'Salome: A Love Story': Nicolas Walker shares his film making passions

Feb. 16—Nicolas Walker hails from New Orleans but has been a resident of Californai since the 1980s.

During his time in New Orleans, Walker had a number of self-employed professions including a mobile cleaning company. Eventually, however, he was persuaded to move to Oregon House by a spiritualistic group known as the Fellowship of Friends.

There, Walker worked at a winery and became involved with a theatrical group on the Fellowship's 1,200-acre campus, known as "Apollo."

"One of the last things I did in New Orleans was to work for a commercial photographer, so that kind of segwayed into my interest in directing for the theater and film because it entailed many of those same skills," said Walker. "A lot of the members here are art lovers. Over the years we've had a number of very high-level ballets performed, concerts, things of that nature."

After the loss of a prized acting teacher, Walker and his cohorts decided to continue practicing theater on their own starting with "Medea," and "Six Characters in Search of an Author." Walker, now 75, has around a dozen different productions under his belt including two separate film productions.

"Salome: A Love Story," has been one of his most recent projects, a film he adapted from Oscar Wilde's one-act play "Salome." According to scripture, Salome was a Jewish princess and stepdaughter to Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee and Perea. The New Testament briefly describes a birthday dinner in which Salome is commissioned to dance for the king, her stepfather, and those in attendance. Salome's dance ultimately pleases Herod who offers to give her anything she wants, up to half his kingdom. After taking counsel with her mother, Salome requests the head of John the Baptist, who at that time was being kept in the palace prison. Herod immediately regrets his decision, but her wish is granted.

The story is said to have greatly inspired Wilde who was then still an up-and-coming playwright in the 1890s. His tragic script was completed in 1891, but due to its biblical content it wasn't permitted to be performed until 1896. Ironically, the first staging of "Salome" occurred while Wilde himself was serving his first prison sentence on the charges of "gross indecency" with other men.

"I had just finished directing a play with Apollo Performing Arts, 'Trojan Women,' and I was kind of looking for a new project when I happened to come across this play on the internet," explained Walker. "It really intrigued me. I thought what he did with it, as far as taking that short story and developing it into a full play with a number of interesting characters, to me almost rivaled something that Shakespeare would do."

Walker completed his filmed version of "Salome" last summer using a number of local Oregon House actors. It was primarily shot in a studio in Rocklin, and greatly relied on the use of greenscreens for location. Its first public screening was held on Aug. 21, 2023, at the Oroville State Theater with around 150 people in attendance.

"I was very pleased with how it turned out," said Walker. "Right now we are trying to get it into the film festival circuit and once that cycle is over we're going to try and get some kind of a streaming distributorship."

With "Salome" out of the way, Walker is again turning his attention to other film-related projects including a screenplay entitled "The Journal of My Other Self," based on a novel by the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

"The novel took place partly in Paris and partly in Scandinavia, but when I did the screenplay I kind of updated it to have it take place in the 1980s and instead of Scandinavia I changed that locale to Louisiana, which I was a bit more familiar with," said Walker.

So far this script has won several festival awards and Walker is hopeful to see where it may go. In the meantime, he is still compiling his vision for an abstract film adaptation of "Dante's Inferno," by Dante Alighieri.

"Because of my affiliation with the Fellowship, I know a lot of artists from different countries," said Walker. "So I wanted to have the actors speak in their native languages, so it'll be a number of different languages and then subtitled in English."

Those interested in viewing some of Walker's work can peruse his YouTube channel @TheatreClassics.