UNHOLY TRINITY: A Lovecraft Triptych

Over the course of his career San Francisco theatre artist Stuart Bousel has crafted a staggering number of plays as adapter, writer, and director. Even his plays rooted in the most immediate and realistic of settings are informed by a strong grasp of the mythological, elevating even the grittiest work into the transcendent. Unsurprisingly, Bousel's work demonstrates an affinity for genre: his production of Wendy MacLeod's The House of Yes leaned beautifully into the Gothic horror lurking in the play's heart without losing its wit or humanity; and Dick 3, his adaptation of Richard III for San Francisco Theatre Pub (a group he co-founded), artfully transmuted the bloody and towering history play into a brisk, engaging and entertaining "Shakespearean slasher."

Bousel's talents (and many of his preoccupations) are on display in UNHOLY TRINITY, a triptych adapted from the writings of HP Lovecraft and Anne Helen Crofts. With startling smoothness, Bousel and his talented cast of eight actors bring Lovecraft's tales to life, capturing both the intense interiority of his prose and the expansive, cosmic dread of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

Ever the busy artist, Bousel has curated a theatre festival that opens immediately after this production closes, but graciously took the time to discuss the origins of UNHOLY TRINITY, his approach to adapting Lovecraft, and his thoughts on genre and theatre.

UNHOLY TRINITY has been gestating for a while, yes? (I recall actor Brian Martin mentioning a reading of THE DUNWICH HORROR several years ago.) What prompted you to explore the Lovecraft mythos on stage?

So, I actually first staged NYARLATHOTEP, one of the stories that makes up UNHOLY TRINITY, as my directing final my junior year of college. We had to stage a 10-15 minute piece that was expressly not intended for theatrical production, and I chose that, and while my staging was completely different from the one happening at the EXIT, a lot of the initial ideas that would eventually come together to make UNHOLY TRINITY were born. Then yes, many years later, for Theater Pub, I did a sort of radio version of THE DUNWICH HORROR in which Brian Martin, who is in UNHOLY TRINITY was cast (as Curtis, that time around). So, I've been revisiting the material ever since, and my ultimate goal was to eventually create a piece very much in line with what's currently at the EXIT. Incidentally, I also adapted THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP at one point, for my screenwriting class in college. It did not make it into this final version, but I had originally seen that, and not THE DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE, as the third piece in the trinity. DREAMS fits so much better though, as it has the link of academia which allowed the professor heroes of DUNWICH to be present through the whole evening, and create a through line rather than just have the show be an anthology (though it is that too). As for what draws me to Lovecraft... honestly, it's the language and the atmosphere he creates. I'm also originally from the East Coast, and there's an appeal to New England magic and witchcraft that I think a lot of us born and raised in proximity to those areas have as an intrinsic part of our childhoods. I love how Lovecraft mixes these historical and traditional folklore elements into his ultimate vision of secret cults trying to bring about the end of the world.

The set, designed by Christian Heppenstal, lit by Curtis Overacre. Photo by Jay Yamada.


On the page, Lovecraft's language seems a bit tricky for theatrical adaptation. Can you talk about either the changes you had to make to make the tales work on stage, or what is inherent in the texts that made them ripe for this kind of exploration?

I approached Lovecraft's language, which is tricky (the man loves his run-on sentences) with the same approach I tend to take when adapting and/or cutting Shakespeare: i.e. carefully, and with the goal of helping what's at the core of the piece emerge, rather than attempting to impose my own agenda on it, using the language to create the tone and atmosphere as much as to tell the story in a straightforward sense, while using the cuts or changes to downplay or remove whatever I felt got in the way of the audience really appreciating the core of the piece. Lovecraft doesn't tend to have a lot of spoken dialogue in his stories, but he does in DUNWICH, actually, and even has a lot of dialogue spoken in vernacular and accents, which made that adaptation a little easier. With all the pieces, however, it became about deciding which character in the story would be the one to reveal what information, with what they knew, or didn't know, or were worried about, or were invested in, tending to determine when they spoke what part of the narrative. Once I knew which characters I wanted to extract from the works, I was able to slowly but surely carve out some distinct personalities and voices mostly just by making sure the parts of the narrative they spoke were consistent with who they were. In some places I definitely add my own dialogue, but I try to weave it in as much as possible. I think it's a huge credit to the cast that largely you can't tell exactly which writer is talking when, but if I'm being honest about a third of the text is me, two thirds Lovecraft.

Your cast take a uniformly earthy approach to the text throughout UNHOLY TRINITY. Did you notice any particular challenges Lovecraft poses to actors that they don't encounter anywhere else?

The challenges the actors face are maybe less distinct to Lovecraft so much as common to heavily narrative, vs. dramatic, work as a whole. The real challenge is making storytelling into storytelling, not just reporting, which is hard to sit through for 80 minutes, you know? But then that's about each actor investing emotionally in the part of the story they get to tell. So helping them connect to the work and make it personal was the real challenge, so that we didn't end up with people just standing there, reciting a story for the audience, in monotone. I kept referencing Greek Tragedy, actually, and how the messengers in Greek Tragedy are really invested in the stories they tell, which is why their speeches are often the best ones in any given play, and real bring down the house moments if done well, and I kept encouraging the actors to always see everything they said as coming with a sense of urgency that was compelling them to share this story with an audience. They weren't telling this story because they wanted to- but because they needed to.

Ellen Dunphy as Keziah Mason, THE DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE. Photo by Jay Yamada.

One of the more bracing aspects of your work over the years is your enthusiastic embrace of genre elements - one feels like many of your peers might regard genre (horror, especially) as a theatrical ghetto, but you embrace it with gusto. Do you sense a resistance among other theatre artists to rigorously explore genre? Do you feel (FULL DISCLOSURE as I do) that other theatre makers only approach genre and horror via camp?

The problem with approaching anything via camp as a means or aesthetic is that camp actually only works if it's organic- when it's engineered too consciously, it's no longer really camp, just campy, which isn't the same. But that's really a topic for another interview. I don't deny that Lovecraft has a certain goofiness to him and we try to lean in to those moments really hard, I just also make it a point to lean into the sincere emotions when they occur (rare in Lovecraft- so a lot of those we found as a troupe), and the beauty of the imagery, the language etc. I told the cast to play everything straight, and let the audience decide what had and hadn't aged well, or was sort of unintentionally ridiculous. I also steered away from flashy effects and boo moments, both of which I think often fail in theater, and is why horror as a genre isn't one we see much on stage. When we do, and when it works, it's usually a result of pacing, atmosphere, and precise but restrained use of heightened reality moments which draw an audience in, lull them into a false sense of security, and then find ways to get in under their skin- usually with emotional authenticity. I think SWEENEY TODD does this beautifully, and to a lesser extent, or maybe just in a different way, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Both of which are considered classics so I don't know that I agree that genre is a theatrical ghetto because the longest running show in the history of Broadway is a genre piece, you know? I think it's more that genre is just hard to pull off well, and so many companies shy away from it, or spoof it rather then present it with any kind of emotional truth or sincere celebration of the form. That said, there's been a lot more companies devoted to genre, whether that's fantasy or sci-fi or horror, than in the past, so if it's a ghetto, it is a progressively populated one.

Personally, I tend to think of a lot of my work as magical realist and or surrealist with a folklore/mythology bent. There are often elements of otherworldliness or enchantment but I'm not sure if that's the same as genre as most people mean genre. In fact, generally speaking, it's the genre world, not the more conventional theater world, that has rejected my work. So I'm not sure that I do see this resistance that you see, though I agree that strictly speaking, we don't see a lot of dyed-in-the-wool genre happening at, say, regional theaters. But like... HAMLET is a ghost story, MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM is a fairy tale, INTO THE WOODS is all the fairy tales, ANGELS IN AMERICA is full blown mythological epic, and as technology has become central to human experience we're seeing more and more plays we would have once considered science fiction, certainly as, say, Ray Bradbury conceived of it, THE NETHER being the first example that comes to mind. From where I stand, American Kitchen Sink realism seems pretty on the wane. Even if companies aren't leaning in to genre work, they are much more open to it than they have been in the past. It's definitely being taken more seriously as art. I think what will be interesting to see is if those genre artists who thrived partly due to the ghettoized nature of their work will continue to do so as wider audiences maybe come to expect more from the work than genre aesthetic alone. Ie. content. Because if we're gonna get real here, my issue with a lot of genre work (and I expect it's the case for those who poo-poo genre work in general) has been that often it lacks content and relies very heavily on aesthetic and the specific aesthetic of the ghetto it and its principal audience have occupied.

What's next once UNHOLY TRINITY has completed its run?

The SF Olympians Festival, which I curate, and in which I have a piece that is getting performed on November 7th, and three pieces I am directing that will be performed on November 22nd. Find out more at www.sfolympians.com.

UNHOLY TRINITY completes its run this weekend, with shows Thursday thru Saturday, October 31-November 2nd, at the Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy Street in downtown San Francisco. Tickets can be bought right here.

YBCA: IN A GLASS CAGE

It isn't necessarily time to fulfill a semi-promise made last year, but memories remain of the still-ended film program at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Some memories are stronger than others, and some experiences will stick in the front of my head until I put them down. Some of these posts will celebrate milestones in the film program. This one, however, centers not on the curatorial largesse of Joel Shepard but on a particularly memorable screening. One of the freakiest I've ever attended. Read on...

In A Glass Cage had a three-show run in May 2011 at YBCA. It was a new print that was making the rounds; smaller distributors announce their offerings to various theatres and programmers, and in those days Joel was often the only programmer adventurous enough to jump on some of the more esoteric films thrown his way. (There were a few restored classics over the years that Joel was astonished he landed; he couldn't believe that no other cinema in the Bay Area was as excited as he to show certain films.) The debut film by Spanish filmmaker Agustí Villaronga (who based it on the life of Gilles de Rais), In A Glass Cage tells the story of a decrepit Nazi child molester who falls into the care of one of his former victims. A certain level of controversy still hovered over the film given its rigor, politics, and explicit sex and violence. There were about fifteen of us in the audience, braced for something quiet, disturbing, and confrontational.

Interjection: YBCA's house managers fill out a report form at the end of every event. There's a box to check if everything goes fine and without incident, and a number of spaces to fill in details on anything that goes wrong (facilities things like the room being too cold or too warm, problems brought up by audience members, etc.)

So the movie quietly reveals itself to be an austere, slowburn treatment of its subject matter, creating a grey, humid world in which its characters regard each other with unspoken but deeeeep volumes of hatred, longing, and emotions too complex to express.

About twenty minutes in some guy and his date blow in, making quite a lot of noise as they get acclimatized to the low light of the movie and try to find the best seats. Plenty of space near the door where they could just sit the fuck down and not disturb anybody, but it's almost as if they deliberately pick (after much debate and calculation) the longest path across the space between the door and available seats. There's been very little exposition at this point in the movie, but the newcomers are a little louder than they have to be in trying to catch each other up.

Then the guy, from somewhere in his jacket pocket (which he makes a weird amount of noise trying to find), withdraws a particularly crinkly snack bag (Doritos or something) which he noisily opens and even more noisily starts eating.

Three rows in front of him, a reedy, older moviegoer (a regular I believe - don't recall exactly who but believe I had seen him there before or since), gets up out of his seat, walks to the aisle, walks back to this guy's row, walks up to him, AND SNATCHES THE BAG OUT OF HIS HANDS and storms back to the aisle, back down the aisle to his row, then back to his seat.

The Screening Room at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts seats 94 people, in eight rows of seats. It would be hard for all of this not to be noticed in the average house of your average multiplex, but this shit is EXPLODING and bouncing off the metal walls that line the powderkeg of this little room.

So the latecomer gets out of his seat, goes to the aisle, down the aisle, then up to the snatcher and demands to know what the fuck his problem is. The snatcher tries to make his case while keeping his voice down, God love him, though the particular mood of IN A GLASS CAGE has been pretty much destroyed by this time, as the drama unfolding in the audience has escalated far more quickly than Agustí Villaronga would have ever allowed. All of the moviegoers are completely distracted by the drama unfolding in their midst, which seems to be headed to a violent resolution more quickly than the movie. But someone in a seat near the door has left the room, and soon the house manager has poked her head in and left, and soon after that Security arrives to escort BOTH men from the screening room. (The latecomer's date follows him out.) None of them return, but no one in the audience is on the wavelength of the movie, and though the rest of the screening goes without incident the movie's chances at taking us in were pretty much dashed.

I later found that the latecomer had split from a performance in the Forum (a larger space on the floor below the screening room) and, having announced that the quality of that performance not to his liking, demanded to be let into the movie upstairs since he figured YBCA owed him one.

"Whatever the case," I thought to myself, "she won't be able to check that box tonight."

IN FABRIC

A remarkable departure in this, the latest from Peter Strickland. I blanche when directors of offbeat movies are casually lumped in with David Lynch, but Strickland earns such a comparison, sharing with Lynch a drive to mine the mundaneness of his past for the menace lurking beneath. Like his previous horror-ish movie BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO the drab colors of the 70s/80s decor are pungent with a soul-deep rot lurking beneath; the analog tackiness of a TV advert for a department store's post-holiday sale warns us that only devil's bargains are to be struck there.

Strickland's artistry has never been so arch as to eliminate humor, but he leans harder into comedy here, contrasting the wilfully British reserve of his characters against the encroaching surreality and alienness of his design. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is particularly affecting as a working class single mother, immediately landing our sympathy for being a normal person just trying to get through the damn day, not deserving to be caught in the gyre of a Peter Strickland picture. (She's marvelous in her scenes alongside Stickland company MVP Fatma Mohamed, whose intricately verbose sales pitches are simply too welcoming to be trusted.)

Strickland shares with Lynch a keen interest in the nuances of feminine anxiety, going deeper and with greater understanding and sympathy than most male filmmakers, and Jean-Baptiste's growing terror at the apparently cursed dressed she purchased is palpable. But his keen eye captures a particularly British strain of toxic masculinity in the second half as a clueless but determined washing machine repairman (a committed Leo Bill) is caught in the dress' machinations. The weirdness piles on, emanating from both the dress and from the world without, and the movie becomes exhilaratingly strange without ever alienating our sympathies for its doomed characters. It's a gorgeous labyrinth, like a Quentin Dupieux movie that doesn't despise its audience, its high weirdness sticking in the mind thanks to the lusciousness of its design.

Walpurgis Night

There's often a lament in November that Halloween only happens once a year. And for all of the subversive gestures towards rejiggering Valentines Day or some other occasion to that end, it seemed to me always that Walpurgis night was JUST SITTING THERE, right at April 30th, a perfect midpoint between Halloweens.

Walpurgis night has been observed in different, often contradictory ways in different cultures. It is both an occasion for the gathering of witches (in Estonia) and a commemoration of St. Walpurga, a saint who converted heathens and is evoked to repel witches. Walpurgis night is at once a religious observance, an occult celebration, and an excuse to party outside to greet the arrival of Spring.

Over the years I'd made a bunch of noises about actually putting together a celebration for the occasion, but the Christian aspects kinda threw me. I spitballed a bit and came up with an itinerary for the day that articulated what I felt were its three purposes: to celebrate the occult (this is the second Halloween we're trying to execute here, after all); to honor the coming of Spring and embrace a spirit of renewal (including a vitalization of creative pursuits); and to fight true evil (a nod to the Christian observance of the holiday).

I didn't wind up throwing a big Walpurgis night party. Since I was mainly R&Ding a second Halloween, I was trying to figure out how one would celebrate the thing in the first place. I eventually settled on seven things (listed above), all of which I accomplished over the course of the day. As rigorous and rigid as this planning may seem, there was a spirit of flow, spontaneity, and joy that filled the day, and eventually I felt fully in the throes of the kind of well-being one associates with the devoted celebration of any holiday.

And even though this was a solo flight, a sense of celebration slid out into the day. A few instances hit (omens, one might call them) that the celebration was meant to be. SUCH AS:

--Donating to the Elizabeth Warren campaign hit all the bases, a femme-centric way to fight true evil, and to help build toward a brighter Spring. It's silly, but even clicking the Donate button, from the intentions of the day, felt like casting a spell.

--None of my friends and acquaintances at the Castro Theatre would go on the record about whether or not they deliberately booked for Walpurgis night Dario Argento's Suspiria (the zenith of the witch movie), but it was of course perfect for the night, the digital restoration bringing to vibrant life the intense reds and blues of Argento's arcane universe (and wrapping the whole thing up with the witches purged by fire). I was dubious about the evening's co-hit, Climax, but the usually misanthropic Gaspar Noe turned in a piece of choreographic wildness that won me over, even as his drive to annihilation manifested in the second half. The two movies had much to say to each other, and together set a perfect mood for the occasion. (Even Castro organist David Hegarty seemed tapped into the holiday, busting out "Some Enchanted Evening" before Suspiria.)

--My neighborhood was quiet upon my return home, save for someone across the street blasting Enya's "Orinoco Flow", an instance no less fraught with significance for being so hilarious.

--And finally, the candle lit at the end of the night did seem to burn off the last remnants of Winter, shining past midnight toward a brighter future that I could, finally, fully sense over the horizon.

The Orson Welles 201

The arrival, finally, of Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind is cause for celebration. Begun by Welles in 1970 with the intention of serving notice of his return to Hollywood, the ambitious and incendiary film wound up, like many of his projects, unfinished, the legal rights disappearing in a multinational quagmire. The completion of the film and its online availability will, one hopes, expand the profile of a great filmmaker known most widely for his first film, the groundbreaking and still absorbing 1941 masterpiece Citizen Kane. Though many know him solely for Kane, there remains much confusion about both Welles and his body of work, with many assuming that Kane was a peak, followed by a number of unsuccessful projects, appearances in advertisements, and gradual dissolution.

But the fact was Welles never stopped working, filming projects piecemeal over a few years, acting to support his filmmaking efforts, and usually working on a number of projects simultaneously. Many fragments, shorter works, and complete pieces from Welles' lesser-seen body of work can be found on YouTube (a channel, one suspects, that Welles would be using extensively today). And outside their academic or historical value, these pieces are entertaining and engaging in their own right, reminding us that Welles was always, first and foremost, a showman.

So herewith, a kind of "Orson Welles 201", with YouTube links. Dig in!:

The Citizen Kane Trailer - cut by Welles to introduce his film and company to the general public, it's a warm and engaging little piece that also engages many of the movie's more experimental and layered techniques.

Orson Welles' Sketch Book - Six fifteen-minute episodes, shot for European television in that wonderful year of 1955, capture Welles drawing and talking. He draws you in so effortlessly, in this surprisingly intimate and engaging format, that you may find yourself, in current parlance, bingewatching all 90 minutes of it. Some YouTube commenters suggest that Welles basically invented YouTube with this series, which is a fun conceit.

The Fountain of Youth - the pilot for an anthology TV series (The Orson Welles Show, to have been executive produced by Desi Arnaz) is an astonishing stand-alone half hour story, with Welles easily adapting his vision to the small screen. Adapting John Collier's short story "Youth from Vienna," the story is shot through with Welles' vibrant high style, with Welles himself present as bemused, all-knowing (maybe too-knowing) narrator. Considered a crucial work by many Welles afficionados, it's a marvelous self-contained piece that spotlights much of what makes Welles great.

The Merchant of Venice - Welles had been fascinated by Shakespeare's drama of revenge and anti-Semitism, and numerous fragments of various attempts to film it over the years survive. In this clip from Dean Martin's variety show in 1968, we see Welles the Shakespearean actor in full force, delivering Shylock's monologue to engaged, deep silence, then sustained applause.

The F For Fake Trailer - also cut and filmed by Welles, this trailer is every bit as baffling as the movie it's meant to represent (and includes much footage that doesn't even appear in the movie, which is perfectly appropriate). And at nine minutes it cheerfully flaunts and subverts its own purpose as a piece of advertising, turning into a bizarre and lively short film in its own right.

HELL FEST

It's not a novel premise, necessarily: a killer is stalking young people in a horror maze attraction in an amusement park during Halloween.

I don't remember seeing a slasher movie that felt so airy and carefree. It's a modest affair, but that's part of what makes it so special. It avoids quite a few slasher cliches - in particular, its young attractive cast aren't jammed into archetypes (The Jock, The Nerd, The Soulful Loner, etc.) but are instead given the freedom to simply be young people. And they're given space to breathe, quip, hang out, bullshit, and kvetch. They're a fun bunch to hang out with, to a point that it's genuinely alarming when they start getting killed off. Set inside amusement park haunted house thrill rides, the movie gives us the cinematic equivalent - cinematographer Jose David Montero catches a vibrant array of carnival colors, and the thing visually pops in ways few horror indies try to.

In a peculiar era where horror movies are making overt and strident gestures toward respectability it's easy to overlook a movie like Hell Fest. Though it doesn't punch up its more novel or political aspects those aspects are there. It manages to address toxic masculinity (via its antagonists stalking strategies) without gruesomely sexualizing its violence. In the end, it's as much a horror house ride as any of its settings, and though it doesn't overtly reinvent any wheels, it remains an engaging and worthwhile Halloween treat, right down to the truly unsettling coda.

THE HORROR AT GALLERY KAY

Two women, their relationship past its last legs, make a last-ditch salvage effort at couples counseling. The grounded Petra (Maine Anders) is going through the motions (even though the therapist is an acquaintance of hers), while the flightier Olive (Rosebud) seems almost naively convinced that theirs was a love meant to be. Therapist Claremont Bazill (Brian Silliman) lays out the ground rules for the session, and insists that he's there to illuminate the relationship, not necessarily to save it.

Abe Goldfarb's tight, intimate film (scripted by Mac Rogers) plays so firmly as an intimate, black-and-white, play on film that one gets onto its wavelength regardless of preconceptions. The Gallery of the title isn't even mentioned until about 20 minutes in. One or two frenetic phone calls later (and with at least one untold story looming over the story), our cast take off for Gallery Kay at the movie's midpoint.

Much of the joy of this movie comes through the steadiness of its revelations, and it's a difficult thing to write up without giving those things away. Those who catch the distinctly Lovecraftian whiff off the title have a hint of where it winds up, and should be delighted how it gets there. Despite the neat bifurcation of its settings, the movie remains a relationship drama, even as its stakes turn downright apocalyptic. And though the power dynamics shift among the characters, their roles remain movingly consistent. We want Petra and Olive to stay together, and not just because the fate of our world may depend on it. And Bazill's insistence on sticking to what he knows, and talking these women through their increasingly-complex relationship, could have been played for bloody-minded comedy but instead comes off as desperate, terrified, and bracingly human.

One wishes for more overt, on-screen flourishes of the story's growing unease and horror. The otherworldly madness in the eyes of the receptionist (an eerily convincing Kristen Vaughan) over an ambiguously bloodied hospital mask is an unsettling touch, but the film plays the let-it-play-in-the-imagination card a mite too stridently and too often. There's enough intelligence and creativity on display throughout the movie to suggest that more overt twists were within the filmmakers' reach. But Goldfarb has sacrificed such gestures in favor of grounding his more-than-capable cast inside the rich world(s) of their characters, and on that front the movie certainly pays off. We may not get to really see the true horror unfold, but thanks to the performances we sure as hell feel it.

In all, The Horror at Gallery Kay remains an effective slowburn, a must for those who appreciate creative, low-budget horror with a patient, character-driven approach.