SAINT FRANCES of HOLLYWOOD

Sally Clark

Book Review:

Her star rising as a Hollywood diva, Frances Farmer chooses to join the socialist Group Theatre in New York.  This idealistic, raucous, and non-conforming movie star, pursued by the Government for her alleged communist connections, was finally incarcerated with the help of her mother at Steilacoom, a Seattle psychiatric hospital, where she was lobotomized and released as "cured" in 1949.   Sally Clark's play has taken the biographical details of Frances Farmer's life and transformed them into a mesmerizing and quintessential classical tragedy.  Also included are eight pages of dazzling colour set designs by Adam Swica.

"Previous Sally Clark plays have won a Chalmers Award and have been nominated for a Governor General's Award.  But Saint Frances of Hollywood... is her best yet, a searing tragedy..." -- Toronto Star

"It is this mix of fact and fantasy that Clark has captured so brilliantly and used to striking advantage... the effect is brutally chilling." -- Variety

"Sally Clark's dramatization of Farmer's life encompasses the primary obsessions of the 20th century - atheism, Communism, media manipulation and psychiatry." -- Feminist Bookstore News

Sally Clark is a playwright and film maker and the author of seven award winning plays which include Moo, The Trial of Judith K., Jehanne of the Witches, and Life Without Instruction.  Her film, Ten Ways to Abuse and Old Woman, won the Special Prix du Jury at the Henri Langlois international short film festival in France.

ISBN 0-88922-366-1

Provided by Sally Clark