Recent years have witnessed terrifying wildfires in California, Australia, and other parts of the world. Some are attributed to drought and climate change; others may be due to careless campers or the negligence of huge corporations like Pacific Gas & Electric. In November 2018, the Camp Fire that started in Butte County, California and devastated the town of Paradise was rated as one of the deadliest fires in California history. Evacuees risked their lives to flee the fire, some of them being forced to drive through flames to escape.
On May 5th, Aeroflot flight 1492 (a Russian-built Sukhoi Superjet-100 bound for Murmansk) was forced to make an emergency landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport with 78 people on board. After the plane burst into flames during touchdown, 41 people died -- some due to the selfishness of passengers trying to bring their luggage with them on the plane's emergency escape slides (see pilot Patrick Smith's article "Deadly Stupidity in Moscow").
There's a damn good reason why audience members are discouraged from shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. People could easily be trampled in a stampede as confused theatregoers struggle to escape through the exits. Nevertheless, audiences will gladly sit still while watching disaster films such as 1974's The Towering Inferno and 2015's San Andreas.
Two recent outings featured dramas in which arson was a key plot point. One was a silent film released 100 years ago; the other a new musical which found its inspiration in a deadly fire that destroyed a gay bar in New Orleans on the last day of "Pride Week" in 1973. In each film, the maliciously-set fire left dead bodies in its wake.
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In recent years the San Francisco Silent Film Festival has developed a close relationship with the Swedish Film Institute, which supplied the 2019 SFSFF with an exquisite restoration of Mauritz Stiller’s 1919 adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf’s novel of murder and revenge entitled Sir Arne's Treasure. |
| Richard Lund as Sir Archie in 1919's Sir Arne's Treasure |
As with many Scandinavian silent films, this screening was accompanied by the Matti Bye Ensemble, whose eerie soundscape can easily trick the mind into thinking that it hears a foghorn as wind howls across the frozen surface of a Norwegian fjord. Based on Lagerlöf's 1903 novel entitled The Treasure (the author was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature), the film is another example of Scandinavian fiction at its depressing best.
Set on the west coast of Sweden during the 16th century, the plot involves three mercenaries -- Sir Archie (Richard Lund), Sir Filip (Erik Stocklassa), and Sir Donald (Bror Berger) -- who are exiled by King Johan III. After escaping from prison, they flee to Marstrand with the hope that they might someday return to their native Scotland.
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| Concordia Selander in a scene from Sir Arne's Treasure |
Though Sir Arne of Solberga (Hjalmar Selander) and his family lived in relative comfort, the film contains a stunning scene in which Sir Arne's wife (Concordia Selander) has a terrifying premonition that the family will be killed in a bloody massacre. After their youngest daughter, Berghild (Wanda Rothgardt) is slain, the older sister, Elsalill (Mary Johnson), becomes the sole survivor of the conflagration in which her family burns to death (Elsalill subsequently falls in love with Sir Archie without knowing anything about his past).
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| Mary Johnson as Elsalill in a scene from 1919's silent film, Sir Arne's Treasure |
In her program note, film historian Imogen Sara Smith writes:
“Few films have captured the stark and deadly beauty of snow better than Mauritz Stiller’s Sir Arne’s Treasure, subtitled A Winter Ballad. This is a world of visions and premonitions, a world in which nature and even inanimate objects are imbued with power, rarely benign. Set during a freakishly hard winter in 16th-century Sweden, it opens with armies tramping through the snow, soldiers on horseback driving prisoners on foot. No less chilling than the scenery, the plot revolves around an atrocity (a kind of medieval In Cold Blood) in which an entire household is slaughtered by a trio of Scottish mercenaries who steal a chest full of treasure. True to its subtitle, the film has the feeling of a blood-steeped ballad or epic poem, but it also has moments of emotional subtlety and intimacy; especially as it develops the theme of an innocent young woman’s fatal love for a brutal man. The force of nature, in its extremes of savagery and tender renewal, dominates Nordic cinema of the silent era.”
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| Poster art for 1919's Sir Arne's Treasure |
“This cruel story is told through haunting runic images: a great house blazing in the snow, a sailing ship trapped in the ice, a ghostly girl, a funeral procession snaking across the frozen sea, the scene in which the mercenaries (bearded, ragged, and half dead from hunger and exposure) invade a fisherman’s cottage where they grab food like wild animals before collapsing in a drunken stupor. There is a winter of the soul, when humanity goes dormant and only base survival remains. Julius Jaenzon’s cinematography includes one of the greatest single shots in silent cinema, in which black-clad village women cross the ice in a somber funeral procession led by four men in white robes carrying a bier. The simple curve of this dark line as it advances toward the camera defines the depth and emptiness of the frozen wasteland while the flowing movement, like the first stream of open water splitting the ice, reveals the endurance and dignity of the people who live in it.”
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| The famed funeral procession in Sir Arne's Treasure |
The plan for the three mercenaries to return to Scotland is foiled when, with the ship frozen in the ice (much like Ernest Shackleton's ship, Nimrod), Elsalill discovers Sir Archie's true identity. Because maritime superstition holds that the ice won't break as long as an evildoer is aboard the ship, after Elsalill dies in a shipboard battle, the three Scottish mercenaries surrender to the authorities and the ice begins to break up. Justice is finally served.
In addition to the fire that destroys Sir Arne's home, there is a spectacular sequence in which one of the mercenaries is driving a horse and sleigh across the frozen fjord when the combined weight causes a patch of thin ice to collapse beneath them, sending the horse to an icy death.
Although the print of Sir Arne's Treasure posted on YouTube is nowhere as clean as the restored print screened at the Castro Theatre, you can watch this hundred-year-old Swedish film in the following video.
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With the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots fast approaching, it's important to remember that not every milestone on the path to building an LGBT community was laid down in New York. In August 1966 (three years prior to Stonewall), the Compton's Cafeteria Riot in San Francisco (one of the earliest gay-related riots in history) marked the beginning of the fight for transgender rights in San Francisco.Nor did the Stonewall Riots instantly eliminate homophobia throughout the country. Four years after Stonewall, on June 24, 1973, 32 people died when a fire was set in the stairwell of the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar located on the second floor at 141 Chartres Street in the city's historic French Quarter. According to Wikipedia "The most likely suspect, a gay man named Rodger Nunez who had been ejected from the bar earlier in the day, was never charged and took his own life in November 1974."
First released on July 1, 1989, one of Cher's biggest hits ("If I Could Turn Back Time") has become a favorite among her fans. San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre Center is currently presenting the regional premiere of Max Vernon's highly energetic, time-traveling gay musical entitled The View Upstairs, with music direction by Kelly Crandell, sound design by Wayne Cheng, and choreography by Rick Wallace. Directed by Ed Decker on a unit set designed by Devin Kasper (with costumes by Wes Crain and lighting by Mike Post), Vernon's protagonist is far from the most lovable gay man on the planet.
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| Nick Rodrigues (Wes) in a scene from The View Upstairs (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
A self-absorbed motormouth who likes to think of himself as a fashion "influencer," Wes (Nick Rodrigues) has fled the bitchy competitiveness of New York's gay community and pulled together enough money to purchase the building at 141 Chartres Street without the slightest inkling of why the sale price was so low. After signing the papers and receiving the key from the realtor (Linda Dorsey), he enters a time warp in the space that was once the UpStairs Lounge. Ghosts of those who died in the historic fire come to life and start a dialogue with Wes, who quickly learns that (a) he's not as smart as he thought he was, and (b) the ghosts have no knowledge of things he takes for granted, like gay marriage, smartphones, social media, or the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As the playwright explains:
“Historically, the gay community was born from a shared experience of oppression and trauma. 1973 was the year of Roe v. Wade, Watergate, culture wars with the religious right, and when homosexuality was removed from the list of mental disorders by the American Psychiatric Association. It was also the year of the UpStairs Lounge fire. Bars like the UpStairs (in which so much gay culture was fostered), were some of the only places people could actually be themselves. I grew up in the era of technology and gay marriage and all the ‘progress’ occurring, while simultaneously having no gay mentors or first-hand connection to my history. Paradoxically, the more progress we’ve attained as a community, the more fractured our sense of community has actually become.”
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| A scene from The View Upstairs (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
“Seven years ago, when I first found out about the UpStairs Lounge fire, almost no one had heard of it – not even my professors – even though I was a gender/sexuality studies major at this super liberal institution. This happened 33 years before the 2016 shooting at Pulse in Orlando. At the time, it was the worst attack in U.S. history on the LGBTQ community. I thought: How has this event – so important to our shared history -- been completely forgotten? I wanted to write a musical that would look to the past to inspire us to carry the torch, to motivate ourselves going forward to cultivate community and put beauty back into the world. I hoped that by contrasting two different eras of queer life, I could begin to understand my own history and place in the world.”
The View UpStairs was first produced off Broadway in the spring of 2017 at the Lynn Redgrave Theatre (the show's original cast album was also released in 2017). The musical's international premiere took place the following year in Sydney, Australia as part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. The View UpStairs has since been staged in Chicago, Atlanta, and Palm Springs with productions scheduled for Ogden, Dallas, Boston, Columbus, and a European premiere in London this summer.
While a younger generation may have trouble relating to some of the characters in The View Upstairs, gay baby boomers will not. Among the bar's regulars are:
- Richard (David Bicha), a member of the Metropolitan Community Church who holds regular Sunday services at the bar.
- Buddy (Cameron Weston), the bar's cocktail pianist who has led a closeted lifestyle while married with children.
- Willie (Anthony Rollin-Mullens), a middle-aged black man with a healthy ego who enjoys being a matchmaker of sorts.
- Patrick (Coleton Schmitto), a hustler from a small town who has grown increasingly cynical about ever finding love.
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| Coleton Schmitto (Patrick) and Nick Rodrigues (Wes) in a scene from The View Upstairs (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
- Henri (Jessica Coker), the butch dyke bartender with a soft heart.
- Dale (Chris Morrell), a homeless and often angry gay man who resents the way the other bar patrons make him feel invisible and refuse to help him out financially.
- Freddy (Jesse Cortez), a Puerto Rican construction worker who loves to perform in drag as Aurora Whorealis. Earlier that day he was beaten up by a local policeman (Gary M. Giurbino) who damaged Freddy's costume.
- Inez (Linda Dorsey), Freddy's mother who sews his costumes and, after her husband abandoned the family, made it her business to be as supportive of her gay son as possible.
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| Jesse Cortez (Freddy), Linda Dorsey (Inez), and Nick Rodrigues (Wes) in a scene from The View Upstairs (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
Having been impressed by Nick Rodrigues when I saw him perform earlier this year in Allegiance at Contra Costa Civic Theatre, I was gratified to see how well he handled the lead role of Wes in The View Upstairs. In addition to demanding a tremendous amount of stamina, the songs for Wes are written for an actor with a very wide vocal range, which Rodrigues handled like a champ. Other standouts included Coleton Schmitto as Patrick (wearing the kind of double-knit polyester pants I remember all too well from the early 1970s), Anthony Rollin-Mullens as the ever-ebullient Willie, and Jesse Cortez (hilarious in drag) as Freddy.
Appearing in more closeted roles were David Bicha as Richard, Cameron Weston as Buddy, Jessica Coker as Henri, and Chris Morrell as the bitter, homeless Dale (Linda Dorsey gives a warm and loving portrayal of Freddy's devoted mother, Inez). The one criticism I have is that Max Vernon's tongue-twisting lyrics are so thickly layered that a lot of words get lost in performance, making it difficult to appreciate all of the exposition that Vernon has crammed into his songs.
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| Nick Rodrigues (Wes) performs with the cast of The View Upstairs (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
Performances of The View Upstairs continue through June 9 at the New Conservatory Theatre Center (click here for tickets). Here's the trailer:
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