Out There :: Nights to Put Between Days

There is always one particular week in the fall when the false hopes of Indian summer end and we know we've turned the corner into darker days. In the Bay Area, almost without exception, that week comes around Halloween. The sun might still shine during the day in that golden, slanting autumn light, but the nighttime is coming up hard at heels, bringing the chill. Once it's still dark when we get up for work, the deed is done. The summery side of fall has been killed off for another year. Winter reels us in.

O soft, warm bed! O hard, cold world! What willpower do we call upon when we forsake the former for the latter on those coming dark days? We know not. But out into the world we must go, to meet our fortune, or stave off misfortune. This past week brought both workaday pressures and evening pleasures.

The Lodger organist Todd Wilson. Photo: Courtesy San Francisco Symphony

We attended the opening nights of two one-actor shows, "Underneath the Lintel" at ACT and "The Pianist of Willesden Lane" at Berkeley Rep, both reviewed in this issue. Then we attended two stellar concerts during Hitchcock Week at the San Francisco Symphony. On Halloween night, organist Todd Wilson accompanied a screening of Hitchcock's silent film "The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog" (1927) on Davies Symphony Hall's massive Rufatti Organ. "The Avenger," a Jack-the-Ripper-type killer, stalks the streets and back alleys of Londontown, offing women with golden curls. The only ones happy about it are the newsboys (the killer is active on Tuesdays, when newspapers fly off the racks). "Murder - Wet off the presses!" cries a title card. "Murder - Hot on the aerial!"

The situation is tense in the rooming house where The Lodger (the darkly handsome Ivor Novello) shows up to let a room. Even though the organ and the audience find him very suspicious, the landlord and his wife are not fazed. Their daughter, with golden locks, is in fact rather turned on by the comely stranger. When he asks that all the paintings of girls with golden curls be removed from his rooms, his boarders conclude that he is simply "not too keen on girls." They figure "he's a little queer, but still a perfect gentleman." Hmmm.

Grisly killings follow, but in the end the wrong man is fingered as the Avenger, and a bloodthirsty mob rises up against him. Here, in its early form, is Hitchcock's familiar theme of an innocent man besieged by vengeful forces (see "North by Northwest"). The camera angles and dramatic lighting are reminiscent of German Expressionism, but the suspense and the perversity are all Big Alfred.

Wilson, head of the organ department at the Cleveland Institute of Music, was magnificent on the mighty Rufatti. Midway during the Prelude in which he powered his way through J.S. Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, a young and costumed audience member ejaculated, "Wow!" Wilson nodded his vigorous assent without taking his appendages off the stops.

The next night, we were back at Davies (our second home) to hear Joshua Gersen conduct the SFS in the Bernard Herrmann score to Hitch's classic "Vertigo," the world-premiere presentation of the full score performed live to a screening of the film. It's also reviewed in this issue. Like all diehard San Franciscans, Out There counts "Vertigo" among our most cherished viewing experiences. Over and above the tale of Scottie's (James Stewart) pervy obsession with Madeleine (Kim Novak), which gets really twisted in the third act, there's the endless fun of recognizing San Francisco landmarks throughout the film - look, there's Coit Tower! There's Nob Hill! Mission Dolores! Buena Vista Park! Ad infinitum. You're not a true SFer if you haven't seen this film at least twice. The sold-out house at Davies Hall squealed with delight when Scottie's friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), recently returned to the city from the East, bitched, "San Francisco isn't the same city as it was before. It's changed so much." In 1958. Same as it ever was.

We also greatly enjoyed the ACT production of playwright Glen Berger's "Underneath the Lintel," which takes place on the stage of an unspecified auditorium stuffed with theatrical detritus. Here's a note on the scenic design from production dramaturg Beatrice Basso: "Many of the objects filling Nina Ball's design on stage came with their own histories. They were artifacts and props from A.C.T.'s repertoire. The ghosts of productions past began to waft through the play in beautiful ways as we started to tech: drops from The Rivals and Guardsman, books and lights from Arcadia, a halberd from Enrico IV, costumes from past Christmas Carols, Bill Irwin's chest in Scapin, and from Tosca Project, 4,000 Miles, and Clybourne Park, many door frames - or 'lintels.'" So it was like watching a play and an ACT greatest hits package at the same time.

Any week that includes dancing down Mission streets with our salsified friends (during the Day of the Dead procession) and coming upon an altar to the late great Ruth Asawa is a good one.