Street performer - Actor's schizophrenia subject of film

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- People who don't know Margaret Holloway often divert their eyes as the homeless woman shouts and gestures on the streets around Yale University.

But it's hard to ignore her voice, booming with the precise diction of a trained stage actress. Her expressive face, with high cheekbones, bright eyes and lovely teeth, is equally engaging.

Her performances can be masterful. Holloway is known to recite a Shakespeare soliloquy, or the Greek alphabet, or the prologue to "The Canterbury Tales" in Middle English.

Holloway is a Yale-educated dramatist whose bright career was cut down by schizophrenia nearly 20 years ago. She says she has lived on the streets ever since, performing scenes from classic drama on the sidewalks for loose change.

Now she's gotten a movie role: playing herself.

Richard Dailey, who knew Holloway in the 1970s and now is an artist in Paris, was visiting New Haven in 1999 when he ran into her. His 15-minute film about her life premiered at a charity benefit for her Dec. 9.

Holloway, 50, used some of the money raised to buy warm clothes and a safe place to sleep. She also purchased a small indulgence: a tube of burnt orange-colored lipstick.

Dailey wanted to put Holloway's name in the film's title. But she refused. Her title idea? "God Didn't Give Me a Week's Notice."

"I could not have thought of anything that good in a million years," Dailey says.

'Tactile demons'

Holloway says she suffers from a "very bad mental health condition" and suffered a brain injury in a beating during a gang rape. Her father died several years ago, and friends say she is estranged from the rest of her family. She has no children, and apparently never married.

Holloway describes her illness as being tormented by "tactile demons."

"I'm being raped 24 hours a day, seven days a week," she says in the film.

The daughter of a minister in rural Georgia, Holloway attracted the attention of A Better Chance, a nonprofit group that provides education to promising young black students, Dailey says.

She went on to Yale, earning a master's degree in directing from the drama school in 1980. Three years later, schizophrenia invaded her brain. After a few months, her landlord evicted her.

She spent time in institutions, but she ended up back on the streets of New Haven. She panhandles around the city, often in front of a coffee shop that serves as her stage.