My Dinner With Andre

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MY

DINNERWITHANDRE

110 minutes. Copyright 1981 The André Company.The Pacific Arts Corp., Inc.New Yorker Films Release

ANDRE GREGORYWALLACE SHAWN

My Dinner with André

[We see Wally walking along the streets in a big city;we hear street sounds. Wally has a blank expression.We hear his voice commenting on the action, as anarrator would. This narrating voice will be labeled"WALLY'S NARRATION" to distinguish it from Wally'sactual words within the action of the story.]

WALLY'S NARRATION: The life of a playwright is

tough. It's not easy, as some people seem to think. Youwork hard writing plays, and nobody puts them on!You take up other lines of work to try to make aliving...I became an actor...and people don't hire you!So you just spend your days doing the errands of yourtrade. Today I had to be up by ten in the morning tomake some important phone calls. Then I'd gone tothe stationery store to buy envelopes. Then to thexerox shop: there were dozens of things to do. By fiveo'clock I'd finally made it to the post office and mailedoff several copies of my plays, meanwhile checkingconstantly with my answering service to see if myagent had called with any acting work. In the morning,the mailbox had just been stuffed with bills! What wasI supposed to do? How was I supposed to pay them?After all I was already doing my best! I've lived in this

city all my life. I grew up on the upper east side, andwhen I was ten years old I was rich! I was an aristocrat,riding around in taxis, surrounded by comfort, and all Ithought about was art and music. Now I'm thirty-six,and all I think about is money! [Change of scene: in thesubway. A train pulls in; Wally gets in and we see himriding, standing against the door.] It was now seveno'clock and I would have liked nothing better than togo home and have my girlfriend Debby cook me a nicedelicious dinner. But for the last several years ourfinancial circumstances have forced Debby to workthree nights a week as a waitress. After all, somebodyhad to bring in a little money! So I was on my own. But

the worse thing of all was that I had been trapped byan odd series of circumstances into agreeing to havedinner with a man I'd been avoiding literally for years.His name was André Gregory. At one time he'd been avery close friend of mine, as well as my most valuedcolleague in the theater. In fact, he was the man whohad first discovered me, and put one of my plays onthe professional stage. When I had know André, he'dbeen at the height of his career as a theater director.

The amazing work he did with his company, theManhattan Project, had just stunned audiences,throughout the world! [Change of scene: Wally isagain walking.] But then something had happened toAndré. He'd dropped out of the theater. He'd sort ofdisappeared! For months at a time his family seemedonly to know that he was traveling in some odd place,like Tibet, which was really weird, because he loved hiswife and children. He never used to like to leave homeat all! Or else you'd hear that someone had met him ata party and he'd been telling people that he'd talkedwith trees, or something like that? Obviouslysomething terrible had happened to André. [Wally isnow approaching the entrance to a restaurant. Wehear piano music, the easy kind that is played asbackground music. Wally puts on a tie.] The whole

idea of meeting him made me very nervous. I mean, Ireally wasn't up for that sort of thing. I had problemsof my own! I mean, I couldn't help André! Was Isupposed to be a doctor, or what?! [He walks in andchecks his coat.]

WALLY: [To the hat-check girl:] Hello.

HAT-CHECK GIRL: Hello. [Wally checks his coat.]

WALLY: Thank you. [He goes to the headwaiter.]

HEADWAITER: Yes, sir.

WALLY: Uh...sir. My name is Wallace Shawn. I'mexpected at the table of André Gregory.

HEADWAITER: [He checks his list.] That table will be amoment, sir. If you like, you may have a drink at thebar. [Wally goes to the bar. The piano music is louder.A woman laughs. Conversations.]

BARTENDER: Good evening, sir.

WALLY: Uh, could I have a club soda, please?

BARTENDER: I'm sorry, sir, we only serve Source dePérion [Perrier?].

WALLY: That would be fine, thank you. [The musictakes over, now with a violin. We see the musicians:piano, bass and violin.]

WALLY'S NARRATION: [Standing against the bar,Wally looks at the diners. We are given views ofpeople eating and talking.] When I'd called André andhe'd suggested that we meet in this particularrestaurant, I'd been rather surprised. Because André'stastes used to be very ascetic. Even though peoplehave always known that he has some moneysomewhere. I mean, how the hell else could he havebeen flying off to Asia and so on and still have beensupporting his family? [Conversations in thebackground.] The reason I was meeting André wasthat an acquaintance of mine, George Grassfield, had



called me and just insisted that I had to see him.Apparently, George had been walking his dog in anodd section of town the night before, and he'dsuddenly come upon André leaning against acrumbling old building, and sobbing. André hadexplained to George that he'd just been watching theIngmar Bergman movie Autumn Sonata about twenty-five blocks away, and he'd been seized by a fit ofungovernable crying when the character played by

Ingrid Bergman had said, "I could always live in my art,but never in my life." [The music takes over.]

ANDRE: Wally!! [André comes in with his armsoutstretched. Wally goes to meet him. They laugh andpronounce some disjointed words; André sayssomething like "Wow" and Wally replies withsomething like "My God."]

WALLY'S NARRATION: [They hug and André patsWally on the back.] I remember when I first startedworking with André's company, I couldn't get over theway the actors would hug when they greeted eachother. "Wow, now I'm really in the theater," I thought.

WALLY: Well! You look terrific!

ANDRE: Well!! I feel terrible! [They both laugh.]

BARTENDER: Good evening, sir. Nice to see you again.

ANDRE: Thank you! Good evening. I think I'll have aspritzer, if I may.

BARTENDER: Yes, sir.

ANDRE: Thank you.

WALLY'S NARRATION: [Wally and André start talking;we can hear only parts of the conversation,underneath Wally's narration.] I was feeling incrediblynervous. I wasn't sure I could stick through an entire

meal with him! So we talked about this and that. [Themusic dies down and stops.] He told me a few thingsabout Jerzy Grotowski, the great Polish theaterdirector, who was a friend and almost like a kind of aguru of André's. He'd also dropped out of the theater.Grotowski was a pretty unusual character himself. Atone time he'd been quite fat; then he'd lost anincredible amount of weight, and become very thin,and grown a beard!

WAITER: [Coming up to them.] Your table is ready, ifyou feel like sitting down. [André and Wally both say"Oh!" Then André says "Thank you." They go to theirtable and settle in. They look over the menu.]

WALLY'S NARRATION: I was beginning to realize that

the only way to make this evening bearable would beto ask André a few questions. Asking questions alwaysrelaxes me. In fact, I sometimes think that my secretprofession is that I'm a private investigator, adetective. I always enjoy finding out about people.Even if they're an absolute agony, I always find it veryinteresting.

WALLY: By the way, is he still thin?

ANDRE: [Hesitates blankly.] What?

WALLY: Grotowski. Is he still thin?

ANDRE: Oh! Absolutely. Oh, waiter? Uh, I think we cando without this. [He hands him the flower from thetable.] Thank you. [Wally laughs.]

WALLY: What about this one? [He points to somethingon the menu.]

ANDRE: [Laughing:] "Seven swank shrimp" [?]! [They

laugh.]

WAITER: Are you ready for your order?

ANDRE: Uh, yes. The aragna kalouska [?], how do youprepare that?

WALLY'S NARRATION: [André discusses his orderwith the waiter.] André seemed to know an awful lotabout the menu. I didn't understand a word of it.

WAITER: Very good, I think.

ANDRE: Hum. No, I think I'll have the cailles auxraisins...

WAITER: Very good.

ANDRE: [For Wally's benefit:] ...quail.

WALLY: Oh, quails! I'll have that as well.

ANDRE: Two, great! [The waiter concurs.]

WALLY: Great!

ANDRE: And then I think to begin with, a terrine depoisson.

WAITER: Yes.

WALLY: What is that?

ANDRE: It's a sort of pâté, light, made of fish.

WALLY: Does it have bones in it?

ANDRE: [Laughing:] No bones. Very safe.

WALLY: Hunh. Well, uh. What is the, uh, "vromborovapolevka"?

WAITER: It's a potato soup. It's quite delicious.

WALLY: Oh, well, that's great! I'll have that.

WAITER: Thank you.

ANDRE: Thank you very much.

WALLY: Well! Now when was the last time that we saweach other?

WALLY'S NARRATION: [They talk.] So we talked for awhile about my writing and my acting, and about mygirlfriend Debby. And we talked about his wife,Chiquita, and his two children, Nicholas and Marina.[We can make out a fragment of something Andrésays: "...and I stayed back in New York...."] Finally, I gotaround to asking him what he'd been up to in the lastfew years.



WALLY: ...and, God! I'm just dying to hear it!

ANDRE: Really?

WALLY: Really!

WALLY'S NARRATION: At first, he seemed a littlereluctant to go into it. So I just kept asking, and finally

he started to answer.

ANDRE: ...conference on paratheatrical work, then.And this must have been about five years ago. AndGrotowski and I were walking along Fifth Avenue andwe were talking. You see, he'd invited me to come toteach that summer in Poland--you know, to teach aworkshop to actors and directors and whatever. And Itold him that I didn't want to come because, really, I'dnothing left to teach. I'd nothing left to say. I didn'tknow anything. I couldn't teach anything. Exercisesmeant nothing to me any more. Working on scenesfrom plays seemed ridiculous. I didn't know what todo. I mean, I just couldn't do it. So he said: "Why don'tyou tell me anything you'd like to have, if you did aworkshop for me, no matter how outrageous, and

maybe I can give it to you." So I said: "Well, if youcould give me forty Jewish women who speak neitherEnglish nor French, either women who've been in thetheater for a long time and want to leave it but don'tknow why, or young women who love the theater buthave never seen a theater that they could love, and ifthese women could all play the trumpet or the harp,and if I could work in a forest, I'd come!" [They bothlaugh.] A week later, two weeks later, he called mefrom Poland and he said: "Well, forty Jewish women islittle hard to find!" But he said: "I do have fortywomen. They all pretty much fit the definition." Andhe said: "I also have some very interesting men, butyou don't have to work with them. These are all peoplewho have in common the fact that they're questioningthe theater. They don't all play the trumpet or the

harp, but they all play a musical instrument, and noneof them speak English." And he'd found me a forest,Wally, and the only inhabitants of this forest weresome wild boar and a hermit! So that was an offer Icouldn't refuse! I had to go. So, I went to Poland. Andit was a wonderful group of young men and women.And the forest he had found us was absolutely magic.You know, it was a huge forest, I mean, the trees wereso large that four or five people linking their armscouldn't get their arms around the trees? So we werecamped out beside the ruins of this tiny little castle,and we would eat around this great stone stab thatserved as a sort of a table. And our schedule was thatusually we would start work around sunset, and thengenerally we'd work until about six or seven in themorning, and then, because the Poles love to sing and

dance, we'd sing and dance until about ten or elevenin the morning, and then we'd have our food, whichwas generally bread and jam, cheese and tea. Thenwe'd sleep from around noon to sunset. Nowtechnically, of course, technically the situation is a veryinteresting one, 'cause if you find yourself in a forestwith a group of forty people who don't speak yourlanguage then all your moorings are gone.

WALLY: What do you mean, exactly?

ANDRE: Well, what we'd do is just sit there and waitfor someone to have an impulse to do something. Now

in a way that's something like a theatricalimprovisation. I mean, you know, if you were a directorworking on a play by Chekhov, you might have theactors playing the mother, the son or the uncle all sitaround in a room and do a made-up scene that isn't inthe play. For instance you might say to them: all right,let's say that it's a rainy Sunday afternoon on Sorin'sestate and you're all trapped in the drawing roomtogether; and then everyone would improvise, saying

and doing what their character might say and do inthat circumstance. Except that in this type ofimprovisation, the kind we did in Poland, the theme isoneself. So, you follow the same law of improvisation,which is that you do whatever your impulse as thecharacter tells you to do, but in this case, you're thecharacter. So there's no imaginary situation to hidebehind. And there's no other person to hide behind.What you're doing in fact is you're asking those samequestions that Stanislavsky said the actor shouldconstantly ask himself as a character: "Who am I? Whyam I here? Where do I come from? And where am Igoing?" But instead of applying them to a rôle, youapply them to yourself. Or to look at it a littledifferently: in a way it's like going right back tochildhood where a group of children simply come into

a room, are brought into a room, without toys, andbegin to play. Grown-ups were learning how to playagain!

WALLY: So you would all sit together somewhere, andyou would play in some way, but what would youactually do?

ANDRE: Well, I'll give you a good example. You see,we worked together for a week in the city before wewent off to our forest. Of course, Grotowski was therein the city, too, and I heard that every night heconducted something called a beehive, and I loved thesound of this beehive, so a night or two before wewere supposed to go off to the country, I grabbed himby the collar and I said: "Listen, about this beehive:

you know, I'd kind of like to participate in one. Justinstinctively I feel it would be something interesting."And he said: "Well, certainly. In fact, why don't youwith your group lead the beehive instead ofparticipating." Well, you know, Wally, I got verynervous, you know, and I said: "Well, what is abeehive?" He said: "Well, a beehive is at eight o'clock ahundred strangers come into a room." And I said:"Yes?" And he said: "Yes, and whatever happens is abeehive." And I said: "Yes, but what am I supposed todo?" He said: "That's up to you." I said: "No, no! I reallydon't want to do this. I'll just participate." And he said:"No, no. You lead the beehive!" Well, I was terrified,Wally. I mean, in a way I felt on stage. I did it anyway.

WALLY: God! Well, tell me about it.

ANDRE: You see, there was this song. I have a tape ofit. I can play it for you one day. And it's justunbelievably beautiful. You see, one of the women inour group knew a few fragments of this song of SaintFrancis, and it's a song in which you thank God foryour eyes and you thank God for your heart and youthank God for your friends and you thank God for yourlife. And it repeats itself over and over again, and thisbecame our theme song. I really must play this thingfor you one day because you just can't believe that agroup of people who don't how to sing could createsomething so beautiful. So I decided that when the



people arrive for the beehive that our group wouldalready be there singing this very beautiful song, andthat we would simply sing it over and over again. Oneof the people decided to bring her very large teddybear, you know, I think she was a little afraid of thisevent, and somebody wanted to bring a sheet andsomebody else wanted to bring a large bowl of waterin case people got hot or thirsty, and somebodysuggested that we have candles, that there be no

artificial light, but candle light. And I rememberwatching people preparing for this evening. Of coursethere was no make-up and no costumes, but it wasexactly the way that people prepare for aperformance. You know, people were sort of taking offtheir jewelry and their watches and stowing it away,and making sure it's all secure. And then slowly peoplearrived, the way they would arrive at the theater, inones and twos and tens and fifteens, and what-have-you, and we were just sitting there and we weresinging this very beautiful song, and people started tosit with us and started to learn the song. Now, there isof course, as in any performance or improvisation,instants for one thing are going to get boring. So, at acertain point, it may have only taken an hour to getthere, an hour and a half, I suddenly grabbed this

teddy bear and threw it in the air! At which a hundredand forty or thirty people suddenly exploded! Youknow, it was like a Jackson Pollock painting, you know,human beings exploded out of this tight little circlethat was singing this song, and before I knew it therewere two circles dancing, you know. One dancingclockwise, the other dancing counterclockwise, withthis rhythm mostly from the waist down, in otherwords like an American Indian dance, with thisthumping, persistent rhythm. [Laughter in thebackground and some faint talking.]

Now, you could easily see, 'cause we're talking aboutgroup trance, where the line between something likethis and something like Hitler's Nuremberg rallies is ina way a very thin line. [Same background laugh.]

Anyway. After about an hour of this wild, hypnoticdancing, Grotowski and I found ourselves sittingopposite each other in the middle of this whole thing,and we threw the teddy bear back and forth. Youknow, on one level you could say this was childish. AndI gave the teddy bear suck suddenly at my breast, andthen I threw the teddy bear to him, and he gave it suckat his breast, and then the teddy bear was thrown upinto the air again, at which there was anotherexplosion of form into...something [salade de mots]something like a kaleidoscope, like a humankaleidoscope, the evening was made up of shiftings ofthe kaleidoscope. Now, the only other thing that Iremember--other than that I was constantly trying toguide this thing, which was always involved with eithermovement, rhythm, repetition or song, or chanting,

'cause two people in my group had brought musicalinstruments, a flute and a drum, which of course aresacred instruments--was that sometimes the roomwould break up into six or seven different things goingon at once, you know, six or seven differentimprovisations, all of which seemed in some wayrelated to each other. It was like a magnificentcobweb. And at one point, I noticed that Grotowskiwas at the center of one group huddled around abunch of candles that they had gathered together, andlike a little child fascinated by fire, I saw that he hadhis hand right in the flame and was holding it there.And as I approached his group, I wondered if I could

do it. I put my left hand in the flame, and I found Icould hold it there for as long as I liked, and there wasno burn, and no pain. But when I tried to put my righthand in the flame, I couldn't hold it there for a second.So Grotowski said: "If it burns, try to change somelittle thing in yourself." And I tried to do that. Didn'twork.

Then, I remember a very, very beautiful procession

with the sheet, and there was somebody being carriedbelow the sheet, you know, the sheet was like somegreat biblical canopy, and the entire group wasweaving around the room and chanting. And then, atone point, people were dancing, and I was dancingwith a girl and suddenly our hands began vibratingnear each other, like this, vibrating! vibrating!, and wewent down to our knees and suddenly I was sobbingin her arms and she was sort of cradling me in herarms, and then she started to cry, too, and then we

just hugged each other for a moment and then we joined the dance again. And then at a certain point,hours later, we returned to the singing of the song ofSaint Francis, and that was the end of the beehive.And then again, when it was over, it was just like thetheater, after a performance, you know: people sort of

put on their earrings and their wristwatches and wewent off to the railroad station to drink a lot of beerand have a good dinner! Oh, and there was one girlwho wasn't in our group, but who just wouldn't leave,so we took her along with us!

WALLY: [Amazed:] Hunh! [The waiter brings the firstcourse. We hear a woman talking at another table.]God! Well, tell me some of the other things you didwith your group.

ANDRE: Well. Oh, I remember once, when we were inthe city, we tried doing an improvisation, you know,the kind that I used to do in New York: everybody'ssupposed to be on an airplane, and they've all learnedfrom the pilot that there's something wrong with the

motor. But what was unusual about this improvisationwas that two people who participated in it fell in love!You know, they've in fact married! And when wewere--yeah!--out of fear of being on this plane, theyfell in love, thinking they were going to die at anymoment! And when we went to the forest, these twodisappeared, because they understood the experimentso well that they realized that to go off together in theforest was much more important than any kind ofexperiment the group could do as a whole. [Theylaugh.] So, about halfway through the week, westumbled into a clearing in the forest, and the two ofthem were fast asleep in each other's arms. It wasaround dawn. And we put flowers on them, to let themknow we'd been there, and then we crept away. Andthen on the last day of our stay in the forest these two

showed up and the shook me by my hands and theythanked me very much for the wonderful work they'dbeen able to do, you see! [They laugh.] So. Theyunderstood what it was about. I mean, that of courseposes the question of what was it about. But it hassomething to do with living.

And then on the final day of our stay in the forest, thewhole group did something so wonderful for me,Wally. They arranged a christening, a baptism!, for me.And they filled the castle with flowers, and it was justa miracle of light, because they had literally set uphundreds of candles and torches; I mean, no church



could have looked more beautiful. There was a simpleceremony, and one of them played to rôle of mygodmother and another played the rôle of mygodfather, and I was given a new name: they called meYendrush. And some of the people took it completelyseriously, and some of them found it funny, but I reallyfelt that I had a new name. And then we had anenormous feast with blueberries picked from the fieldand chocolate someone had gone a great distance to

buy, and raspberry soup, rabbit stew, and we sangPolish songs and Greek songs, and everybody dancedfor the rest of the night!

WALLY: Hunh!

ANDRE: Oh, I have a picture. See, this was...oh, yeah:this was me in the forest. [He shows the picture toWally.] See?

WALLY: God!

ANDRE: That's what I felt like. [They laugh.] That's thestate I was in!

WALLY: God! Yeah, I remember George told me he

had seen you around that time. He said you looked likeyou'd come back from a war.

ANDRE: Yeah, I remember meeting him. He asked mea lot of friendly questions. I think I called you up, too,that summer, didn't I?

WALLY: Hum. [Evasive:] I think I was out of town.

ANDRE: Yeah, well, most people I met thought therewas something wrong with me. They didn't say thatbut I could tell that that was what they thought. But,you see, what I think I experienced was for the firsttime in my life, to know what it means to be truly alive.Now that's very frightening, because with that comesan immediate awareness of death. 'Cause they go

hand in hand. You know, the kind of impulse that ledto Walt Whitman, that led to Leaves of Grass, youknow, that feeling of being connected to everythingmeans to also be connected to death. And that'spretty scary. But, I really felt as if I were floating abovethe ground, not walking, you know, and I could dothings: I'd go out to the highway and watch the lightsgo from red to green and think: "How wonderful!"

And then one day in the early fall I was out in thecountry walking in a field and I suddenly heard a voicesay "Little Prince"! Now, of course, The Little Princewas a book that I'd always thought of as disgustingchildish treacle, but still I thought, well, you know, if avoice comes to me in a field, I mean, this was the firstvoice I have ever heard, maybe I should go and read

the book! Now, that same morning I got a letter from ayoung woman who had been in my group in Poland,and in her letter she had written: "You have dominatedme." You know, she spoke very awkward English, soshe'd gone to the dictionary and she'd crossed out theword "dominated" and she'd said: "No, the correctword is `tamed.'" And then when I went into town andbought the book and started to read it, I saw thattaming was the most important word in the wholebook! By the end of the book I was in tears, I was somoved by the story. And then I went and tried to writean answer to her letter, 'cause she had written me avery long letter, but I just couldn't find the right words,

so finally I took my hand, I put it on a piece of paper, Ioutlined it with a pen and I wrote in the centersomething like: "Your heart is in my hand," somethinglike that.

And then I went over to my brother's house to swim,'cause he lives nearby in the country and he has apool. And he wasn't home, and I went into his libraryand he had bought at an auction the collected issues

of Minotaur, you know, the surrealist magazine? Oh!It's a great, great surrealist magazine of the twentiesand thirties, and I'd never--you know, I consider myselfa bit of a surrealist, I had never, ever seen a copy ofMinotaure. And here they all were, bound, year afteryear? So, at random, I picked one out, I opened it upand there was a full-page reproduction of the letter Afrom Tenniel's Alice in Wonderland, and I thought:"Well, you know, it's been a day of coincidence, butthat's not unusual that the surrealists would have beeninterested in Alice and I did a play of Alice." So, atrandom, I opened to another page? And there werefour hand prints! One was André Breton, another wasAndré Derain, the third was André...I have it writtendown somewhere, it's not Malraux, it's like...someone,another of the surrealists, all A's, and the fourth was

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who wrote The Little Prince.And they'd shown these hand prints to some kind ofexpert, without saying whose hands they belonged to,and under Exupéry's, it said that he was an artist withvery powerful eyes, who was a tamer of wild animals!So I thought, this is incredible, you know. And I lookedback, to see when the issue came out? It came out onthe newsstands May twelfth, 1934, and I was bornduring the day of May eleventh, 1934. So! That's whatstarted me on Saint-Exupéry and The Little Prince.[Eating interruption.]

Now, of course, today I think there's a very fascisticthing under The Little Prince, you know--well, no, Ithink there's a kind of SS totalitarian sentimentality inthere somewhere. You know, there's something, you

know, that [takes a bite and talks with his mouthfull]...love of, uh...hum. That masculine love of a certainkind of oily muscle, you know what I mean? I mean, Ican't quite put my finger on it, but I can just imaginesome beautiful SS man loving The Little Prince. Youknow, I don't know why, but there's something wrongwith it. It stinks! [They laugh.]

WALLY: Well, didn't George tell me that you weregoing to do a play that was based on The LittlePrince?

ANDRE: [With his mouth full:] Hum. Well, whathappened, Wally, was: that fall I was in New York and Imet this young Japanese Buddhist priest namedKozan, and I thought he was Puck, from the

Midsummer Night's Dream. You know, he had thisbeautiful delicate smile. I thought he was the LittlePrince. So, naturally I decided to go off to the SaharaDesert to work on The Little Prince, with two actorsand this Japanese monk!

WALLY: You did?

ANDRE: Well, I mean, I was still in a very peculiar stateat that time, Wally. You know, I would look in the rearview mirror of my car and see little birds flying out ofmy mouth. And I remember always being exhausted inthat period. I always felt weak, you know, I really didn't



know what was going on with me, and I would just sitout there all alone in the country for days, and donothing but write in my diary, and I was alwaysthinking about death.

WALLY: Hum. But you went to the Sahara.

ANDRE: Oh, yes! We went off into the desert, and werode through the desert on camels, and we rode and

we rode and then at night we would walk out underthat enormous sky and look at the stars. I just keptthinking about the same things that I was alwaysthinking about at home. Particularly about Chiquita. Infact, I thought about just about nothing but mymarriage. And then I remember one incredibly darknight being at an oasis, and there were palm treesmoving in the wind; I could hear Kozan singing faraway in that beautiful bass voice, and I tried to followhis voice along the sand. You see, I thought he hadsomething to teach me, Wally. And sometimes I wouldmeditate with him. Sometimes I'd go off and meditateby myself. You know, I would see images of Chiquita.Once, I actually saw her growing old and her hairturning gray in front of my eyes and I would just wailand yell my lungs out out there on the dunes.

Anyway, the desert was pretty horrible! It was prettycold. We were searching for something but wecouldn't tell if we were finding anything. You knowthat once Kozan and I, we were sitting on a dune andwe just ate sand. Y'know, we weren't trying to befunny. I started and he started. We just ate sand andthrew up, that's how desperate we were. In otherwords, we didn't know why we were there, we didn'tknow what we were looking for, the entire thingseemed completely absurd, arid and empty. It was likea last chance or something.

WALLY: Hum. [Pause.] So what happened then?

ANDRE: Well. In those days, I went completely on

impulse. So on impulse I brought Kozan back to staywith us in New York after we got back from theSahara, and he stayed for six months. And he reallysort of took over the whole family in a way.

WALLY: What do you mean?

ANDRE: Well, there was certainly a center missing inthe house at the time. There certainly wasn't a father,'cause I was always thinking about going off to Tibet,or doing God knows what! And so he taught the wholefamily to meditate, and he told them all about Asiaand the East and his monastery and everything. Hereally captivated everybody with an incredible bag oftricks. He had literally developed himself, Wally, so thathe could push on his fingers and rise off out of his

chair! I mean, he could literally go like this, you know,push on his fingers and go into like a head stand, and

just hold himself there with two fingers! Or if Chiquitawould suddenly get a little tension in her neck, well,he'd immediately have her down on the floor, he'd bewalking up and down on her back doing theseunbelievable massages, you know. And the childrenfound him amazing. I mean, you know, we'd visitfriends, who had children, and immediately he'd beplaying with these children in a way that, you know,we just can't do. I mean, those children, just giggles,giggles, giggles about what this Japanese monk wasdoing in these holy robes! I mean, he was an acrobat, a

ventriloquist, a magician, everything! You know theamazing thing was that I don't think he had anyinterest in children whatsoever. None at all. I don'tthink he liked them! I mean, you know, when he stayedwith us, in the first week, really, the kids were justgoogly-eyed over him. But then, a couple of weekslater, Chiquita and I could be out and Marina couldhave flu or a temperature of a hundred and four andhe wouldn't even go in and say hello to her. But, he

was taking over, more and more! I mean, his ownhabits had completely changed. You know that hestarted wearing these elegant Gucci shoes under hiswhite monk's robes, and he was eating huge amountsof food. I mean, he ate twice as much as Nicholas ate,you know, this tiny little Buddhist who when I first methim, you know, was eating a little bowl of milk, hotmilk with rice, was now eating huge beef! [Theylaugh.] It was just very strange! You know. And wetried working together, but really all our workconsisted mostly of my trying to do these incrediblypainful prostrations that they do in the monastery, youknow, so really we hadn't been working very much.Anyway.

We were out in the country, and we all went to

Christmas mass together, you know, he was all dressedup in his Buddhist finery, you know, it was one of thoseawful dreary Catholic churches on Long Island wherethe priest talks about communism and birth control.And as I was sitting there in mass I was wondering:"What in the world is going on? I mean, here I am, I'ma grown man, and there's this strange person livingwith me in the house, and I'm not working, I mean, youknow, I was doing nothing but scribbling a little poetryin my diary. I can't get a job teaching any more, and Idunno what I want to do...." When all of a sudden, ahuge creature appeared, looking at the congregation!It was about, I'd say, six foot eight, something like that,you know, and it was half bull, half man, it's skin wasblue, it had violets growing out of its eyelids andpoppies growing out of its toenails, and it just stood

there for the whole mass. I mean, I could not makethat creature disappear. You know, I thought: "Oh, well,you know, I'm just seeing this because I'm bored," youknow. I could not make that creature go away. Okay,now: I didn't talk with people about it, because they'dthink I was weird. But I felt that this creature wassomehow coming to comfort me. That somehow hewas appearing to say: "Well! You may feel low, and youmight not be able to create a play right now. But lookwhat can come to you, on Christmas eve! Hang on, oldfriend! I may seem weird to you, but on these weirdvoyages, weird creatures appear! It's part of the

journey. You're okay! Hang in there!" [Pause. Laughterat another table.]

WALLY: By the way, did you ever see that play, The

Violets Are Blue?

ANDRE: [Without expression:] No.

WALLY: Oh, well, when you mentioned the violets, itreminded me of that. It was about people beingstrangled on a submarine. [André gives Wally abemused/puzzled look; he says nothing. Pause. Wallysighs.] Well! So that was Christmas! What happenedafter that?

ANDRE: You really want to hear about all this?



WALLY: Yeah!

ANDRE: Well. Around that time, I was beginning tothink about going to India. And Kozan suddenly leftone day. And you know, I was beginning to get into alot of very strange ideas around that time. Now, forexample, I had developed this...well, I got this ideawhich I...well, it was very appealing to me at the time,you know, which was that I would have a flag, a large

flag, and that wherever I worked this flag would fly, orif we were outside, say, with a group, that the flagcould be the thing that we'd lay on at night, and thatsomehow between working on this flag and lying onthis flag, this flag flying over us, that the flag wouldpick up vibrations of a kind that would still be in theflag when I brought it home? So, I went down to meetthis flag maker that I'd heard about, and you know,there was this very straight-forward looking guy, youknow, a very sweet and really healthy-looking andeverything, nice, big, blond; you know, he had abeautiful clean loft down in the village with lovely,happy flags. And I was all into The Little Prince and Italked to him about the Little Prince and hisadventures and everything, how I needed the flag andwhat the flag should be, and he seemed to really

connect with it. So, two weeks later I came back: heshowed me a flag that I thought was very odd, youknow, 'cause I'd...well, you know, I'd expectedsomething gentle, and lyrical. There was somethingabout this that was so powerful, it was almostoverwhelming! And it did include the Tibetan swastika.

WALLY: [Swallows abruptly.] He put a swastika in yourflag?!

ANDRE: It was the Tibetan swastika, not the Naziswastika. It's one of the most ancient Tibetan symbols.And it was just strange, you know. But, I brought ithome, because my idea with this flag was that before Ileft, you know, before I left for India, I wanted severalpeople who were close to me to have this flag in the

room for the night, to sleep with it, you know, andthen in the morning to sew something into the flag. SoI took the flag in to Marina, and I said: "Hey, look atthis. What do you think of this?" And she said: "Whatis that? That's awful!" And I said: "It's a flag!" And shesaid: "I don't like it!," you know. And I said: "Oh, well, Ikinda thought you might like to spend the night withit," you know. But she really thought the flag wasawful. So, then, Chiquita threw this party for me,before I left for India, and the apartment was filledwith guests, and at one point Chiquita said: "The flag!The flag! Where's the flag?" And I said: "Oh, yeah, theflag!" And I go and get the flag and I open it up.Chiquita goes absolutely white and runs out of theroom and vomits! So the party just comes to a haltand breaks up! And then the next day, I gave it to this

young woman who had been in my group in Poland,who was now in New York. I didn't tell her anythingabout any of this. At five o'clock in the morning shecalled me up and she said: "I gotta come and see youright away!" And I thought: "Oh, God!" She came upand she said: "I saw things! I saw things around thisflag! Now I know you're stubborn and I know you wantto take this thing with you, but if you'd follow myadvice you'd put it in a hole in the ground and burn itand cover it with earth 'cause the Devil's in it!" Well, Inever took the flag with me! In fact, I gave it to her,and she had a ceremony with it six months later inFrance, with some friends, in which they did burn it.

WALLY: Hunh! God! That's really, really amazing! Sodid you ever go to India?

ANDRE: Oh, yes, I went to India in the spring, Wally,and I came back home feeling all wrong. I mean, youknow, I'd been to India, and I had just felt like a tourist.I'd found nothing. So, I was spending the summer onLong Island with my family, and I heard about this

community, in Scotland, called Findhorn, where peoplesang and talked and meditated with plants. And it wasfounded by several rather middle-class English andScottish eccentrics, some of them intellectuals andsome of them not. And I'd heard that they'd grownthings in soil that supposedly nothing can grow in'cause it's almost beach soil, and that they'd built--not"built"--they'd grown the largest cauliflowers in theworld, and their sort of cabbages, and they've growntrees that can't grow in the British Isles. So I wentthere! I mean, it is an amazing place, Wally. I mean, ifthere are insects bothering the plants, they will talkwith the insects! And you know, make an agreementby which they'll set aside a special patch of vegetables

just for the insects and then the insects will leave themain part alone! [Wally laughs.] Things like that. And

everything they do, they do beautifully. I mean, thebuildings just shine. I mean, for instance, the icebox,the stove, the car, you know, they all have names. Andsince you wouldn't treat Helen, the icebox, with anyless respect than you would Margaret, your wife, youknow, you make sure that Helen is as clean asMargaret, or treated with equal respect. And when Iwas there, Wally, I remember being in the woods, and Iwould look at a leaf and I would actually see that thingthat is alive in that leaf. And then I remember justrunning through the woods as fast as I could with thisincredible laugh coming out of me. And really being inthat state, you know, where laughter and tears seemto merge. I mean, it absolutely blasted me open. WhenI came out of Findhorn, I was hallucinating nonstop. Iwas seeing clouds as creatures; the people on the

airplane all had animals faces. I mean, I was on a trip,you know. It was like being in a William Blake worldsuddenly. Things were exploding. So, immediately, Iwent to Belgrade, because I wanted to talk toGrotowski. And Grotowski and I got together atmidnight in my hotel room and we drank instantcoffee out of the top of my shaving-cream. And wetalked from midnight until eleven the next morning!

WALLY: God! What did he say?

ANDRE: Nothing! I talked! He didn't say a word! And.And then, I guess really the last big experience of thiskind took place that fall. It was out on Montauk, onLong Island, and there were only about nine of usinvolved, mostly men. And, we'd borrowed Dick

Avedon's property out at Montauk. And the countryout there is like Heathcliff country, it's absolutely wild!What we wanted to do, was we wanted to take AllSouls' Eve, Halloween, and use it as a point ofdeparture for something. So, each one of us preparedsome sort of event for the others, somehow in thespirit of All Souls' Eve. But the biggest event was thatthree of the people kept disappearing in the middle ofthe night, each night, and we knew they werepreparing something big, but we didn't know what?And midnight, on Halloween, under a dark moonabove these cliffs, we were all told to gather at thetopmost cliff, and that we'd be taken somewhere. And



we did. And we waited. And it was very, very cold. Andthen the three of them, Helen, Bill and Fred, showedup wearing white, you know, something they'd madeout of sheets--looked a little spooky, not funny. Andthey took us into the basement of this house that hadburned down on the property, and in this ruinedbasement they had set up a table, with benches they'dmade. And on this table they had laid out paper,pencils, wine and glasses. And we were all asked to sit

at the table and to make out our last will andtestament, you know, to think about and write downwhatever our last words were to the world, or tosomebody we were very close to. And that's quite atask. I must have been there for about an hour and ahalf or so, maybe two. And then one at a time, theywould ask one of us to come with them, and I was oneof the last, and they came for me, and they put ablindfold on me and they ran me through these fields,two people. And they'd found a kind of potting shed,you know, a kind of shed on the grounds, a little tinyroom that had once had tools in it. And they took medown the steps into this basement, and the room was

just filled with harsh, white light. And then they toldme to get undressed, and give them all my valuables.Then they put me on a table and they sponged me

down. Well, you know, I just started flashing on deathcamps and secret police. I don't know what happenedto the other people, but I just started to cryuncontrollably. Then they got me to my feet and theytook photographs of me, naked. And then naked,again blindfolded, I was run through these forests, andwe came to a kind of tent made of sheets, with sheetson the ground, and there were all these naked bodieshuddling together for warmth against the cold. 'Musthave been left there for about an hour. And thenagain, one by one, one at a time, we were led out, theblindfold was put on, and I felt myself being loweredonto something like a stretcher. And the stretcher wascarried a long way, very slowly, through these forests.And then I felt myself being lowered into the ground!They had, in fact, dug six graves eight feet deep! And

then I felt these pieces of wood being put on me. Imean, I cannot tell you, Wally, what I was goingthrough. And then, the stretcher was lowered into thegrave, and then this wood was put on me, and thenmy valuables were put on me in my hands, and theyhad taken, you know, a kind of sheet or canvas, andthey stretched about this much above my head. Andthen they shoveled dirt into the grave, so that I reallyhad the feeling of being buried alive. And after beingin the grave for about half an hour, I mean, I didn'tknow how long I'd be in there, I was resurrected, liftedout of the grave, blindfold taken off, and run throughthese fields, and we came to a great circle of fire withmusic and hot wine. And everyone danced until dawn!And then, at dawn, to the best of our ability, we filledup the graves and went back to New York. [Serving

sounds.]

That was really the last big event. I mean, that was theend. I mean, you know, I began to realize I just didn'twant to do these things any more, you know. I felt sortof "becalmed," you know, like that chapter in MobyDick where the wind goes out of the sails. And thenlast winter, without thinking about it very much, I wentto see this agent I know, to tell him I was interested indirecting plays again. Actually he seemed a littlesurprised to see that Rip Van Winkle was still alive![The main course is served.]

WALLY: [Surprised at the quail:] Hum! God! I didn'tknow they were so small!

ANDRE: [With his mouth full:] Well, you know, frankly,I'm sort of repelled by the whole story, if you reallywant to know.

WALLY: What!?

ANDRE: I mean, who did I think I was, you know? Imean, that's the story of some kind of spoiledprincess. I mean, you know, who did I think I was, theShah of Iran? You know, I really wonder if people suchas myself are really not Albert Speer, Wally. You know?Hitler's architect, Albert Speer?

WALLY: Hunh!?

ANDRE: No, I've been thinking a lot about himrecently, because I think I am Speer, and I think it'stime that I was caught and tried the way he was.

WALLY: [Not amused:] What are you talking about?

ANDRE: Well, I mean, you know, he was a very

cultivated man, an architect, an artist, you know, so hethought the ordinary rules of life didn't apply to himeither. [He eats.] I mean, I really feel that everythingI've done is horrific, just horrific!

WALLY: My God! But, why!?

ANDRE: You see, I've seen a lot of death in the last fewyears, Wally, and there's one thing that's for sureabout death: you do it alone, you see, that seems quitecertain, you see, that I've seen. That the people aroundyour bed mean nothing, your reviews mean nothing.Whatever it is, you do it alone. And so the question is:when I get on my deathbed what kind of a person amI going to be, and I'm just very dubious about the kindof person who would have lived his life those last few

years the way I did.

WALLY: Well, why should you feel that way?

ANDRE: Well, you see, I've had a very rough time inthe last few months, Wally. Three different people inmy family were in the hospital at the same time. Thenmy mother died, then Marina had something wrongwith her back and we were terribly worried about her,you know, so.... So, I mean, I'm feeling very raw rightnow. I mean...I mean, I can't sleep, my nerves are shot,I mean, I'm affected by everything. You know, lastweek, I had this really nice director, from Norway, overfor dinner? And he's someone I've known for yearsand years, and he's somebody I think I'm quite fond of.And, I was sitting there just thinking that he was a

pompous, defensive, conservative stuffed-shirt whowas only interested in the theater, you know, he wastalking and talking, you know, his mother had been afamous Norwegian comedian. I realized he had said "Iremember my mother" at least four hundred timesduring the evening. And he was telling story afterstory about his mother, you know, I'd heard thesestories twenty times in the past. He was drinking thiswhole bottle of bourbon very quietly, and his laughwas so horrible! You know, I could hear his laugh, thepain in that laugh, the hollowness, you know, whatbeing that woman's son had done to him, you know.So at a certain point I just had to ask him to leave,



nicely, you know, I told him I had to get up early thenext morning 'cause it was so horrible. It was just as ifhe had died in my living room, and then, you know,then I went into the bathroom and cried 'cause I feltI'd lost a friend.

And then after he had gone I turned the television on,and there was this guy who had just won thesomething-something, you know, some sports event,

some kind of great big check and some kind of hugesilver bottle. And you know, he couldn't stuff thecheck in the bottle, and he put the bottle in front ofhis nose and pretended it was his face. You know, hewasn't really listening to the guy who was interviewinghim, but he was smiling malevolently at his friends.And I looked at that guy and I thought: "What ahorrible, empty, manipulative rat!" Then I thought:"That guy is me!" Then last night, actually, it was ourtwentieth wedding anniversary. And I took Chiquita tosee the show about Billie Holiday, and I looked atthese show-business people, who know nothing aboutBillie Holiday, nothing, so you're really kind of in a wayintellectual creeps? And I suddenly had this feeling, Imean, you know, I was just sitting there crying throughmost of the show. And I suddenly had this feeling, I

was just as creepy as they were! And that my wholelife had been a sham, and I didn't have the guts to beBillie Holiday either. I mean, I really feel that I'm justwashed up! Wiped out! I feel I've just squandered mylife!

WALLY: [Pause.] André! Now, how can you saysomething like that?

ANDRE: [Long pause.] Well, you know, I may be in avery emotional state right now, Wally, but since I'vecome back home, I've just been finding the worldwe're living in more and more upsetting. I mean. Lastweek I went down to the public theater one afternoon.You know, when I walked in I said "hello" to everybody,'cause I know them all and they all know me, and

they're always very friendly. You know that seven oreight people told me how wonderful I looked, andthen one person, one, a woman who runs the castingoffice, said: "Gee, you look horrible! Is somethingwrong?" Now she, we started talking, of course Istarted telling her things, and she suddenly burst intotears because an aunt of hers, who's eighty, whomshe's very fond of, went into the hospital for acataract, which was solved, but the nurse was sosloppy she didn't put the bed rails up, so the aunt fellout of bed and is now a complete cripple! So, youknow, we were talking about hospitals. Now, you know,this woman, because of who she is, you know, 'causethis had happened to her very, very recently, she couldsee me with complete clarity. [Wally says "Un-hunh."]She didn't know anything about what I've been going

through. But the other people, what they saw was thistan or this shirt, or the fact that the shirt goes wellwith the tan, so they say: "Gee, you look wonderful!"Now, they're living in an insane dream world! They'renot looking. That seems very strange to me.

WALLY: Right, because they just didn't see anythingsomehow, except the few little things that they wantedto see.

ANDRE: Yeah. You know, it's like what happened justbefore my mother died. You know, we'd gone to thehospital to see my mother, and I went in to see her.

And I saw this woman who looked as bad as anysurvivor of Auschwitz or Dachau. And I was out in thehall, sort of comforting my father, when a doctor whois a specialist in a problem that she had with her arm,went into her room and came out just beaming. Andhe said: "Boy! Don't we have a lot of reason to feelgreat! Isn't it wonderful how she's coming along!" Now,all he saw was the arm, that's all he saw. Now, here'sanother person who's existing in a dream. Who on top

of that is a kind of butcher, who's committing a kind offamilial murder, because when he comes out of thatroom he psychically kills us by taking us into a dreamworld, where we become confused and frightened.Because the moment before we saw somebody whoalready looked dead and now here comes a specialistwho tells us they're in wonderful shape! I mean, youknow, they were literally driving my father crazy. Imean, you know, here's an eighty-two-year-old manwho's very emotional, and, you know, if you go in onemoment, and you see the person's dying, and youdon't want them to die, and then a doctor comes outfive minutes later and tells you they're in wonderfulshape! I mean, you know, you can go crazy!

WALLY: Yeah, I know what you mean.

ANDRE: I mean, the doctor didn't see my mother.People at the public theater didn't see me. I mean,we're just walking around in some kind of fog. I thinkwe're all in a trance! We're walking around likezombies! I don't think we're even aware of ourselves orour own reaction to things, we're just going around allday like unconscious machines, I mean, while there'sall of this rage and worry and uneasiness just buildingup and building up inside us!

WALLY: That's right. It just builds up, and then it justleaps out inappropriately. I mean, I remember when Iwas acting in this play based on The Master andMargarita by Bulgakov, and I was playing the part ofthe cat. But they had trouble making up my cat suit.

So I didn't get it delivered to me until the night of thefirst performance. Particularly the head, I mean, I hadnever even had a chance to try it on. And about fourof my fellow actors actually came up to me, and theysaid these things which I just couldn't help thinkingwere attempts to destroy me. You know, one of themsaid: "Oh! Well, now! That head will totally changeyour hearing in the performance! You may heareverything completely differently! And it may be veryupsetting. Now, I was once in a performance where Iwas wearing earmuffs, and I couldn't hear anythinganybody said!" And then another one said: "Oh, youknow, whenever I wear even a hat on stage, I tend tofaint." I mean, those remarks were just full of hostility.Because, I mean, you know, if I had listened to thosepeople I would have gone out there on stage, and I

wouldn't have been able to hear anything and I wouldhave fainted! But the hostility was completelyinappropriate, because in fact those people liked me, Imean, that hostility was just some feeling that was,you know, left over from some previous experience.Because somehow in our social existence today we'reonly allowed to express our feelings weirdly andindirectly. If you express them directly everybody goescrazy!

ANDRE: Well, did you express your feelings, aboutwhat those people said to you?



WALLY: No! I mean, I didn't even know what I felt till Ithought about it later. And I mean, at the most, youknow, in a situation like that, even if I had known whatI felt, I might say something, if I'm really annoyed, like:"Oh, yeah. Well, that's just fascinating! And I probablywill faint tonight, just as you did!"

ANDRE: I do just the same thing myself! We can't bedirect so we end up saying the weirdest things. I

mean, I remember a night, it was a couple of weeksafter my mother died, and I was in pretty bad shape.And I had dinner with three relatively close friends,two of whom had known my mother quite well, and allthree of whom had known me for years. You know thatwe went through that entire evening without my beingable to, for a moment, get anywhere near, you know,not that I wanted to sit and have this dreary evening inwhich I was talking about all this pain that I was goingthrough and everything. Really, not at all, but the factthat nobody could say: "Gee, what a shame aboutyour mother." Or: "How are you feeling?" It was just asif nothing had happened! They were all making these

jokes and laughing. I got quite crazy as a matter offact. You know, one of these people mentioned acertain man whom I don't like very much, and I started

screeching about how he had just been found in theBronx River, and his penis had dropped off fromgonorrhea, and all kinds of insane things. And later,when I got home, I realized I had just been desperateto break through this ice!

WALLY: Yep!

ANDRE: I mean, do you realize, Wally, if you broughtthat situation into a Tibetan home? That would just beso far out! I mean, they wouldn't be able tounderstand it. I mean, that would be simply...[laughing:] simply so weird, Wally! If four Tibetanscame together, and tragedy had just struck one of theones, and they spent the whole evening going "HA HAHA HA HAW HAW HAW HEE HEE HEE!" I mean, you

know, Tibetans would have looked at that and thoughtthat was the most unimaginable behavior! But for us,that's common behavior.

WALLY: Uh-hunh.

ANDRE: I mean, really, the Africans would haveprobably put their spears into all four of us, 'cause itwould have driven them crazy. They would havethought we were dangerous animals or something likethat. [Wally murmurs agreement.] I mean, that'sabsolutely abnormal behavior.

WAITER: Is everything all right, gentlemen?

WALLY: Great.

ANDRE: [Without enthusiasm; almost simultaneouswith Wally:] Yeah. [After a pause:] But those aretypical evenings for us. I mean, we go to dinners, andparties like that all the time. These evenings are reallylike sort of sickly dreams, because people are talkingin symbols. Everyone's sort of floating through this fogof symbols and unconscious feelings. No one sayswhat they're really thinking about. Then people startmaking these jokes, that are really some sort of secretcode!

WALLY: Right! Well, what often happens at some of

these evenings is that these really crazy little fantasieswill just start being played with, you know, andeverybody will be talking at once, and sort of saying:"Hey, wouldn't it be great if Frank Sinatra and Mrs.Nixon and blah-blah-blah were in such-and-such asituation," you know, always with famous people andalways sort of grotesque? Or people will be talkingabout some horrible thing like, like the death of thatgirl in the car with Ted Kennedy, and they'll just be

roaring with laughter! I mean, it's really amazing. It's just unbelievable. That's the only way anything isexpressed, through these completely insane jokes. Imean, I think that's why I never understand what'sgoing on at a party, and I'm always completelyconfused. You know, Debby once said after one ofthese New York evenings, she thought she'd travelleda greater distance just by journeying from her originsin the suburbs of Chicago to that New York evening,than her grandmother had travelled in making her wayfrom the steppes of Russia to the suburbs of Chicago!

ANDRE: Well, I think that's right! You know, it may be,Wally, that one of the reasons that we don't knowwhat's going on is that when we're there at a party,we're all too busy performing.

WALLY: Un-hunh.

ANDRE: You know, that was one of the reasons thatGrotowski gave up the theater. He just felt that peoplein their lives now were performing so well thatperformance in the theater was sort of superfluous,and in a way obscene.

WALLY: Hum!

ANDRE: I mean, isn't it amazing how often a doctorwill live up to our expectation of how a doctor shouldlook? I mean, you see a terrorist on television: he looks

just like a terrorist. I mean, we live in a world in whichfathers, or single people, or artists, are all trying to live

up to someone's fantasy of how a father, or a singleperson, or an artist, should look and behave! They allact as if they know exactly how they ought to conductthemselves at every single moment. And they all seemtotally self-confident. Of course, privately people arevery mixed up about themselves. [Wally says "Yep."]They don't know what they should be doing with theirlives. They're reading all these self-help books...

WALLY: Oh! God! And I mean, those books are just sotouching because they show how desperately curiouswe all are to know how all the others of us are reallygetting on in life, even though by performing theseroles all the time we're just hiding the reality ofourselves from everybody else. I mean, we live in suchludicrous ignorance of each other. I mean, we usually

don't know the things we'd like to know even aboutour supposedly closest friends! I mean...I mean, youknow, suppose you're going through some kind of hellin your own life, well, you would love to know if yourfriends have experienced similar things. But we justdon't dare to ask each other!

ANDRE: No! It would be like asking your friend to drophis role.

WALLY: I mean, we just put no value at all onperceiving reality. I mean, on the contrary, thisincredible emphasis that we all place now on our so-



called "careers" automatically makes perceiving realitya very low priority. Because if your life is organizedaround trying to be successful in a career, well, it justdoesn't matter what you perceive, or what youexperience. You can really sort of shut your mind offfor years ahead, in a way. You can sort of turn on theautomatic pilot! You know, just the way your mother'sdoctor had on his automatic pilot when he went in andhe looked at the arm, and he totally failed to perceive

anything else!

ANDRE: Right! Our minds are just focused on thesegoals and plans. Which in themselves are not reality.

WALLY: No! Goals and plans are not--I mean, they'refantasy. They're part of a dream life! I mean, you know,it always just does seem so ridiculous somehow thateverybody has to have his little goal in life. I mean, it'sso absurd, in a way. I mean, when you consider that itdoesn't matter which one it is.

ANDRE: Right! And because people's concentration ison their goals, in their life they just live each momentby habit! Really, like the Norwegian, telling the samestories over and over again. [Wally murmurs "Um-

hum"] Life becomes habitual! And it is, today! I mean,very few things happen now like that moment whenMarlon Brando sent the Indian woman to accept theOscar and everything went haywire? Things just veryrarely go haywire now. And if you're just operating byhabit, then you're not really living. I mean, you know, inSanskrit the root of the verb "to be" is the same as theverb "to grow" or "to make grow."

WALLY: Hunh! [Pause. Serving sounds. Laughter atanother table.]

ANDRE: Do you know about Roc?

WALLY: Hunh?

ANDRE: Oh! Well! Roc was a wonderful man. And hewas one of the founders of Findhorn. And he was oneof Scotlan--well, he was Scotland's greatestmathematician, and he was one of the century's greatmathematicians. And he prided himself on the factthat he had no fantasy life, no dream life, nothing tostand--no imaginary life, nothing to stand betweenhim and the direct perception of mathematics. Andone day, when he was in his mid-fifties, he was walkingin the gardens of Edinburgh and he saw a faun! Thefaun was very surprised because fauns have alwaysbeen able to see people, but, you know, very fewpeople ever see them. And [Wally looks blank]...youknow? Those little imaginary creatures. Not a deer.

WALLY: Oh!

ANDRE: You call them fauns, don't you?

WALLY: I thought a fawn was a baby deer.

ANDRE: Yeah, well, there's a deer that's called a fawn,but these are like those little...imaginary...

WALLY: Oh! The kind that Debussy, uh... [Wally makesa gesture with his hands by his head, like big ears.]

ANDRE: Right! Well. So, he got to know the faun, andthen he got to know other fauns, and a series of

conversations began. And more and more fauns wouldcome out every afternoon to meet him, and he'd havetalks with the fauns. And then one day after a while,when, you know, they'd really gotten to know him,they asked him if he would like to meet Pan, becausePan would like to meet him! But of course Pan wasafraid of terrifying him, because he knew of theChristian misconception which portrayed Pan as anevil creature, which he's not. But Roc said he would

love to meet Pan, and so they met, and Pan indirectlysent him on his way on a journey in which he met theother people who began Findhorn. But Roc used topractice certain exercises, like for instance, if he wereright-handed, all today he would do everything withhis left hand, all day, eating, writing, everything:opening doors, in order to break the habits of living.Because the great danger he felt for him was to fallinto a trance, out of habit. He had a whole series ofvery simple exercises that he had invented, just tokeep seeing, feeling, remembering. Because you haveto learn now. It didn't use to be necessary, but todayyou have to learn something like: are you really hungryor are you just stuffing your face because becausethat's what you do, out of habit. I mean, you can affordto do it, so you do it, whether you're hungry or not.

You know, if you go to the Buddhist meditation center,they make you taste each bite of your food, so it takestwo hours--it's horrible--to eat your lunch! But you'reconscious of the taste of your food! If you're justeating out of habit, then you don't taste the food andyou're not conscious of the reality of what'shappening to you. You enter the dream world again.

WALLY: Do you think maybe we live in this dreamworld because we do so many things every day thataffect us in ways that somehow we're just not awareof? I mean, you know, I was thinking: now lastChristmas, Debby and I were given an electric blanket.Now I can tell you that it is just such a marvelousadvance over our old way of life, and it is just great.But it is quite different from not having an electric

blanket. And I sometimes sort of wonder, well, what isit doing to me? I mean I sort of feel I'm not sleepingquite in the same way.

ANDRE: Well no, you wouldn't be.

WALLY: I mean.... And my dreams are sort of different,and I feel a little bit different when I get up in themorning.

ANDRE: I wouldn't put an electric blanket on foranything. First, I'd be worried I might get electrocuted.No, I don't trust technology. But I mean the mainthing, Wally, is that I think that that kind of comfort

just separates you from reality in a very direct way.

WALLY: You mean...

ANDRE: I mean, if you don't have that electric blanket,and your apartment is cold, and you need to put onanother blanket or go into the closet and pile up coatson top of the blanket you have, well then you know it'scold. And that sets up a link of things: you havecompassion for the p...well, is the person next to youcold? Are there other people in the world who arecold? What a cold night! I like the cold, my God, Inever realized, I don't want a blanket, it's fun beingcold, I can snuggle up against you even more becauseit's cold! All sorts of things occur to you. Turn on that



electric blanket and it's like taking a tranquilizer, it'slike being lobotomized by watching television. I thinkyou enter the dream world again. I mean, what does itdo to us, Wally, living in an environment wheresomething as massive as the seasons or winter or colddon't in any way affect us? I mean, we're animals afterall. I mean, what does that mean? I think that meansthat instead of living under the sun and the moon andthe sky and the stars we're living in a fantasy world of

our own making.

WALLY: Yeah, but I mean, I would never give up myelectric blanket, André. I mean, because New York iscold in the winter, I mean, our apartment is cold. It's adifficult environment! I mean, our lives are toughenough as it is, I'm not looking for ways to get rid ofthe few things that provide relief and comfort, I mean,on the contrary! I'm looking for more comfort, becausethe world is very abrasive, I mean, I'm trying to protectmyself, because really there are these abrasivebeatings to be avoided everywhere you look.

ANDRE: Yeah, but Wally, don't you see that comfortcan be dangerous? I mean, you like to be comfortableand I like to be comfortable, too. But comfort can lull

you into a dangerous tranquility. I mean, my motherknew a woman, Lady Hatfield, who was one of therichest women in the world, and she died of starvationbecause all she would eat was chicken. I mean, she

just liked chicken, Wally, and that was all she wouldeat, and actually, her body was starving but she didn'tknow it 'cause she was quite happy eating her chickenand so, she finally died! See, I honestly believe thatwe're all like Lady Hatfield now, we're having a lovely,comfortable time with our electric blankets and ourchicken, and meanwhile we're starving because we'reso cut off from contact with reality that we're notgetting any real sustenance. 'Cause we don't see theworld. We don't see ourselves. We don't see how ouractions affect other people. Have you read MartinBuber's book On Hasidism?

WALLY: No.

ANDRE: Oh, well here's a view of life! I mean, he talksabout the belief of the Hasidic Jews that there arespirits chained in everything. There are spirits chainedin you, there are spirits chained in me. Well! There arespirits chained in this table! And that prayer is theaction of liberating these enchained embryo-likespirits, and that every action of ours in life, whether it'sdoing business or making love, or having dinnertogether, whatever, that every action of ours should bea prayer, a sacrament in the world.

Now, do you think we're living like that? Why do youthink we're not living like that? I think it's because if

we allowed ourselves to see what we do every day wemight just find it too nauseating. I mean, the way wetreat other people. I mean, you know, every day,several times a day, I walk into my apartment building,the doorman calls me Mr. Gregory and I call himJimmy. All right, what's the difference between thatand the southern plantation owner whose got slaves?You see, I think that an act of murder is committed inthat moment when I walk into that building. You know,because here's a dignified, intelligent man, a man ofmy own age, and when I call him Jimmy then hebecomes a child and I'm an adult because I can buymy way into the building!

WALLY: Right. That's right. I mean, my God! When Iwas a Latin teacher, I mean, people used to treat me, Imean, you know, if I would go to a party ofprofessional or "literary" people, I mean, I was justtreated, in the nicest sense of the word, like a dog! Imean, in other words, there was no question of mybeing able to participate on an equal basis in theconversation with people. I mean, you know, I'd

occasionally have conversations with people, but thenwhen they asked what I did, which would alwayshappen after about five minutes, you know, theirfaces--I mean, even if they were enjoying theconversation, or they were flirting with me or whateverit was, you know, their faces would just have thatexpression just like the portcullis crashing down, youknow, those medieval gates? They would just walkaway! I mean, I literally lived like a dog. And I mean,when Debby was working as a secretary, you know, ifshe would tell people what she did, they would just goinsane! I mean, it would be just as if she'd said: "Oh,well! I've been serving a life sentence recently for childmurdering!" [Laughter at another table.]

I mean, my God, you know, when you talk about our

attitudes toward other people. I mean, I think of myselfas just a very decent, good person, you know, justbecause I think I'm reasonably friendly to most of thepeople I happen to meet every day. I mean, I reallythink of myself quite smugly. I just think I'm a perfectlynice guy, you know, so long as I think of the world asconsisting of, you know, just the small circle of thepeople that I know as friends or the few people thatwe know in this little world of our little hobbies, thetheater or whatever it is. And I'm really quite self-satisfied. I'm just quite happy with myself. I just haveno complaint about myself. I mean, you know, let'sface it, I mean, there's a whole enormous world outthere that I just don't ever think about. And I certainlydon't take responsibility for how I've lived in thatworld. I mean, you know, if I were to actually sort of

confront the fact that I'm sort of sharing this stagewith this starving person in Africa somewhere, well, Iwouldn't feel so great about myself. So naturally I justblot all those people right out of my perception. So, ofcourse, of course, I'm ignoring a whole section of thereal world!

But, frankly, you know, when I write a play, in a way,one of the things I guess I think I'm trying to do is I'mtrying to bring myself up against some little bits ofreality, and I'm trying to share that with an audience. Imean...I mean, of course, we all know the theater is interrible shape today. I mean...I mean, at least a fewyears ago people who really cared about the theaterused to say the theater is dead. And now everybodyhas redefined the theater in such a trivial way that, I

mean...I mean, God! I know people who are involvedwith the theater who go to see things now that, Imean, a few years ago these same people would have

just been embarrassed to have even seen some ofthese plays. I mean, they would have just shrunk, youknow, just in horror at the superficiality of thesethings. But now they say: "Oh, that was pretty good."It's just incredible! And I really just find that attitudeunbearable, because I really do think the theater cando something very important. I mean, I do think thetheater can help bring people in contact with reality.Now, now, you may not feel that at all. I mean, youmay just find that totally absurd.



ANDRE: Yeah, but Wally! Don't you see the dilemma?You're not taking into account the period we're livingin. I mean, of course that's what the theater should do.I mean, I've always felt that. You know, when I was ayoung director and I directed The Bacchae at Yale? Myimpulse--when Pentheus has been killed by his motherand the furies, and they pull the tree back and they tiehim to the tree and fling him into the air, and he flies

through space and he's killed, and they rip 'em toshreds and, I guess, cut off his head--my impulse wasthat the thing to do was to get a head, from the NewHaven morgue, and pass it around the audience! Youknow, I wanted Agawe to bring on a real head, andthat this head should be passed around the audienceso that somehow people realized that this stuff wasreal, see, that it was real stuff! Now the actress playingAgawe absolutely refused to do it.

You know, Gordon Craig used to talk about why isthere gold or silver in the churches or something, thegreat cathedrals, when actors could be wearing goldand silver! And I mean, people who saw Eleanora Dusein the last couple of years of her life, Wally, people saidthat it was like seeing light on stage, or mist, or the

essence of something! I mean. Then when you thinkabout Bertolt Brecht, he somehow created a theater inwhich people could observe, that was vastlyentertaining and exciting, but in which the excitementdidn't overwhelm you. He somehow allowed you thedistance between the play and yourself, that in facttwo human beings need in order to live together. Youknow, the question is whether the theater now can dofor an audience what Brecht tried to do, or what Craigor Duse tried to do. Can it do it now? You see, I thinkthat people today are so deeply asleep that unless,you know, you're putting on those sort of superficialplays that just help your audience to sleep morecomfortably, it's very hard to know what to do in thetheater. [Distant talking heard in the background.]'Cause, you see, I think that if you put on serious

contemporary plays by writers like yourself, you mayonly be helping to deaden the audience in a differentway.

WALLY: What do you mean?

ANDRE: [The background talking seems closer.] Well, Imean, Wally: how does it affect an audience to put onone of these plays in which you show that people aretotally isolated now, and they can't reach each other,and their lives are desperate? Or how does it affectthem to see a play that shows that our world is full ofnothing but shocking sexual events and terror andviolence? Does that help to wake up a sleepingaudience? See, I don't think so. Because I think it'svery likely that the picture of the world that you're

showing them in a play like that is exactly the pictureof the world they have already. I mean, you know, theyknow their own lives and relationships are difficult andpainful. And if they watch the evening news ontelevision, well, there what they see is a terrifying,chaotic universe full of rapes and murders, and handscut off by subway cars, and children pushing theirparents out of windows! So the play tells them thattheir impression of the world is correct and that thereis absolutely no way out. There's nothing they can do.And they end up feeling passive and impotent.

I mean, look at something like that christening, that

my group arranged for me in the forest of Poland, well,there was an example of something that had all theelements of theater: it was worked on carefully, it wasthought about carefully, it was done with exquisitetaste and magic. And they had in fact createdsomething! In this case it was in a way just for anaudience of one, just for me, but they createdsomething, that had ritual, love, surprise, denouement,beginning, middle and end, and was an incredibly

beautiful piece of theater! And the impact that it hadon its audience, on me, was somehow a totally positiveone: it didn't deaden me, it brought me to life!

WALLY: [Pause.] Yeah, but I mean, are you saying thatit's impossible, I mean...I mean, isn't it a little upsettingto come to the conclusion that there's no way to wakepeople up any more? Except to involve them in somekind of a strange christening in Poland, or some kindof a strange experience on top of Mount Everest? Imean, because you know, the awful thing is that ifyou're really saying that it's necessary to takeeverybody to Everest, it's really tough! Becauseeverybody can't be taken to Everest! I mean, theremust have been periods in history when it would havebeen possible to "save the patient" through less

drastic measures. I mean, there must have beenperiods when in order to give people a strong ormeaningful experience you wouldn't actually have totake them to Everest!

ANDRE: But you do, now! In some way or other youdo, now!

WALLY: I mean, you know, there was a time when youcould have just, for instance, written, I don't know,Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen! And I'm surethe people who read it had a pretty strong experience.I'm sure they did. I mean, all right, now you're sayingthat people today wouldn't get it, and maybe that'strue, but, I mean, isn't there any kind of writing, or anykind of a play that--I mean: isn't it still legitimate for

writers to try to portray reality so that people can seeit? I mean, really! Tell me: why do we require a trip toMount Everest in order to be able to perceive onemoment of reality? I mean...I mean: is Mount Everestmore "real" than New York? I mean, isn't New York"real"? I mean, you see, I think if you could becomefully aware of what existed in the cigar store next doorto this restaurant, I think it would just blow your brainsout! I mean...I mean, isn't there just as much "reality" tobe perceived in the cigar store as there is on MountEverest? I mean, what do you think? You see, I thinkthat not only is there nothing more real about MountEverest, I think there's nothing that different, in acertain way. I mean, because reality is uniform, in away. So that if you're--if your perceptions--I mean, ifyour own mechanism is operating correctly, it would

become irrelevant to go to Mount Everest, and sort ofabsurd! Because, I mean, it's just--I mean, of course, onsome level, I mean, obviously it's very different from acigar store on Seventh Avenue, but I mean...

ANDRE: [Interrupting:] But, well, I agree with you,Wally! But the problem is that people can't see thecigar store, now. I mean, things don't affect people theway they used to. I mean, it may very well be that tenyears from now people will pay ten thousand dollars incash to be castrated, just in order to be affected bysomething!



WALLY: [Quieter:] Well, why...why do you think that is?I mean, why is that? I mean, is it just because peopleare lazy today? Or they're bored? I mean, are we justlike bored, spoiled children who've just been lying inthe bathtub all day just playing with their plastic duckand now they're just thinking: "Well! what can I do?"[Cough in the background.]

ANDRE: Okay! Yes! We're bored! We're all bored now!

But has it ever occurred to you, Wally, that the processthat creates this boredom that we see in the worldnow may very well be a self-perpetuating,unconscious form of brain-washing, created by aworld totalitarian government based on money? Andthat all of this is much more dangerous than onethinks? And it's not just a question of individualsurvival, Wally, but that somebody who's bored isasleep, and somebody who's asleep will not say "no"?See, I keep meeting these people, I mean, uh, just afew days ago I met this man whom I greatly admire,he's a Swedish physicist, Gustav Björnstrand? And hetold me that he no longer watches television, hedoesn't read newspapers and he doesn't readmagazines. He's completely cut them out of his life,because he really does feel that we're living in some

kind of Orwellian nightmare now, and that everythingthat you hear now contributes to turning you into arobot!

And when I was at Findhorn, I met this extraordinaryEnglish tree expert, who had devoted his life to savingtrees. He just got back from Washington, lobbying tosave the redwoods? He's eighty-four years old and healways travels with a back-pack 'cause he never knowswhere he's gonna be tomorrow! And when I met himat Findhorn he said to me: "Where are you from?" AndI said: "New York." He said: "Ah, New York! Yes, that's avery interesting place. Do you know a lot of NewYorkers who keep talking about the fact that theywant to leave but never do?" And I said: "Oh, yes!"And he said: "Why do you think they don't leave?" I

gave him different banal theories. He said: "Oh, I don'tthink it's that way at all." He said: "I think that NewYork is the new model for the new concentrationcamp, where the camp has been built by the inmatesthemselves, and the inmates are the guards, and theyhave this pride in this thing they've built, they've builttheir own prison. And so they exist in a state ofschizophrenia, where they are both guards andprisoners. And as a result they no longer have, havingbeen lobotomized, the capacity to leave the prisonthey've made, or to even see it as a prison. And thenhe went into his pocket and he took out a seed for atree, and he said: "This is a pine tree." He put it in myhand and he said: "Escape, before it's too late."

You see, actually, for two or three years now Chiquita

and I have had this very unpleasant feeling that wereally should get out. No, we really should feel likeJews in Germany in the late thirties? Get out of here!Of course, the problem is where to go, 'cause it seemsquite obvious that the whole world is going in thesame direction. You see, I think it's quite possible thatthe nineteen-sixties represented the last burst of thehuman being before he was extinguished. And thatthis is the beginning of the rest of the future now, andthat from now on there'll simply be all these robotswalking around, feeling nothing, thinking nothing. Andthere'll be nobody left almost to remind them thatthere once was a species called a human being, with

feelings and thoughts. And that history and memoryare right now being erased, and soon nobody willreally remember that life existed on the planet!

Now, of course, Björnstrand feels that there's reallyalmost no hope. And that we're probably going backto a very savage, lawless, terrifying period. Findhornpeople see it a little differently. They're feeling thatthere'll be these "pockets of light" springing up in

different parts of the world, and that these will be in away invisible planets on this planet, and that as we, orthe world, grow colder, we can take invisible space

journeys to these different planets, refuel for what it iswe need to do on the planet itself, and come back.And it's their feeling that there have to be centers,now, where people can come and reconstruct a newfuture for the world. And when I was talking to GustavBjörnstrand, he was saying that actually, these centersare growing up everywhere now! And that whatthey're trying to do, which is what Findhorn was tryingto do, and in a way what I was trying to do...I mean,these things can't be given names, but in a way, theseare all attempts at creating a new kind of school, or anew kind of monastery. And Björnstrand talks aboutthe concept of reserves, islands of safety, where

history can be remembered, and the human being cancontinue to function in order to maintain the speciesthrough a dark age.

In other words we're talking about an underground,which did exist in a different way during the Dark Agesamong the mystical orders of the Church. And thepurpose of this underground is to find out how topreserve the light, life, the culture. How to keep thingsliving. You see, I keep thinking that what we need is anew language, a language of the heart, languages inthe Polish forest where language wasn't needed. Somekind of language between people that is a new kind ofpoetry, that's the poetry of the dancing bee that tellsus where the honey is. And I think that in order tocreate that language, you're going to have to learn

how you can go through a looking glass into anotherkind of perception, where you have that sense ofbeing united to all things. And suddenly, youunderstand everything. [Pause. Floor and streetsounds.]

WAITER: Are you ready for some desert?

ANDRE: Ah, I think I'll just have an espresso, thankyou.

WAITER: Um-hum.

WALLY: I'll also have one. Thank you. And could I alsohave an Amaretto?

ANDRE: Certainly, sir.

WALLY: Thank you.

ANDRE: You see, Wally, there's this incredible buildingthat they built at Findhorn. The man who designed ithad never designed anything in his life; he wrotechildren's books! And some people wanted it to be asort of hall of meditation, and others wanted it to be akind of lecture hall, but the psychic part of thecommunity wanted it to serve another function aswell. Because they wanted it to be a kind of spaceshipwhich at night could rise up and let the UFOs know



that this was a safe place to land, and that they wouldfind friends there? So, the problem was--'cause itneeded a massive kind of roof--was how to have aroof that would stay on the building but at the sametime be able to fly up at night and meet the flyingsaucers? So, the architect meditated and meditated,and he finally came up with the very simple solution ofnot actually joining the roof to the building! Whichmeans that it should fall off, because they have great

gales up in northern Scotland. So, to keep it fromfalling off, he got beach stones from the beach, or wedid, 'cause I worked on this building, all up and downthe roof just like that, and the idea was that the energythat would flow from stone to stone would be sostrong, you see, that it would keep the roof downunder any conditions, but at the same time if the roofneeded to go up, it would be light enough to go up!Well, it works, you see. Now, architects don't knowwhy it works, and it shouldn't work, 'cause it shouldfall off, but it works, it does work: the gales blow andthe roof should fall off, but it doesn't fall off. [Pause.Coughing in the background.]

WALLY: Yep. Well, uh. D'you wanna know my actualresponse to all this? I mean, do you want to hear my

actual response?

ANDRE: Yes!

WALLY: See, my actual response, I mean...I mean...Imean, I'm just trying to survive, you know. I mean, I'm

just trying to earn a living, just trying to pay my rentsand my bills. I mean, uh...ahhh. I live my life, I enjoystaying home with Debby. I'm reading CharltonHeston's autobiography, and that's that! I mean, youknow, I mean, occasionally maybe Debby and I willstep outside, we'll go to a party or something, and if Ican occasionally get my little talent together and writea little play, well then that's just wonderful. And Imean, I enjoy reading about other little plays thatother people have written, and reading the reviews of

those plays, and what people said about them, andwhat people said about what people said, and.... And Imean, I have a list of errands and responsibilities that Ikeep in a notebook; I enjoy going through thenotebook, carrying out the responsibilities, doing theerrands, then crossing them off the list!

And I mean, I just don't know how anybody couldenjoy anything more than I enjoy reading CharltonHeston's autobiography, or, you know, getting up inthe morning and having the cup of cold coffee that'sbeen waiting for me all night, still there for me to drinkin the morning! And no cockroach or fly has died in itovernight. I mean, I'm just so thrilled when I get upand I see that coffee there just the way I wanted it, Imean, I just can't imagine how anybody could enjoy

something else any more than that! I mean...I mean,obviously, if the cockroach--if there is a deadcockroach in it, well, then I just have a feeling ofdisappointment, and I'm sad.

But I mean, I just don't think I feel the need foranything more than all this. Whereas, you know, youseem to be saying that it's inconceivable that anybodycould be having a meaningful life today, and you know,everyone is totally destroyed. And we all need to livein these outposts. But I mean, you know, I just can'tbelieve, even for you, I mean, don't you find...? Isn't itpleasant just to get up in the morning, and there's

Chiquita, there are the children, and the Times isdelivered, you can read it! I mean, maybe you'll directa play, maybe you won't direct a play, but forget aboutthe play that you may or may not direct. Why is itnecessary to...why not lean back and just enjoy thesedetails? I mean, and there'd be a delicious cup ofcoffee and a piece of coffee cake. I mean, why is itnecessary to have more than this, or to even thinkabout having more than this. I mean, I don't really

know what you're talking about. I mean...I mean I knowwhat you're talking about, but I don't really know whatyou're talking about.

And I mean, you know, even if I were to totally agreewith you, you know, and even if I were to accept theidea that there's just no way for anybody to havepersonal happiness now, well, you know, I still couldn'taccept the idea that the way to make life wonderfulwould be to just totally, you know, reject westerncivilization and fall back into some kind of belief insome kind of weird something. I mean...I mean, I don'teven know how to begin talking about this, but, doyou know...? In the Middle Ages, before the arrival ofscientific thinking as we know it today, well, peoplecould believe anything. Anything could be true: the

statue of the Virgin Mary could speak, or bleed, orwhatever it was. But the wonderful thing thathappened was that then in the development ofscience in the western world, well, certain things didcome slowly to be known, and understood. I mean,you know, obviously all ideas in science are constantlybeing revised; I mean, that's the whole point. But wedo at least know that the universe has some shape,and order, and that, you know, trees do not turn intopeople, or goddesses. And they're very good reasonswhy they don't, and you can't just believe absolutelyanything!

Whereas the things that you're talking about, I mean...Imean.... [Starts over:] You found the hand print in thebook, and there were three Andrés and one Antoine

de Saint-Exupéry, and to me that is a coincidence! But,and then, you know, the people who put that booktogether, well, they had their own reasons for puttingit together. But to you it was significant, as if thatbook had been written forty years ago so that youwould see it; as if it was planned for you, in a way.

I mean, really, I mean.... I mean, all right. Let's say: if Iget a fortune cookie in a Chinese restaurant, I mean, ofcourse, even I have a tendency, I mean, you know, Imean, of course, I would hardly throw it out! I mean, Iread it, I read it, and I just instinctively sort of, youknow, if it says something like: "Conversation with adark-haired man will be very important for you," well, I

just instinctively think, you know, who do I know whohas dark hair? Did we have a conversation? What did

we talk about? In other words there's something in methat makes me read it, and I instinctively interpret it asif it were an omen of the future, but in my consciousopinion, which is so fundamental to my whole view oflife, I mean, I would just have to change totally to nothave this opinion, in my conscious opinion, this issimply something that was written in the cookiefactory, several years ago, and in no way it refers tome! I mean, you know, the fact that I got--I mean, theman who wrote it did not know anything about me, Imean, he could not have known anything about me!There's no way that this cookie could actually have todo with me! And the fact that I've gotten it is just



basically a joke! And I mean, if I were to go on a trip,on an airplane, and I got a fortune cookie that said"Don't go," I mean, of course, I admit I might feel a bitnervous for about one second, but in fact I would go,because, I mean, that trip is gonna be successful orunsuccessful based on the state of the airplane andthe state of the pilot, and the cookie is in no positionto know about that.

And I mean, you know, it's the same with any kind ofprophecy or sign or an omen, because if you believe inomens, then that means that the universe--I mean, Idon't even know how to begin to describe this. Thatmeans that the future is somehow sending messagesbackwards to the present! Which means that thefuture must exist in some sense already in order to beable to send these messages. And it also means thatthings in the universe are there for a purpose: to giveus messages. Whereas I think that things in theuniverse are just there. I mean, they don't meananything. I mean, you know, if the turtle's egg falls outof the tree and splashes on the paving stones, it's justbecause that turtle was clumsy, by accident. And todecide whether to send my ships off to war on thebasis of that seems a big mistake to me.

ANDRE: Well, what information would you send yourships to war on? Because if it's all meaningless, what'sthe difference whether you accept the fortune cookieor the statistics of the Ford foundation? It doesn'tseem to matter.

WALLY: Well, the meaningless fact of the fortunecookie or the turtle's egg can't possibly have anyrelevance to the subject you're analyzing. Whereas agroup of meaningless facts that are collected andinterpreted in a scientific way may quite possibly berelevant. Because the wonderful thing about scientifictheories about things is that they're based onexperiments that can be repeated! [Long pause whilecoffee is being served.]

ANDRE: Well, it's true, Wally. I mean, you know,following omens and so on is probably just a way ofletting ourselves off the hook, so that we don't have totake individual responsibility for our own actions. Imean, giving yourself over to the unconscious canleave you vulnerable to all sorts of very frighteningmanipulation. And in all the work I was involved inthere was always that danger. And there was alwaysthat question of tampering with people's lives.Because if I lead one of these workshops then I dobecome partly a doctor and partly a therapist andpartly a priest, and I'm not a doctor or a therapist or apriest. And already some of these new monasteries orcommunities or whatever we've been talking about,are becoming institutionalized and I guess even in a

way at times sort of fascistic. You know, there's a sortof self-satisfied, elitist paranoia that grows up, afeeling of "them" and "us" that is very unsettling.

But I mean, the thing is, Wally, I think it's theexaggerated worship of science that has led us intothis situation. I mean, science has been held up to usas a magical force that would somehow solveeverything, but quite the contrary, it's done quite thecontrary, it's destroyed everything. So, that is what hasreally led, I think, to this very strong, deep reactionagainst science that we're seeing now. Just as the Nazidemons that were released in the thirties in Germany

were probably a reaction against a certain oppressivekind of knowledge and culture and rational thinking.So, I agree that we're talking about somethingpotentially very dangerous, but modern science hasnot been particularly less dangerous.

WALLY: Right. Well, I agree with you, I completelyagree. [Pause.] You know, the truth is, I think I doknow what really disturbs me about the work you've

described, and I don't even know if I can express it.But somehow it seems that the whole point of thework that you did in those workshops, when you getright down to it and you ask: what was it really about;the whole point really, I think, was to enable thepeople in the workshops, including yourself, tosomehow sort of strip away every scrap ofpurposefulness from certain selected moments. Andthe point of it was so that you would then all be ableto experience somehow just pure being. In otherwords you were trying to discover what it would belike to live for certain moments without having anyparticular thing that you were supposed to be doing.And I think I just simply object to that. I mean, I justdon't think I accept the idea that there should bemoments in which you're not trying to do anything! I

think it's our nature to do things, I think we should dothings, I think that purposefulness is part of ourineradicable, basic human structure, and to say thatwe ought to be able to live without it is like saying thata tree ought to be able to live without branches orroots, but actually, without branches or roots itwouldn't be a tree. I mean, it would just be a log. Yousee what I'm saying?

ANDRE: Uh-hunh.

WALLY: I mean, in other words, if I'm sitting at homeand I have nothing to do, well, I'd naturally reach for abook. I mean, what would be so great about justsitting there and doing nothing? It just seems absurd.

ANDRE: And if Debby is there?

WALLY: [Slight pause.] Well that's just the same thing.I mean...I mean, is there really such a thing as twopeople doing nothing but just being together? I mean,would they simply be "relating," to use the word we'realways using? I mean, what would that mean? Imean...I mean, either we're gonna have a conversation,or we're going to carry out the garbage, or, we'regonna do something, separately or together. I mean,do you see what I'm saying? I mean, what does itmean to just simply sit there?

ANDRE: That makes you nervous.

WALLY: Hunh! Hunh! Why shouldn't it make me

nervous!? It just seems ridiculous to me!

ANDRE: That's interesting, Wally. I mean, you know,you know, when I went to Ladakh in western Tibet andstayed on a farm for a month, well, there, you know,when people come over in the evening for tea, nobodysays anything, unless there's something to say, butthere almost never is, so they just sit there and drinktheir tea, and it doesn't seem to bother them. I mean,you see: the trouble, Wally, with always being activeand doing things, is that I think it's quite possible todo all sorts of things and at the same time becompletely dead inside. I mean, you're doing all these



things, but are you doing them because you really feelan impulse to do them, or are you doing themmechanically, as we were saying before? Because Ireally do believe that if you're just living mechanically,then you have to change your life.

I mean, you know, when you're young, you go out ondates all the time, you go dancing or something,you're floating free, and then one day you suddenly

find yourself in a relationship, and suddenly everythingfreezes. And this can be true in your work as well. Imean, of course if you're really alive inside, then ofcourse there's no problem! I mean, if you're living withsomebody in one little room and there's a life going onbetween you and the person you're living with, wellthen a whole adventure can be going on, right in thatroom. But there's always the danger that things cango dead; then I really do think you have to kind ofbecome a hobo or something, you know, like Kerouac,and go out on the road. I really believe that. I mean,you know, it's not that wonderful to spend your life onthe road, and my own overwhelming preference is tostay in that room if you can.

But you know, if you live with somebody for a long

time, people are constantly saying: "Well! Of courseit's not as great as it used to be, but that's onlynatural, the first blush of a romance goes, now that'sthe way it has to be." Now, I totally disagree with that.But I do think that you have to constantly ask yourselfthe question with total frankness: Is your marriage stilla marriage? Is the sacramental element there? Just asyou have to ask about the sacramental element in yourwork: is it still there? I mean, it's a very frighteningthing, Wally, to have to suddenly realize that my God! Ithought I was living my life, but in fact I haven't been ahuman being! I've been a performer! I haven't beenliving, I've been acting! I've acted the role of a father,I've acted the role of the husband, I've acted the roleof the friend, I've acted the role of the writer, director,what have you. I've lived in the same room with this

person but I haven't really seen them. I haven't reallyheard them. I haven't really been with them.

WALLY: Yeah, I know. Some people are just sometimesexisting just side by side. I mean, the other person'sface could just turn into a great wolf's face and it justwouldn't be noticed.

ANDRE: And it wouldn't be noticed, no. It wouldn't benoticed. I mean, when I was in Israel a little while ago?I mean, I have this picture of Chiquita that was takenwhen she--I always carry it with me--it was takenwhen she was about 26 or something and it's insummer and she's stretched out on a terrace in thissort of old-fashioned long skirt that's kind of pulled upand she's slim and sensual and beautiful and I've

always looked at that picture and just thought about just how sexy she looks. And then last year in Israel, Ilooked at the picture? And I realized that that face inthe picture was the saddest face in the world. That girlat that time was just lost, so sad and so alone. Youknow, I've been carrying this picture for years and notever really seen what it is, you know, I just never reallylooked at the picture.

And then at a certain point I realized I had just gonefor a good eighteen years unable to feel, except in themost extreme situations. I mean, to some extent I stillhad the ability to live in my work; that was why I was

such a work junkie, that was why I felt every play I didwas a matter of my life or my death. But in my real life,I was dead. I was a robot. You know, I didn't even allowmyself to get angry, or annoyed. I mean, you know,today, Chiquita, Nicholas, Marina, all day long, aspeople do, they do things that annoy me and they saythings that annoy me, and today I get annoyed; andthey say "Why are you annoyed?" and I say "Becauseyou're annoying!" you know.

And when I allowed myself to consider the possibilityof not spending the rest of my life with Chiquita, Irealized that what I wanted most in life was to alwaysbe with her. But at that time I hadn't learned what itwould be like to let yourself react to another humanbeing. And if you can't react to another person thenthere's no possibility of action or interaction. And ifthere isn't, I don't really know what the word "love"means, except "duty," "obligation," "sentimentality,""fear."

I mean, I don't know about you, Wally, but I just had toput myself into a kind of training program to learn howto be a human being. I mean, how did I feel aboutanything? I didn't know. What kind of things did I like,

what kind of people did I really want to be with, youknow? And the only way I could think of to find outwas to just cut out all the noise, and stop performingall the time and just listen to what was inside me. See,I think a time comes when you need to do that. Now,maybe in order to do it you have to go to the Sahara,and maybe you can do it at home, but you need to cutout the noise. [Street noise: honking.]

WALLY: Yeah. Of course, personally I just--I usuallydon't like those quiet moments, you know, I reallydon't. I mean, I don't know if it's that Freudian thing orwhat, but--you know, the fear of unconscious impulsesor my own aggression or whatever--but if things gettoo quiet and I find myself just sitting there, you know,as we were saying before, I mean, whether I'm by

myself or I'm with someone else, I just, I just have thisfeeling of: "My God! I'm gonna be revealed!" In otherwords I'm adequate to do any sort of a task, but I'mnot adequate just to be a human being. I mean, inother words I'm not--if I'm just trapped there and I'mnot allowed to do things but all I can do is just bethere, well, I'll just fail. I mean, in other words, I canpass any other sort of a test, and I, you know, I caneven get an A, if I put in the required effort. But I justdon't have a clue how to pass this test. I mean, ofcourse I realize this isn't a test, but I see it as a testand I feel I'm gonna fail it, I mean, it's very scary. I justfeel, just totally at sea. I mean...

ANDRE: Well, you know, I could imagine a life, Wally, inwhich each day would become an incredible

monumental creative task. And we're not necessarilyup to it. I mean, if you felt like walking out on theperson you live with, you'd walk out. Then if you feltlike it, you'd come back, but meanwhile the otherperson would have reacted to your walking out. Itwould be a life of such feeling. I mean, what wasamazing in the workshops I led was how quicklypeople seem to fall into enthusiasm, celebration, joy,wonder, abandon, wildness, tenderness! Could westand to live like that?

WALLY: Yeah, I think it's that moment of contact withanother person. I mean that's what scares us. I mean,



that moment of being face to face with anotherperson. I mean, now, you wouldn't think it would be sofrightening. It's strange that we find it so frightening.

ANDRE: Well, it isn't that strange. I mean, first of all,there are some pretty good reasons for beingfrightened. I mean, you know, a human being is acomplex and dangerous creature. I mean, really if youstart living each moment, Christ, that's quite a

challenge! I mean, if you really reach out, and you'rereally in touch with the other person? Well, that reallyis something to strive for, I think; I really do.

WALLY: Yeah, it's just so pathetic if one doesn't dothat.

ANDRE: Of course there's a problem, because thecloser you come, I think, to another human being, themore completely mysterious and unreachable thatperson becomes. I mean, you know, you have to reachout and you have to go back and forth with them, andyou have to relate, and yet you're relating to a ghostor something. I don't know, because we're ghosts,we're phantoms. Who are we? And that's to face--toconfront the fact that you're completely alone, and to

accept that you're alone is to accept death.

WALLY: You mean, because somehow when you arealone, you're alone with death, I mean, nothing'sobstructing your view of it, or something like that.

ANDRE: Right. [Street noise: siren.]

WALLY: You know, if I understood it correctly, I thinkHeidegger said that if you were to experience yourown being to the full you'd be experiencing the decayof that being toward death as a part of yourexperience.

ANDRE: You know, in the sexual act there's thatmoment of complete forgetting, which is so incredible.

Then in the next moment you start to think aboutthings: work on the play, what you've got to dotomorrow. I don't know if this is true of you, but I thinkit must be quite common. The world comes in quitefast. Now that again may be because we're afraid tostay in that place of forgetting, because that again isclose to death. Like people who are afraid to go tosleep. In other words: you interrelate and you don't

know what the next moment will bring, and to notknow what the next moment will bring brings youcloser to a perception of death!

You see, that's why I think that people have affairs.Well, I mean, you know, in the theater, if you get goodreviews, you feel for a moment that you've got yourhands on something. You know what I mean? I meanit's a good feeling. But then that feeling goes quite

quickly. And once again you don't know quite whatyou should do next. What'll happen? Well, have anaffair and up to a certain point you can really feel thatyou're on firm ground. You know, there's a sexualconquest to be made, there are different questions:does she enjoy the ears being nibbled, how intenselycan you talk about Schopenhauer in some elegantFrench restaurant. Whatever nonsense it is. It's all, Ithink, to give you the semblance that there's firmearth.

Well, have a real relationship with a person that goeson for years, that's completely unpredictable. Thenyou've cut off all your ties to the land and you'resailing into the unknown, into uncharted seas. I mean,you know, people hold on to these images: father,

mother, husband, wife, again for the same reason:'cause they seem to provide some firm ground. Butthere's no wife there. What does that mean, a wife? Ahusband? A son? A baby holds your hands and thensuddenly there's this huge man lifting you off theground, and then he's gone. Where's that son?

WALLY'S NARRATION: [Piano music: Eric Satie's firstGymnopédie. The restaurant is empty. The waitercomes over with the bill.] All the other customersseemed to have left hours ago. We got the bill, andAndré paid for our dinner! [Change of scene. We arelooking out of a car window; it is raining, or hasrecently rained. Shops go by.] I treated myself to a

taxi. I rode home through the city streets! There wasn'ta street--there wasn't a building--that wasn'tconnected to some memory in my mind. There I wasbuying a suit with my father. There I was having an ice-cream soda after school. When I finally came in,Debby was home from work. And I told her everythingabout my dinner with André.

My Dinner With Andre

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