Sharon Eberhardt

“A true artist has no shame,” says French painter Henri enticingly as he beds his neighbor’s wife, Margaret in Sharon Eberhardt’s Savage Arts. Based on a true story of an Indian witchcraft trial that took place in upstate New York in the 1930’s, this solo performance is a volatile mix of sexual longing, opposing cultures, criminality, and prejudice. In her quiet but audibly calm voice, Eberhardt takes on the personae of several distinct characters that people her story using a minimum of props — a simple apron and a single chair — with the addition of one shaft of light coming from the artistst’s studio that indicates his haunting presence.

In a soft yet persistent style that allows the tension to build steadily, Eberhardt tells the story from Margaret’s point of view. Margaret is an ordinary, decent housewife dedicated to her husband Herb, whose weak lungs have kept him at home and kept her working as a waitress. The arrival of artist Henri, his wife Clothilde and their infant son Paul brings an exotic tone to their otherwise uncultured Buffalo neighborhood. Henri’s art project of painting the life of the nearby Seneca Indians opens up further feelings of prejudice and extramarital dalliances that end in murder.

The piece is rife with humorous and perceptively detailed observations of human nature. On one of her initial visits to the French family, the unsophisticated Margaret is shown nude paintings — a first for her — of her host and hostess. Later, sitting with them in their living room, she “can picture both on either side with no clothes and it distracts from the conversation.”

When Henri informs her that the Indians have words that one can’t say in English, Margaret wonders if “that is what people say so they can paint women without clothes on.” As Margaret is more taken in by Henri’s charm, she begins to look at her less cultivated husband with different eyes. The sympathy she once held for Herb’s condition begins to take a back seat to her own longings, to the extent that she begins to toy with the idea of not responding to his frequent breathing difficulties.

When Henri’s dalliance with one of the Seneca women ends in the murder of his wife Clothilde, Margaret’s gentle demeanor is challenged further. The surface decency of her life and times is mocked by the increasing violence of the events around her. What started as a simple affair with the attending sexual anticipation and yearnings becomes a wake-up call for Margaret to look into the darker, more savage side of human nature that knows no ethnic boundaries. As the author and performer, Ms. Eberhardt inhabits her characters easily, moving with ease and riveting clarity differentiating one voice and physical presence from another. In the simple straddling of an everyday kitchen chair, she evokes Margaret’s reawakened sensuality and in a stunning moment’s hesitation, the invisible body of the murdered Clothilde is re-created more horrifically than all the gore of a blockbuster horror movie. Highly recommended.

Savage Arts plays through Saturday, Feb. 16 at the Marsh Studio Theatre, 1062 Valencia St., SF. Tickets ($15 to $35) are available by phone at (800) 838-3006 or online at www.themarsh.org.