One Woman Dancing: The Marta Becket Story

By DEBORAH HORNBLOW
The Hartford Courant
March 02, 2001

Marta Becket is what you might call a rare bird.

At age 76, she is still dancing in toe shoes.

She performs regularly in her own productions at the Amargosa Opera House, the theater she refurbished and painted by hand in the desert town of Death Valley Junction, Calif. (population: 10).

The Amargosa, a lonely outpost of high culture at the end of an abandoned colonnade, serves as a monument to the life force of this willow wisp of a woman who left New York and her career as a professional dancer in the 1960s and moved to the middle of nowhere at age 43.

It also serves as the title of Todd Robinson's intriguing documentary, "Amargosa," an examination of the physical marvel and complex psychology that is Marta Becket.

If Becket isn't (and even in her day wasn't) Margot Fonteyn, that is clearly beside the point.

Becket's life and "Amargosa" are all about the self-determination that makes an individual an artist and the practice and exploration of a craft as the means of defining and celebrating a life.

Becket's extreme form of self-exile might strike some as a little nutty, but it is governed by a seductive and inspiring purity of vision that gives "Amargosa" its spiritual heft.

Robinson, whose credits include the script for "White Squall," begins his documentary with some stunning photographed views of Death Valley and a bit of florid, impressionistic narration read, as well as it could be, by Mary McDonnell. The director gives us an early glimpse of Becket dancing on toe inside the Amargosa and then makes a cinematic collage of interviews, still photographs and performance videos to recount her story.

The film neatly encapsulates the illuminating incidents in Becket's life: her youth as the only child of a New York journalist and housewife who soon divorced; the defining influence of her mother's encouragement and her father's disdain; her career as a professional dancer and model; her marriage; and, during an unscheduled stop on a vacation with her then-husband, a life-altering decision to move to Death Valley Junction.

It is one of the most interesting insights in Robinson's film that Becket still feels the sting of her father's disapproval. It is more interesting still to consider that in terms of the level of her talents - her dancing and her painting, of which Robinson offers multiple views, Becket's father may have been critically correct, but it doesn't matter. The point of Becket's life and Robinson's film is always the desire and the doing. The act of creation.

Long ago, Becket decided to dance and let nothing stop her. Not her father's disregard. Not age or infirmity. Not the oppressive heat of summer, which can rise to 110 degrees in Death Valley. And not the lack of an audience. In Death Valley Junction, Becket danced for years in a theater that was empty save for the "audience" she painted on the walls, a folk-art-inspired mural including period-costumed Spanish lords, ladies, young lovers and whores.

If there is little sense of humor evident in Becket during Robinson's interviews, her natural opposite is Tom Willet, the longtime companion who took the place of Becket's husband when he left. Robinson captures Willet on a motorbike, showing off his train set and clowning onstage opposite Becket, and he comes across as an easygoing, natural helpmate and goofball. He also registers some of the most interesting insights anyone offers into Marta Becket.

If Robinson errs a bit, it is in the incomplete narrative buildup surrounding the arrival in Death Valley of Becket's former New York dancing partner and a busload of former colleagues. It gives a few of the scenes toward the end of the film the feel of a forcefully constructed plot device.

There are also several questions that Robinson's documentary never addresses. One has to do with how Becket affords her lifestyle. Even if it is not elaborate, it is hard to believe she gets by on receipts from the Opera House, which she eventually purchased.

Another question that hovers around the film has to do with how Becket perceives herself. Over the years, her career has attracted varying degrees of media attention. Some have called Becket a "kook in the desert." National Geographic once ran a beautiful photograph of her and the theater in a story on Death Valley. Ray Bradbury, who is interviewed in "Amargosa," is an enthusiastic admirer, calling Becket "the spirit of the individual, of creativity."

In the end, though, Robinson makes the very wise choice to let Becket's Amargosa Opera House speak for her.

It is a visual metaphor that is as powerful and moving as the sight of a rose in the desert.