Shameless Hussy

Shameless Hussy

Lynne Kaufman

The Marsh

Surrounded by the sounds of fog horn, crashing waves and terrifying thunder, a trembling eleven-year-old girl cries to her mother as the two leave her native France, bound for the U.S, “I am losing my country, my language, and my father”.  Her mother hands her a notebook and suggests she write in it letters to the father left behind.  She also gives her a pencil with no eraser, “so you don’t make any mistakes.”  

For the next sixty-five years of her life, Anaïs Nin will follow her mother’s instructions, filling 5000 handwritten pages in 115 red-bound volumes with “the truth and necessary lies.”  Into those pages will go the details of her lifelong pursuit “to burn, to turn everything and everyone I touch to fire.”  That duo passion of writing and loving will become known worldwide as eventually the details of her many trysts — father; psychoanalyst; famous lovers; and two simultaneous, bi-coastal husbands — will be published for all to read.

Prolific and much-honored playwright, Lynne Kaufman, returns to her oft-favored site for premiering her works –San Francisco’s The Marsh — to splash on the intimate stage a searing, sensuous, tell-all play, Shameless Hussy, about the life and loves of Anaïs Nin as related by the author herself from the scorching words emblazoned on the pages of her diaries.  Warren David Keith masterfully directs the engrossing eighty-five minutes as Arwen Anderson captivates and near-hypnotizes the leaned-in audience with her stunning portrayal of Nin.  As each of her widely different husbands and paramours, Johnny Moreno is equally impressive.  The electricity generated between these two gifted actors often sends sparks that can be felt by all of us who are only a few feet away in the intimate Marsh.

With eyes that sparkle and a smile that lights up her entire countenance, Arwen Anderson’s Anaïs appears to thrive as she bares her soul of how she has bared her body to the men of her life.  There is no shame but only pride as she guides us through the years and settings of a life where her exploration of personal emotions and partnered relationships has known few if any boundaries.  

Engulfed by memories of a father who would take her nine-year-old self up into the attic where the two could be alone, Anaïs seeks the counseling help of one of Freud’s closest colleagues, Austrian-born Dr. Otto Rank.  She soon discovers in these “talking therapy” sessions that “reclining is my most creative position,” especially when wrapped in the adoring arms of Rank as he listens intently to her recounting of longings for her life-long, Don Juan father that is “my double, a diva among a family of divas.”

From her sessions on the couch, she tells us she has learned “feelings can never be wrong,” including those that are both “familiar yet forbidden.”  That conclusion she tests to the hilt in a reunion with the father she had not seen in over twenty years.  

Anaïs relates the passionate drive she has for writing, something she does “every day before it can dry up and become untrue.”  On some days, that may mean writing “how I nourished three men that day … no small accomplishment.”  Those men include among others the man she calls “the rock, the protector” of her life (and also the bank roll), her husband “Jugo” (Hugh Parker Guiler); the novelist Henry Miller, who devours her with erotic passion in his cramped Parisian apartment; and eventually a second husband in New Mexico, Rupert, who becomes part of her 1960’s, bigamist “zeitgeist.” 

Arwen Anderson not only so fascinatingly captures the essence of a woman who eventually captured millions of fans worldwide as an author of erotica, she also portrays a mother who through the years often chastises Anaïs with emphatic, judging voice of French accent her for tastes of too many men.  That is especially true when her mother speaks about Henry Miller whom she bitterly describes as “willful and selfish” “like your father.”  As daughter and as mother, Arwen Anderson is truly splendid.

Each time he reappears from behind scenic designer Mary Conley’s wall partitions serving as stuffed bookshelves of red-bound diaries, Johnny Moreno speaks with an accent; moves with a gait; and sports gazes, smirks, and smiles made particular for the lover, husband, father, reporter, or publisher whom he is at that moment representing.  In all these roles when entering to the waiting Anaïs, the one he portrays in her presence may melt like a puppy in awe, move in with fervor for the sexual conquest, or rise up in shouting anger in exasperation.  Moreno’s transformations are all magnificently successful and totally believable.

Our time with Anaïs Nin passes much too quickly, for in those hundreds of pages packed into the bookshelves before us must be many more delicious stories of love and lust as well as many more words of her wisdom about living life to its fullest.  As this must-see world premiere of Lynn Kaufman’s Shameless Hussy draws to an end at The Marsh, we are left with one important piece of advice by the now-aged Nin as she looks humorously and devilishly at us:  “Live for love, for death will gobble up everyone too soon.” 

Rating: 5-E, MUST-SEE

A Theatre Eddys Best Bet Production

Shameless Hussy continues Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m. through May 11, 2025 in a world premiere production by The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco.  Tickets are available at http://themarsh.org. 

Photos Credit: David Allen