Fantastical, eerie, peculiar, time-warped and surreal, the Edwardian Ball is unlike any other party in San Francisco. On January 20 and 21, 2012, it could be a party dreamt up by the creators and characters of Alice in Wonderland, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the Addams Family: Chanteuses, acrobats, trapeze artists and burlesque dancers to entertain; curios, taxidermy and steam-powered machines to gawk at; tea and games in the parlor; rounds of absinthe; and friends and fans sporting top hats, velvet, corsets, fur, wild mustaches and Gothic-looks.
The Edwardian Ball began 12 years ago as a tribute to macabre American writer and illustrator Edward St. John Gorey (1925-2000), an aficionado of cats, fur, ballet, Batman and soap operas. Besides creepy children's tales (his ABC book, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, has 26 tykes meeting their demise in colorful ways), Gorey produced pen and ink drawings for The New Yorker and for books by Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, John Updike and other assorted authors. He designed theater sets and costumes and drew the animated credits for the PBS Mystery! series.
Each year the ball features a re-enactment of a Gorey tale; this year's is The Iron Tonic (Or, A Winter Afternoon in Lonely Valley), which opens with "People at the grey hotel are either aged or unwell." From there, we discover one shuddering scene after another on a trudge through the valley, including the enormous eels lurking beneath the skating pond, an infant who's escaped the orphanage, and more "darkness and dismay." The Iron Tonic is considered to be Gorey's rendition of a bleak winter afternoon in a 19th-century Russian novel.
So there are sure to be Anna Karenina and Crime and Punishment looks among the party-goers this weekend. Over the years, the "Edwardian" part of the ball has been widely (mis)interpreted as the era in the early 1900s, not Gorey--hence the top hats, petticoats, lace, corsets and other turn-of-the-century appendages.
At the Regency Ballroom, the main floor is the hub of entertainment and waltzing. The upper floor will house a "Museum of Wonders-An Edwardian Odditorium," an assemblage of odd artifacts, living statues, fortune-tellers and circus side-acts. Should you arrive insufficiently dressed for the night, at a bazaar on the lower floor, vendors offer dainty and over-the-top hats, feathered and fur-trimmed accessories, gloves, vests and make-up jobs.
The Edwardian World's Faire and Edwardian Ball
At the Regency Ballroom, 1300 Van Ness, San Francisco.
Jan. 20, at 8 pm-2 am: Edwardian World's Faire (basically same as the Saturday night ball, but "a little more rambunctious"). Tickets $29, 32, 75, 80.
Jan. 21, at 12-5 pm: Edwardian Vendor Bazaar. Entrance at 1270 Sutter Street. Free.
Jan. 21, at 8 pm-2 am: Edwardian Ball. Tickets $39, 42, 85, 90.
