Paris: The Memoir(46)
I spent several weeks studying the script and working on the music with Roger Love, the vocal coach who explained to me how being nervous manifests that baby voice I can’t seem to get rid of. I auditioned for Mark and the director, Darren Lynn Bousman, who’d produced and directed three of the Saw movies, and they wanted me for Amber Sweet. It was an honor to be working with Paul Sorvino (Mira’s dad, Goodfellas, etc.) who plays Rottissimo, and Sarah Brightman (Phantom of the Opera) as Blind Mag, who gouges out her own eyes and gets impaled on a fence. It’s that kind of scene.
The script called for Amber Sweet to sing her face off—like literally sing until her face peels off the front of her head—so I’d have to continue my work with the vocal coach every day and spend hours in the chair getting prosthetics and makeup done. Several sick looks designed by Alex Kavanagh take Amber Sweet through a transformational arc from Rottissimo’s bratty little girl to a raging transplant addict who trades sex for surgery.
After a limited theatrical release, the film went to DVD. There was a special screening at Comic-Con in 2010, and weirdly, it did really well in the Czech Republic. Lionsgate did distribution, and the film found a little niche of its own as a campy cult classic loved by a lot of the same people who love The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Goth girls dressed up as Amber Sweet for Halloween. I connected with a whole new fan base. I’m really proud of the vocal moments I found in that music. This soundtrack was insane—Rob Zombie, Guns N’ Roses, Shawn “Clown” Crahan from Slipknot. We had so much fun on the set. Lots of fun memories.
Repo! is really a story about fathers and daughters.
One storyline is about a loving man who makes a terrible choice; trying to protect his fragile daughter, he imprisons her in a dark mansion. (“She’s been caged up like a monster by her overbearing father,” the narrator sings.) The other storyline is about a terrible man who makes a loving choice; trying to empower his damaged daughter, he sacrifices his own vision of what her life should be.
In the Spirograph of memory and understanding, I see that my father and I embody both those stories.
Fathers and daughters. It’s a tough dynamic. I don’t know anyone who’s gotten it 100 percent on either side. Ultimately, We the Daughters must accept that a father is more than the sum of his most difficult choices. I don’t doubt my dad’s love for me. I hope he knows how much I love him, how grateful I am for the advice and guidance he’s given me, and how much I respect the role he played in our family’s genetic opera.
At the end of Repo!, the Repo Man’s daughter escapes, but everything comes to a disastrous end. In agony, he sings, “Didn’t I tell you not to go out?”
“You did, you did,” she answers, miserable, but not sorry.
“Didn’t I tell you the world is cruel?”
“You did! You did!” sings the daughter.
But she knows the truth: being free and facing the world with all its monsters is better than being safe and leaving your life unlived.
There’s a beautiful moment in the final act, when both fathers understand that the wild and beautiful daughters were never theirs to control. They could only teach by example. They could only love and let go. So they let go.
And it’s okay.
I mean, it’s awful. Terrifying. Bloody. Operatically tragic. But love endures. The fathers live on in their daughters. And in the end, Amber Sweet rules the world.
12
According to Mom, my parents didn’t send me to Provo sight unseen. She says they went there, toured the place, and consulted with a therapist, and that there was never any talk of drugs, restraints, solitary confinement—none of that. Situated in a nice neighborhood near a golf course, Provo Canyon School appeared to be a conservative boarding school with pleasant grounds and well-maintained facilities. The tour didn’t include the area where kids screamed in straitjackets, slept on the floor, and were locked in solitary confinement.
To me, it seems obvious that this place looked more like a prison or mental institution than a school. The classrooms were like an afterthought. But I do believe that my parents would never have sent me there if they’d known what was happening behind closed doors.
Remember, this was 1997. If you were cutting edge, you had dial-up internet that crawled out of a 56K modem. The guys who invented Google were still screwing around in a friend’s garage. Troubled-teen facilities hid behind skillful marketing and daytime-TV endorsements. Thinking they were literally fighting for their child’s life, parents signed over custodial rights and medical powers of attorney and agreed not to report suspected child abuse. Traumatized “graduates” were threatened and shamed into silence. The few who were strong enough to speak out had no way to connect or tell their stories until decades later.
Even now, with all the survivor stories pouring out on the internet, we don’t hear many stories from the damaged families. Some parents are defensive and refuse to believe they could have been so wrong. Some parents are consumed by shame and guilt—especially parents who subsequently lost a child to suicide.
Mom and Dad had been through hell and back. I’m sure I don’t know a fraction of what it was like or how it affected Nicky and my little brothers. The cover story to friends, relatives, and colleagues was that I was at boarding school in London. No one had any reason to doubt that. One of the heartbreaking aspects of all this is how isolating that must have been for Mom and Dad. I don’t know who—if anyone—knew their secret. They were so distraught and exhausted by the time they got hold of me again, they weren’t taking any chances. In their minds, Provo was the safest place for me: a lockdown facility. Kids went in and did not get out until they turned eighteen.