A Review of The Filmore Hotel, Activism though Powerful Performance Art

The Filmore Hotel

Review by T

I had the pleasure of seeing a superb play
recently, The Filmore Hotel. The play by
playwright Hellen Hill was based on a true story,
a traumatic-event-turned-learning-experience set
in a low-rent hotel formerly known as the
Gilmore. In the Gilmore Hotel lived an entire
community of people who twenty years ago were
evicted from their homes. Ms. Hill was a friend
to many of the hotel residents during that time.

The play is a heartfelt, completely involved
description that gives flesh and soul to the
number crunching victim statistics of
gentrification, big money renovations and
evictions as they occurred and how they effected
a particular poor community unique in that they
lived in a low rent refuge that had luxurious
oceanside views with a magical artistic vibe.

But what made the play so realistic and compelling
was the fact that most of the actors have indeed
been homeless at some point during their lives.
Dignity's Village Players make The Filmore Hotel
far more real than an episode of Survivor in
which a beautiful cast of handpicked people are
helpless on a desert island...except for the 400
member camera crew and their luxury food
caterers!

One of the more intriguing characters was Winston,
an old man of the sea, played by Jack Tafari.
Tafari's face is a natural telltale map which
displays to all the world the struggles that he
has endured and gotten through. Robert Mitchum,
once a prisoner in a chain gang, had a similar
facial signature. Winston's face alone is worth
noting in such detail, because a large facial
portrait is shown which has breathtaking
intensity. Although the painting is simply a
portrait of Winston's face, with the blue ocean
in the background, I got the clear and distinct
impression that someone should have warned me
before putting such a magnificently intense
portrait beneath a spotlight.

That's the type of emotions the entire play
conjures up in its audience. Even the worn down
set designs, created by former Gilmore hotel
resident and artist Jack Wennstrom who raised
both his daughters while painting in a $20.00 a
month corner room, conjures these feelings.

The play had a wonderful range of emotions. For
me, easily the saddest part of The Filmore Hotel
was when the irascible yet lovable old fisherman,
Winston, recognises his doom with the eviction.

As the stage lighting dimmed for a scene change
like a cold, heartless night, a nearby guitarist
softly played and sang a sad song. The warm
vocals of Ross Bennet, who also doubled in the
role of the artist Max, sounded like a musician
in one of those old hobo story books that made
you feel that you were part of the story. It was
then that Winston slowly came down from the
stage amidst the shadows to lay his head upon the
ground, covered only in his coat, and slept in
the street. The single mother Carly also slept
in the street. It was then that I nearly wept.

The play also had its humour. One of the funniest
scenes was when the wealthy Mr. Guest,
brilliantly played by Al-Amin, visited the newly
renovated Filmore Hotel in SCENE SIX. Al-Amin's
perfect comedic delivery of several of his lines
had even the heartless Della, played by Chrysler
Chelle, unintentionally laughing, much to the
enjoyment of the audience.

Without question, the strongest moment in the play
rests on one line that brought everyone'
emotions to a zenith of solidarity with
uncontrollable applause and cheering that even
gave the actors pause. It occurred during SCENE
THREE when the Filmore residents discussed their
eviction so that rich guests could rent luxury
rooms in the hotel after its renovation. It was
delivered loudly and confidently by the artist Max
who said, "The papers call us transients. Well,
I'd like to know what's more transient than people
who come to stay at a place one weekend a year?"

For me that was the best part of the play. People
rarely stop to consider that the same well-off
tourists and local business owners who complain
about homeless transients are often the same
people who maintain their wealth by owning
businesses or stock in businesses that pay
bare-minimum non-union wages, wages so low that
their employees are kept, as so beautifully
displayed in this play, just a proverbial paycheck
away from homelessness themselves!

The play finished on a strong, positive note as
Della had a courageous and unexpected change of
heart.

If the Village Players ever perform The Filmore
Hotel again, and I hope they do, I highly
recommend that you take a friend, maybe even a
business acquaintance, to go see it. You may both
just encounter a message so powerful that it
changes your lives.


================================================


Information on upcoming performances: At least
two performances on the West Coast have been
approved, one at the Bay City Arts Center, which
is about five minutes north of Tillamook. The
second venue is the North Coast Community Center
theater in Nehalem, about twenty miles north. For
more information please contact Helen Hill at
hellonwheels2_813 [at] hotmail.com or contact the
Village Players theatre troupe at
bigtentcity [at] yahoo.co.uk.

More Photos are found here: http://dignityvillage.org/photos/filmore

homepage: http://dignityvillage.org/photos/filmore/