I've heard about a fortuneteller with a tarot deck and a dead fish. I can smell the fish, but I'm daunted by the line in front of the curtain, so I wander into another room and stand before a terrycloth sculpture of some tropical beach getaway. It looks a little like a desert nomad's tent in Technicolor, and comes fronted by an immobile bare-shouldered woman in vertical repose, cast like a caryatid and basking in cat-eye shades under some imagined equatorial sun for, I'm told, hours on end.
I try not to stare at her beach towel, which not only conforms to her shape but also a life-size photorealistic representation of what you imagine to be the body underneath. Somebody finally offers her a color-appropriate drink through a straw as my eyes dart over to a bedroom scene of vaguely subconscious associations: an inanimate, incongruous couple pokes out from under a duvet, the whole scene partially obscured by a murky plastic curtain on which a playfully frenetic lightshow dances.
Titled Sea of Dreams and fashioned by Joegh Bullock — landlord and Anon Gallery proprietor, in addition to being one of more than 20 artists with work on display here tonight — it stands just to the left of a DJ booth, and attracts a group of costumed art lovers who also break into dance.
Taking in Unseen/Unsaid, as this one-off evening of curated art and performance is called, is a lot like trying to take in the history of the Climate Theater itself, full of blurring boundaries and strange echoes. In some ways it's as labyrinthine as the floor plan of the former bordering house at Ninth and Folsom streets whose second floor contains the theater, its offices, and Anon Gallery. Branching out in several directions at once, it also stitches together the fringe arts, tech, and underground party scenes of the mid-1980s to those of the present.
Next year the Climate turns 25, an impressive run for any theater, and probably a better occasion than just now to trace this one's full baroque lineage. Suffice it to say that the Climate Gallery, as it was originally known, was an accidental theater started by artists who, by their own admission, had no background or even interest in theater per se. But in opening its doors in 1985 to Nina Wise, who had recently lost a performance space, it quickly became a vital scene and vibrant avenue for some of the most dynamic and promising crossover and experimental work around.
In the last year and a half, as a result of a spurt of new energy via new management — as well as a larger recrudescence, if you will, of some of the old SoMa arts scene of the '80s — the Climate has been looking pretty spry for a decades-old theater. Granted, this is happening at a time of supreme social and economic uncertainty. But what's particularly striking about this fresh whirl of eclectic programming, as well as some wider neighborhood networking, is how naturally it harks back to the early history of the quirky black box, founded by artists and famed trend-setting party impresarios Bullock and Marcia Crosby — also founders, with Mark Petrakis, of the famed Glashaus parties of the '90s and the still-influential Anon Salons. The current vibrant and dedicated bustle on this little corner of the city frankly inclines ...
What's even more strange is the attempt by the article to put Bulloch and Nathan on a pedestal, as if they are some kind of art heroes or visionaries. Having spent plenty of time in that space attempting to work as an artist there I can say these two clowns mostly get in your way, never clean up after themselves and by and large treated us subletters and clients with astounding disrespect even after numerous complaints and requests made politely and, progressively, otherwise. They held parties without boundaries where, despite assurances that their would be respect and control on their end, our sets and costumes were stolen, broken or, literally, left under a pile of pubic hair, blood and urine. They allowed glory holes to be cut in the bathroom walls. They made ungodly amounts of noise during our productions and turned our dressing room into a dumping ground whenever they found something they didn't want. They let people spend the night in puddles of their own bodily fluids, sometimes square in the middle of our stage. They left empty bottles and spilled drinks and used condoms everywhere from the lighting booth to the green room. When we complained that they needed to clean up after their parties BEFORE our audiences arrived, they called us high-maintenance. I don't mean to say these two are bad people per se, but I sincerely doubt they care about good business etiquette let alone art anywhere near as much as they cared about having a good time and stoking their own egos. Food for thought.
I am sure Jessica has turned it all around. How could she not? And like every other artist in San Francisco, I hope that we're at the start of a truly fantastic art and theater scene, at last. God knows we deserve it, God knows need it, God knows it's time. Will the Guardian be there to cover it? I sincerely hope so. You've been there for us in the past and I know I want you to be there in the future. But perhaps next time Mr. Avila should try interviewing more theater artists for his theater article, and not a magician and a party planner, whose needs and objectives and thus outlooks are different than those of most of us in the theater community. And perhaps next time, before stating that there was nothing going on until the new golden child showed up, Mr. Avila should look at the backlog of his own theater listings and at least nod towards those of us who were fighting the good fight back when the days were even darker, the assets even leaner, and it wasn't a performance of HAMLET unless we were scrubbing some drunk Anon-Saloner's vomit off the bathroom floor twenty minutes before the house opened.
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