Just wanted people to know about two events in the Bay Area. Jean Shelton, the first lady of San Francisco theatre is once again on the stage. First time in 30 years I think, although she's been teaching all that time. But this time she's got to get up and SHOW us what she means. She and her son Chris are playing the leads at the Actor's Theatre, 855 Post, SF in A TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL. Be sure and go up on the web under Actor's Theatre, San Francisco for show times. After the play I was in that inchoate state I rarely experience. Deeply moved. Stumbling around. Changed. Grateful that profound simplicity... honesty, know- how and personal depth had come together to make a work of art worthwhile. After the play Jean told me how she uses everything she knows and teaches... and then discards it and "just goes". It's that "just going" that haunts me. There's a purity in it, a way of being just, well, just being, I guess. I think you're born with it, but you can't always keep it. People get spoiled, jaded, disheartened. Or just too successful. I'm sure Jean has had her share of the pitfalls. I suppose she could have started phoning it in, if it were in her to do that. But I don't think it is. She told me she feels deep gratitude for being able to live her life in the theatre. But if you're going to be an artist I think gratitude and humility require something else. And she has it. Jean spots what's fake and points it out. And she sees what works and celebrates it. And after that she
"just goes."
Jacques Thelemaque and Diane Gaidry are a team of artists, relatively speaking, just starting out. Their first feature film THE DOG WALKER, directed by Jacques and featuring Diane, is opening in the Bay Area on Aug. 11, at the Opera Plaza, the Shattuck and the Rafael Film Center. Please go and see it. These are genuine fighters in the battle for a cinema which starts in the dirt and on the ground and aspires to tell us what we almost never hear i.e. that we live in OUR skin, live OUR lives, and that unless we can be OURSELVES, we're no good to anyone. American cinema almost exclusively sponsors illusions about things we cannot be and should not even aspire to. But Jacques and Diane don't buy that cotton candy. They live in LA and they fight it every day. They are the leaders of the Filmmaker's Alliance down there, an organization with the great motto "Greenlight yourself" which helps filmmakers get a toe hold, not in the industry, but in the shoes they put on every day. I recently saw TRANSACTION, a short film they did together as a director/actress team. It moved me to tears. Go to THE DOG WALKER. Watch TRANSACTION. It will be on- the- job learning in how to value what's genuine in American cinema.
Rob
No comments:
Post a Comment