1908 Paris Over three feverdream nights in the Hotel Biron poet Rainer Maria Rilke encounters the ghost of his good friend artist Paula ModersohnBecker who died shortly after giving birth to her first child In response to this haunting Rilke writes his epic prose lament Requiem for a Friend as a tribute to Paula and to women torn between choosing a life sacrificed to Art or to Motherhood One hundred years later three women a painter an actress and a dancer and a theatre director prepare to stage Rilkes Requiem in Berkeley California as abstract performance ritual
