For years I’d been hearing about a crazy little opera house out in Death Valley. Friends at the Center for Land Use Interpretation or other nomadic road-trip-loving pals several times over told me about an eccentric old lady named Marta Beckett who started a theatre out in the desert in the 1960s and has been performing one-woman shows ever since. It definitely sounded like my sort of place, but for one reason or another I was never able to get down there. The opera shuts down in the summers due to the heat, and being that Marta is now in her late 80s I knew it was foolish to assume I could put it off for yet another season, so last week Megan and I loaded up the ol’ Red Baron and headed down for the final show of the 2007-08 season.
In 1967, Marta Beckett, a dancer and performer from New York, stumbled into the rundown Amargosa Hotel while getting a flat tire fixed at a nearby service station in the tiny town of Death Valley Junction . Death Valley Junction was nearly a ghost town: it was originally built as a company town by the Pacific Coast Borax Company in 1923, only to be abandoned sometime in the mid 1930s. The town was built to house and service employees and operations at a nearby mine, but when mining operations slowed down the town was left to rot.
Exploring the town while the tire was being repaired, Marta found the shell of a building that had previously been used as a meeting and events hall. She was able to peer into the structure through a gap in the boarded up windows and could see that it had a stage and rows of benches laid out like a theatre. According to legend, that is when she decided to move in. She located the town manager, began renting the rundown hall for $45 a month, and started the long trek of creating the Amargosa Opera House.
The story of Marta Beckett and the Amargosa Opera House is a fascinating one. Combining the best traits of both an eccentric visionary and a kooky folk artist, Marta seems to have found her calling while making a legend of herself. For over 40 years she has presented one-woman shows that she wrote, made costumes for, designed, and performed on a weekly basis. In addition to rehabbing the theatre she also painted elaborate murals on the walls of a 16th century audience; both as an ode to the history of theatre but also to make the nights when the attendance was low not seem so lonely. There is great information about Marta and the Opera on their website, plus I was able to find this very cheesy yet informative video clip THAT I DID NOT MAKE from a travel program:
The final show of the season was an anticipated one. A line wrapped around the building and the 122-seat theatre was easily packed. After suffering an injury from a fall earlier this year, Marta elected to continue the season’s performance schedule but changed the show to the “Sitting Down Show” in which she sat in a chair on stage and chronicled the history of the opera and the numerous show’s that she has presented over the past four decades. While getting the rundown of the performances was interesting, I was much more interested in hearing her talk about her own life and motivations. Involved in theatre and dance since her early childhood, it was clear that Marta had dreams and ambitions for the big-time, but perhaps started feeling worn out by the competitive wear and tear of trying to make it on Broadway. “The most rewarding things I have done in my life are the things that nobody asked me to do,” she said as she looked back. That, I thought, was a great thing to be reminded of.
We very nearly didn’t make it to the opera: as we were on the road and about half way to Death Valley, Meg got a call from her pregnant sister saying that she had gone into labor (a couple weeks earlier then expected) so we turned around and headed back to Oregon. Meg’s sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy a couple hours after we arrived, and once everything settled down with that Meg and I figured out that if we got in the car and drove pretty much non-stop back towards Death Valley we’d get to the opera just in time. We rushed down, arriving in Death Valley Junction less then an hour before curtains. After the performance, Marta sat in the audience to answer questions and sign autographs. We told her about our journey and Meg’s new nephew and Marta seemed genuinely touched; yet another little piece to go along with a long history of magic.
The Amargosa hotel is one of my favorite places on Earth. For a long time — not sure if it’s still the case — there was an adjoining space for let, an old restaurant, crying out for someone to come and make something as special and beautiful as Amargosa. When I visited in 2006, my friends and I spent the entire car trip back to our Death Valley campsite debating the obvious door which had just opened in our lives, which is to say the magnificent possibility of opening the only macrobiotic restaurant in Death Valley.