Mirabal

Robert Mirabal
as
Tony Luhan

	Sunday, December 14, 2008 Creative Explosion by Kathaleen Roberts Journal Staff Writer
	With his role as Tony Luhan in the new biopic “Georgia O'Keeffe” and the publication of his first novel, Robert Mirabal churns with a creativity that is positively combustive. “Running Alone in Photographs” ($19.95, Red Willow Press), chronicles the Taos two-time Grammy Award winner's life through the voice of a female protagonist. In the O'Keeffe project, he plays the Taos Pueblo husband of Mabel Dodge Luhan, who according to the Internet Movie Database is known in the movie as Mabel Didge Stern, the creative nucleus who drew a galaxy of intellectual and artistic novas to Taos, with Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons.
	The film role occurred when a friend alerted Mirabal the producers were considering casting a Hollywood actor as Luhan. Michael Cristofer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for the 1977 play “The Shadow Box,” penned the script; actor Bob Balaban (director of HBO's “Bernard and Doris,” and a veteran of Christopher Guest's ensemble cast) is directing. Shooting is under way at Ghost Ranch and in Santa Fe. “I haven't met my wife, Mabel, yet; she's Tyne Daly,” Mirabal said with a chuckle. The connection seems eerie. Mirabal is a distant relative to Luhan on his father's side. His grandfather helped to build the famed Mabel Dodge Luhan house in Taos, now a national historic landmark. “(Tony) was good friends with my great-grandfather,” Mirabal said. “They were from the same society. There were some interesting personal stories about him.”
	Luhan was already married when he met Mabel Dodge. “There was this really awful rumor about his wife 'selling her bull' to Mabel Dodge,” he said. “And that Mabel Dodge really took care of her financially.” Mirabal is infusing his portrait of Luhan with a spirit of pueblo authenticity other actors might miss. As Mabel lured a constellation of great minds to her home — guests ranged from O'Keeffe to D.H. Lawrence, Ansel Adams, Martha Graham and Carl Jung — Luhan mustered great internal strength to keep pace with the intellectual fireworks. “Tony almost had to be a rock star and create that kind of a persona,” Mirabal said. “I heard that he sang a lot and that he was pretty humorous. He would tease them a lot. There's a certain way that Taos men tease non-Natives. It's a flirtatious thing and it's done without smiling. And then the smile comes and they're like, 'OK, OK.' ” Mirabal learned to drive a Model T to chauffeur O'Keeffe and company around the sandstone cliffs. Multiple Academy Award-nominee Joan Allen plays O'Keeffe. “I have a lot of scenes with Joan,” Mirabal said. “It's all in the facial expressions. It's her expressions, man –– the sincerity of that. And it's the same with Jeremy Irons. It's a craft and a talent that comes from a higher place.”
	Ever the Renaissance man, before his film foray, Mirabal spent four years working on the book that would become “Running Alone in Photographs.” Spurred by a grant from the School for Advanced Research, he kept to a grueling writing schedule from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., starting again at 4 p.m., then working until 10 p.m. “Once I got into it, it had its own energy; its own powerful force,” he said. “To me writing is one of the most amazing forms of expression because it's so emotionally and physically draining. You realize you're letting go of pieces of yourself.” He billed the book as a novel rather than a memoir because he tells the story through the voice of a woman. “I didn't want to write about me,” he said. “So I created this character and it made it much easier to go beyond myself. I grew up in an all-women family and it seemed an honoring of the females I grew up with. The little characters, they're people I knew and I've embellished beyond that.” The book opens with touring musician Reyes Wind driving into “St. Teresa Pueblo” to attend the funeral of her grandmother. “She goes up to the mountains and remembers all the things she grew up with — the stories, why her mom left her and why her dad left her.” Mirabal's own father left when he was young. He lived with his grandparents while his mother worked. “She (Reyes Wind) constantly reaches for photographs in her mind,” he added. “The title is based on what we have to do — go back to the shadows and bring to light to heal, exorcised with love and light.
	“I really think that there is a sensitive side to me that was being devalued and thrown to the dirt,” Mirabal continued. “It helped me lift up a part of myself that needed attention. Ninety-five percent of it is me.” Mirabal is the winner of two Grammy Awards for Best Native American Albums of the Year (2006, 2008). His 2001 PBS special “Music From a Painted Cave” remains one of public TV's most popular. .................................................................................................................................................................................................

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