Blue Scarf Collective Presents Gala Dali at Home Resource, Sarasota 11/28/11

The irreverent artist, Salvador Dali, sizzled in his own right; but throw in the fire of his passionate wife and muse, Gala, and you can well understand how a clock could have melted in their presence. (google: "The Persistence of Memory" by Dali)

In a powerful one-act/one person play sponsored by Michael and Kathy Bush, owners of Home Resource, (a showroom of mouth watering contemporary furniture in Sarasota) the Blue Scarf Collective of Tampa presented My Unspeakable Confessions: Gala Dali Declines to Explain Herself, beautifully written by Heather L. Jones, to sold-out crowds on Nov. 25th and 28^th.

This is Home Resource's first collaboration with the Dali Museum and Blue Scarf Collective. Looks like there may be a repeat January 2012 performance at HR, which I suggest you run out and see.

Roxanne Fay brilliantly played Gala, Salvador Dali's charismatic, devoted and headstrong seductress wife. Tarot cards, a favorite pastime of Gala's, were read, one by one, to cleverly introduce the chapters of Gala's personal story, an act of dramatic creation itself. The lady did as she pleased.

Through Ms. Fay's moving performance, we got up close and personal to Gala's all consuming love for Dali (and herself) and his equally intense connection to her.  She wished to be everything to him: lover, wife, mother, collaborator and inspiration. We came to understand how this rapport completely defined each of them and allowed their creative and personal lives to flourish.  Like a plant needs water, Gala told us that without the intensity of love, she was 'invisible", a state simply unacceptable to her. (She seemed to have lots of attractive young men doing their best to help keep her in view.)

Ms. Fay's powerful incarnation was by turns, admirable and arrogant, playing with the audience's instinct to pigeonhole Gala. This made it hard to know whether Gala was likable, a raving egomaniac or both. And in the presence of such a force of nature, who cares?  One thing was certain- to live in "Galaland" was not for the faint of heart.

It was shocking to hear Ms. Fay drop Gala's Russian accent after the performance ended. She so thoroughly inhabited this role it was almost impossible to imagine her as anyone else.

Adding to the pleasure of this performance was that I watched it while seated in a Charles Eames chair with an Eero Saarinen side table nearby for my wine glass.  Call me a snob, but even if you're not a style freak, just try sitting down in an Eames chair for five minutes and I promise, you'll never want to watch a play in any other way again.

Looking around the showroom at the rapt audience strewn about on such elegant designer pieces, I felt as if we were at a glamorous party Gala herself, might have thrown. It wouldn't have been that different than this evening; I'm sure she was always center stage, riveting her guests with one outrageous tale after the next, as she scanned the crowd for a handsome admirer who could help keep her visible to herself and others.

My Unspeakable Confessions: Gala Dali Declines to Explain Herself, written by Heather L. Jones, performed by Roxanne Fay.  Ms. Jones and Ms. Fay (with Aleshea Harris) are the founders of Blue Scarf Collective, a writers' and artists' collaborative in the Tampa Bay area. Find them on Facebook.

Home Resource, Contemporary Furniture Showroom,  741 Central Avenue, Sarasota; www.homeresource.com

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