By MICHAEL PERKINS
THE GOLDEN AGE OF CINEMA THEATRES, which saw its high tide during the glory days of the silent era, placed grandiose entertainment palaces within the reach of the common man from one end of America to the other, bestowing gilded temples, dripping with over-the-top ornamentation, on towns large and small. These grand retreats, awash in velvet curtains and cavernous prosceniums, recalled the lavish excesses of Aztec, Spanish, Greek and Moorish architecture, and served as gathering places where more than movies were on display. They were fantasy worlds in plaster and gold leaf.
By the end of the '20's, the era of the huge operatic movie palaces had mostly cooled, with a secondary crop of smaller venues dotting the map in tinier towns. By 1929, when the Boulevard theatre opened in the small farming community of Oxnard, California, there was a greater emphasis on streamlined Art Deco exteriors, spare ornamentation, and simple inner auditoriums. The Boulevard served for many years as the city's only theatre, switching to Spanish language films in the '60's in order to survive a general downturn for neighborhood screens. By the 1990's, the shuttered Boulevard had long since been renamed the Teatro, its old popcorn machine mouldering in the lobby and its seats an occasional refuge for the homeless. But as one curtain was ringing down for the building, another was about to go up.
Oxnard, California's Teatro Boulevard Theatre, frozen in pastel time, 2024
In 1995, recording engineer Mark Howard, taking a turn through the town, which was, at that time, right off the Pacific Coast Highway, spotted a "for lease" sign on the Teatro's marquee and thought it might make for the kind of makeshift recording site which he favored over traditional studio setups. He suggested the idea to producer Daniel Lanois, already famous for having shepherded classic albums like U2's Unforgettable Fire, Peter Gabriel's Us and Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy, and the two began a five-year collaboration on a series of recording projects that also had the effect of rehabilitating the latter-day careers of veteran rock and country legends. Among the best: the demo sessions for Dylan's 1998 masterpiece Time Out Of Mind (which was actually finished in Miami) and Willie Nelson's aptly titled Teatro, which featured an album cover picture of the theatre entrance very like the one I shot here.
After Howard and Lanois went their separate ways, other artists continued to seek out the Teatro, including Emmylou Harris, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and, most notably, Neil Young, playing with WIllie Nelson's sons Lucas and Micah on The Monsanto Years, a protest about industrial farming practices in Southern California in towns like Oxnard. Today, the Teatro is again seeking a sponsor, its current owner dreaming of converting it to a live music venue, studio, or both. The former Boulevard's exterior is still proud, elegant and colorful, and pretty much ready for its third act. I can't wait to see how the movie ends.
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