nice day.

 

 

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            So, friends, I’m sure you remember that I mentioned last month about all the old files and archives I’ve recently received.  I’ve been putting a lot of it up and encourage you to take a look.

 

            In the newly revamped THEATRICAL TIME-LINE you’ll find around 20 new entries.  From the sixties, for example:  my first production of Samuel Beckett’s HAPPY DAYS at the old Ensemble Theater with Dale Meador, an open-air, anti-war ditty called GEORGE WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE, with guess who as George Washington, and a week of mid-night SMUT SHOWS on the campus of the University of Washington, which nearly ruined the black-board.

 

            From the seventies it starts to get thick:  our first posed tableaux, recreations of the four students killed in the KENT STATE SHOOTINGS at the Seattle Museum of Art, the dark, German expressionist WOLVES in the Pike Street Market underground basement, the frothy MEET ME AT THE SODA FOUNTAIN tableau vivant in the window of Polly Friedlander’s fancy art gallery in Pioneer Square, the San Francisco premier of TRIPLE-DICK MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE, followed closely by Maxim Gorki’s gloomy LOWER DEPTHS at the Julian Theater, the birth (?) in the dark mid-night movies of Jim and Artie Mitchell’s O’Farrell Theater of LES NICKELETTES and how we’ll never be the same(!), our favorite author Gertrude Stein’s TURKEY AND BONES AND EATING AND WE LIKED IT before a bewildered audience at the Julian Theater, our first Third-Place winning float QUEEN ISABELLA GIVES HER JEWELS TO COLUMBUS (with Les Nickelettes as her jewels), the Polk Street Fair open-air living tableaux of MARIA’S BAKERY, and our “real“ float THE OLD SHOWBOAT in the Capitola, California, Annual Begonia Festival Nautical Parade (!), Jonathan James’ fascination with the PCC streetcars of San Francisco and its resulting TROLLY ART at the AAA Studios, and Russell Ellison’s mix of old home movies with Gertrude Stein’s A FAMILY AND ITS PROGRESS.  And all in the seventies!

 

            The eighties saw the Napa Valley Theater Company’s production of Samuel Beckett’s KRAPP’S LAST TAPE at the studio, Maria Manhattan and Betsy Newman New York half-hour Live-TV (!) feed offering ART BY THE POUND, while our award-winning floats for the AIDS Emergency Fund follow one after the other:  the GIANT PIGGY-BANK with Bermuda Schwartz as a Statue of Liberty coin going in the slot at the top, Sharon McNight’s BIG DRESS stopping traffic on Market Street, a movable Busby-Berkeley production number of PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, and Doris Fish ‘s eight-hour CARE-A-THON in the San Francisco Civic Center.  It never let up!

 

            Meanwhile, I’ve added a few more of the latest events in Oaxaca, Mexico.  I’ve been proud of our theater company, Teatro Vivo, and the strong guerilla-style pieces they’ve done:  the early DAY OF THE DEAD ALTAR AGAINST THE WAR at the onset of the war in Iraq, our tribute to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and his ROUTINES in the street in front of the Santo Domingo Auditorium, the marching contingent JUSTICE RAPED in the big Ninth Mega-March against Governor Ulises Ruiz, a bloody DAY OF THE DEAD ALTAR TO THE POLITICAL ASSASINATIONS, and our contribution to this year’s Alternative Guelaguetza ARTE EN RESISTENCIA which covered the city’s central plaza with giant, dripping spiderwebs.  You might notice, too, we even managed to stage a public forum on Sexual Diversity in GAY WEEK IN OAXACA.  Wheeew!

 

            In BOOKS, BOOK/OBJECTS you’ll find two new BERLIN SKETCHBOOK and PRAGUE SKETCHBOOK, both from 1990, and a little ditty called BILL WOLF’S BOOK OF CARTOONS.

 

            In RECENT WRITINGS, I’ve followed the latest brutalities in THE GUELAGUETZA AT WAR, and another rant about hypocritical politicians and Larry Craig in DELICIOUS!  Do look.

 

            Finally, you can now see the original set designs I did of sk dunn slowly sinking into her heap of garbage crying “Get through the day, Winnie!  Get through the day!” in Samuel Beckett’s HAPPY DAYS which interrupted international video-phone communication on the original video-phone which Richard Nixon used to communicate from the White House on the first video-phone connection in the, like, History of the World!  That’s in Bill Wolf’s THE MEMOIRS, CHAPTER 18, by the way.  I know you’ll like it.

 

 

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            So do look around a little, my friends, and enjoy a little of those times and while we're at it, let's remember a little our great actress from those days and our very own ... Tinkerbelle.

 

 

 

 

Your friend,

Bill Wolf

 

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   ...LAST MONTH'S LETTER