Wearing a cowboy boot on one foot and a strap pump on the other, to indicate that her character is on the lam, Cynthia Hopkins takes off an American flag scarf and sits down at a small cloth-covered table on the AS220 stage. She would be intriguing if she didn't say another word. But she does.

"I'm interested in trying to change who you are and how you think," she begins. "And so part of that comes from people being obsessed with, like, you are where you come from, or you are your genetics or you are your biology. I don't want to believe that, partly because most of my family I don't want to resemble in any way shape or form. There's a lot of horrible racism in my family, there's a lot of alcoholism, there's a great deal of insanity. So I don't want to resemble those people at all."

As AS220's artist-in-residence this year, the 29-year-old Hopkins is on stage delivering the first of several presentations of a work-in-progress. The work is to be an operetta of sorts, a one-person performance piece, a mystery story with songs. As she explained to the audience on a recent evening, the working title has been Beyond the Beyond (a good old-fashioned thriller) but might be changed to Smash the Window or Accidental Nostalgia. Or the operetta might end up named after the title of the book that is being sold at a signing by the character she's portraying -- thus the sitting at the table, à la Spalding Gray -- How to Change Your Mind: A Self-Help Manual for Amnesiacs.

Hopkins sings a few songs in a twangy, countrified voice that goes with the cowboy boot. Her delivery allows an innocence and earnestness, while she keeps her voice as flat and affectless as a Tallahatchie coroner's ("I want to live a long life/ So I don't have time to wait for you to die"). Most likely, some of her audience remember her from when she played here with her band, Gloria Deluxe, last summer and in late 1999. Hopkins tells them of her research into bizarre Oliver Sachs-esque cases of memory loss, a key to the operetta's story. She reads off the plot line of the gestating work, like a chef reciting the recipe for a great meal she promises to prepare when she gets all the exotic ingredients gathered together.

By the time Hopkins is done, she has her audience licking their lips for the actual experience.

Earlier, in an upstairs studio at AS220, Hopkins demonstrated that the innocence underlying her amiable stage presence is not just a pose to contrast with the flashes of angst. Instead of her formal stage dress, she is wearing a light yellow cardigan, buttoned-up which nevertheless reveals -- distorted through a crystal heart pendant, asserting its presence -- a kitten.

She spoke about the work, its progress, and its concerns. As she describes on the AS220 website, the story is "a meditation on the mystery of the memory function of the brain." More specifically, the mystery her character is trying to unravel is what her father did to her long ago, which she has forgotten.

"It actually started because I had experienced memory loss. Some due to alcohol abuse, blacking out, and then some due to different kinds of trauma in my life where I don't remember certain incidents at certain times -- that I found out later I was present at but have no memory of," she said. "So I became interested in memory, learning why things like that happen, how they worked, what are different kinds of disabilities.

"In addition to my own experience," she added, "I also have had numerous close friends who have experienced different kinds of abuse when they were small. Some of them being beaten by their parents, some of them sexual abuse."

The problems ranged from passing out in moments of stress to the inability to have positive relationships to memory blocks.

"My best friend right now is struggling with that difficulty, of being aware that she has things she's trying to block from herself," Hopkins said. "She's torn between trying to find out what she is blocking and wanting to avoid it."

The appeal of oblivion comes up in Hopkins's songs now and then in personas who crawl into bottles to hide, as in the ironic "Homage to Drink" on her 1999 debut album Gloria Deluxe. (Subsequent self-released CDs, in order, have been the EP 5 Songs, Hooker, and Devotionals. Go to www.gloriadeluxe.com/.)

Asked how much such songs came to her through life, she replied, "I'm tempted to give a Bob Dylan response. It would be like, `Well, I've never actually had a drink of alcohol, so I wouldn't know.' " But she goes on: "I struggled with it. I'm 4 1/2 years sober. I guess I'm a non-anonymous alcoholic, because I tend to be pretty straightforward about it with people. I'm actually very proud of the fact that I've stopped."

Hopkins was raised in Andover, Massachusetts, by high school English teacher parents. Graduated from Brown in 1995 after concentrating in American studies and taking numerous theater and writing classes, she has since done a lot of acting and composing in small New York theaters such as Big Dance Theater and Transmission Projects. Early in 1999, she formed shifting-member Gloria Deluxe to record her songs. They have opened for David Byrne and Patti Smith.

The first influences she mentioned -- Laurie Anderson, the Wooster Group -- have creative ingenuity in common, particularly for combining various elements to striking effect. She also cites Spalding Gray and Tom Waits, the latter for his theatrical, narrative songs. Into the mix that is Hopkins, throw in the fantastical Museum of Jurassic Technology, which merges archeology with whimsical imaginings, and playwright David Hancock, who impressed her during a lecture by subtly blending the actual into the plausible and, eventually, the clearly fictional.

Hopkins will be in residence at AS220 through May, enjoying the rare opportunity of continuous time for writing and composing. The "operetta" will end up being as long as 90 minutes, with about 10 to 12 songs, plus some background music for the spoken text. Album length.

"I came here with a 15-minute chunk of material," Hopkins said. "My goal is to have some version of the piece by the point when I finish.

Hopkins will perform on April 12 and 26 and in May on dates to be announced. Call 831-9327.

Issue Date: April 5 - 11, 2002