the life of a playwright is tough. it's not easy,as some people seem to think. you work hard writing plays,and nobody puts them on. you take up other lines of workto try to make a living... i became an actor... ...and people don't hire you. so you just spend your daysdoing the errands of your trade. today i'd had to be upby 10.:00 in the morning... ...to make someimportant phone calls.
then i'd gone to the stationery storeto buy envelopes. then to the xerox shop. there were dozens of things to do. by 5.:00 i'd finally made itto the post office... ...and mailed offseveral copies of my plays... ...meanwhile checking constantlywith my answering service... ...to see if my agenthad called with any acting work. in the morning, the mailboxhad just been stuffed with bills. what was i 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... ...and when i was 10 years oldi was rich, i was an aristocrat... ...riding around in taxis,surrounded by comfort... ...and all i thought aboutwas art and music. now i'm 36,and all i think about is money. it was now 7.:00... ...and i would have liked nothing better thanto go home and have my girlfriend debby... ...cook me a nice, delicious dinner.
but for the last several yearsour financial circumstances... ...have forced debby to workthree nights a week as a waitress. after all, somebody had tobring in a little money. so i was on my own. but the worst thing of all was that i'd beentrapped by an odd series of circumstances... ...into agreeing to have dinnerwith a man i'd been avoiding literally for years. his name was andrã© gregory. at one time he'd beena very close friend of mine... ...as well as my most valued colleaguein the theater.
in fact, he was the manwho had first discovered me... ...and put one of my playson the professional stage. when i'd known andrã©, he'd been at the heightofhis career as a theater director. the amazing work he did with his company,the manhattan project... ...had just stunned audiencesthroughout the world. but then somethinghad happened to andrã©. he dropped out of the theater.he sort of disappeared. for months at a time, his family seemedonly to know that he was traveling... ...in some odd place like tibet...
...which was really weirdbecause he loved his wife and children. he never used to liketo leave home at all. or else you'd hear that someone had met himat a party and he'd been telling people... ...that he talked with treesor something like that. obviously, something terriblehad happened to andrã©. the whole idea of meeting himmade me very nervous. i mean, i really wasn't upfor that sort of thing. i had problems of my own.i mean, i couldn't help andrã©. was i supposed to be a doctor, or what?
- hello.- hello. - here you go.- thank you. - yes, sir.- ah, sir, my name is wallace shawn. i'm expected at the tableof andrã© gregory. that table will be a moment, sir. if you like,you may have a drink at the bar. - good evening, sir.- uh, could i have a club soda, please? i'm sorry, sir.we only serve source de pavilion. oh, that'd be fine, thank you.
when i'd called andrã©, and he'd suggestedthat we meet in this particular restaurant... i'd been rather surprised, becauseandrã©'s taste used to be very ascetic... ...even though people have always knownthat he had some money somewhere. i mean, how the hell else could he havebeen flying off to asia and so on... ...and still have been supporting his family? the reason i was meeting andrã© was thatan acquaintance of mine, george grassfield... ...had called meand just insisted that i had to see him. apparently, george had been walking his dogin an odd section of town the night before... ...and he'd suddenly come upon andrã©...
...leaning against a crumbling old buildingand sobbing. andrã© had explained to georgethat he'd just been watching... ...the ingmar bergman movieautumn sonata... ...about 25 blocks away... ...and he'd been seizedby a fit of ungovernable crying... ...when the character playedby ingrid bergman had said... "i could always live in my art,but never in my life. " wallyl... - wow.- my god.
i remember, when i firststarted working with andrã©'s company... i couldn't get over the way the actorswould hug when they greeted each other. "wow. now i'm really in the theater, "i thought. well, you look terrific. well, i feel terrible. good evening, sir.nice to see you again. thank you. good evening.ah, i think i'll have a spritzer, if i could. - yes, sir.- thank you. i was feeling incredibly nervous.
i wasn't sure i could stick throughan entire meal with him. great. so we talked about this and that. he told me a few thingsaboutjerzy grotowski... ...the great polish theater director... ...who was a friend and almost likea kind of a guru of andrã©'s. he'd also dropped out of the theater. grotowski was a prettyunusual character himself. at one time, he'd been quite fat, then he'dlost an incredible amount of weight...
...and become very thinand grown a beard. - your table is ready, if you feel like sitting down.- oh. - oh.- yes. thank you. i was beginning to realizethat the only way to make this evening bearable... ...would be to ask andrã©a few questions. asking questions always relaxes me. in fact, i sometimes thinkthat my secret profession... ...is that i'm a private investigator,a detective. i always enjoy finding out about people.
even if they're in absolute agony,i always find it very... interesting. - by the way, is he still thin?- what? grotowski. is he still thin? oh. absolutely. oh, waiter?uh, i think we can do without this. what about this one? seven swimming shrimp. - ready for your order?- ah, yes. uh, the galuska...how... how do you prepare that?
andrã© seemedto know an awful lot about the menu. - dumpling with raisins, blanched almonds.- i didn't understand a word of it. - very good, i think.- hmm. no, i... i think i'll havethe cailles aux raisin, the quail. - very good.- oh, quails! i'll have that as well. - two. -great. - great! and then i think, to begin with,the terrine de poissons. - yes.- what is that? uh, it's a sort of pã¢te...light, made of fish.
- does it have bones in it?- no bones. perfectly safe. well, um...what isthe, um, bramborovã¡ polã©vka? it's a potato soup.it's quite delicious. oh, well, that's great.i'll have that. - thank you very kindly.- thank you very much. well. when was the last timethat we saw each other? so we talked for a whileabout my writing and my acting...
...and about my girlfriend, debby. and we talked about his wife, chiquita,and his two children, nicolas and marina. and i'd stayed back in new york. finally, i got around to asking himwhat he'd been up to in the last few years. oh, god. i'm just dying to hear it. - really?- really. at first, he seemeda little reluctant to go into it... ...so i just kept asking,and finally he started to answer. ...conferenceon paratheatrical work then.
and, uh, this must have beenabout five years ago... ...and, uh, grotowski and i were walkingalong fifth avenue and we were talking. you see, he'd invited me to cometo teach that summer in poland. you know, to teach a workshopto actors and directors and whatever. and i had told him that i didn't want to come,because, really, i had nothing left to teach. i had nothing left to say.i didn't know anything. i couldn't teach anything. exercises meant nothing to me anymore. working on scenes from playsseemed ridiculous.
i - i didn't know what to do.i mean, i just couldn't do it. so he said, " why don't you tell me anythingyou'd like to have if you did a workshop for me. no matter how outrageous.and maybe i can give it to you. " so i said,"well, if you could give me... "40 jewish women who speakneither english nor french... "either women who've been in the theaterfor a long time and want to leave it... "but don't know why... "or young women who love the theater,but have never seen a theater they could love. "and if these women could playthe trumpet or the harp...
...and if i could work in a forest, i'd come. " a week later, or two weeks later,he called me from poland. and he said, " well, 40 jewish women...that's a little hard to find. " but he said, " i do have 40 women.they all pretty much fit the definition. " and he said, " i also havesome very interesting men... "but you don't have to work with them. "these are all people who have in commonthe fact that they're questioning the theater. "they don't all play the trumpet or the harp,but they all play a musical instrument. and none of them speak english. "
and he'd found me a forest, wally. and the only inhabitants of this forestwere some wild boar and a hermit. so that was an offer i couldn't refuse. i had to go. so, i went to poland, and it was thiswonderful group of young men and women. and the forest he had found uswas absolutely magical. you know, it was a huge forest. i mean, the trees were so large... ...that four or five people linking their armscouldn't get their arms around the trees.
so we were camped out besidethe ruins of this tiny little castle... ...and we would eat around this great stone slabthat served as a sort of a table. and our schedule was that usuallywe'd start work around sunset... ...and then generally we'd workuntil about 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning. and then, because the poleslove to sing and dance... ...we'd sing and dance until about10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. and then we'd have our food, whichwas generally bread,jam, cheese and tea. and then we'd sleepfrom around noon to sunset. now, technically, of course...
technically, the situationis a very interesting one... ...because if you find yourself in a forestwith a group of 40 people... ...who don't speak your language,then all your moorings are gone. what do you mean exactly? well, what we'd dois just sit there and wait... ...for someone to havean impulse to do something. now, in a way that's... that's somethinglike a theatrical improvisation. i mean, you know, if you were a directorworking on a play by chekhov... ...you might have the actors playingthe mother, the son and the uncle...
...all sit around in a room and doa made-up scene that isn't in the play. for instance, you might say to them... "all right. let's say that it's a rainysunday afternoon on sorin's estate... ...and you're all trappedin the drawing room together. " and then everyone would improvise... ...saying and doing what their charactermight say and do in that circumstance. except that in this type of improvisation...the kind we did in poland... ...the theme is oneself. so, you followthe same law of improvisation...
...which is that you do whatever your impulse,as the character, tells you to do... ...but in this case,you are the character. so there's no imaginary situationto hide behind... ...and there's no other personto hide behind. what you're doing, in fact,is you're asking those same questions... ...that stanislavsky said the actor shouldconstantly ask himself as a character: who am i? why am i here? where do i come from,and where am i going? but instead of applying them to a role,you apply them to yourself.
- hmm.- or, to look at it a little differently... ...in a way, it's like goingright back to childhood... ...where a group of children simply comeinto a room or are brought into a room... ...without toys... and begin to play. grown-ups were learninghow to play again. so, you would, uh,all sit together somewhere... ...and, uh, you would play in some way. - but what would you actually do?- well, i could give you a good example. you see, we worked, uh, togetherfor a week in the city...
...before we went off to our forest. and of course,grotowski was there in the city too. i heard that every night,he conducted something called a beehive. i loved the sound of this beehive... ...so a night or two before we weresupposed to go off to the country... i grabbed him by the collar, and i said,"listen, about this beehive. "you know, i'd kind of liketo participate in one. just instinctively i feel it wouldbe something interesting. " and he said, " well, certainly.in fact, why don't you, with your group...
...lead the beehiveinstead of participating in one?" you know, i... i got very nervous,you know, and i said, " well, what is a beehive?" he said, " well, a beehive is... ...at 8:00 a hundred strangerscome into a room. " i said, " yes?" he said,"yes, and whatever happens is a beehive. " i said, " yes, but what am i supposed to do?"he said, " that's up to you. " i said, " no, no. i really don'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. god. well, tell me about it. you see, there was this song...i have a tape of it. i can play it for you one day. and it's just unbelievably beautiful. you see, one of the women in our group knewa few fragments of this song of saint francis... ...and it's a song in which youthank god for your eyes... ...and you thank god for your heart,and you thank god for your friends... ...and you thank god for your life.
and it, uh... it repeats itselfover and over again. and this became our theme song. i really must play this thingfor you one day... ...because you just can't believe that a groupof people who don't know how to sing... ...could create something so beautiful. so, i decided that when the peoplearrived for the beehive... ...that our group would already be theresinging this very beautiful song... ...and that we would simply sing itover and over again. one of the people decided to bringher very large teddy bear, you know.
well, she's a little afraid of this event. and somebody wantedto bring a... a sheet. and somebody else wantedto bring a large bowl of water... ...in case people got hot or thirsty. and somebody suggestedthat we have candles... ...that there be no artificial light,but candlelight. and i remember watching peoplepreparing for this evening. of course, there was no makeup,and there were no costumes... ...but it was exactly the way that peopleprepare for a performance.
you know, people sort of taking offtheir jewelry and their watches... ...and stowing it awayand making sure it's all secure. and then slowly people arrived,the way they would arrive at the theater... ...in ones and twos and 10s and 15sand what have you. and we were just sitting there,and we were singing this very beautiful song. and people started to sit with usand started to learn the song. now, there is, of course,as in any performance or improvisation... ...instinct for when thingsare gonna get boring. so, at a certain point... it may have takenan hour to get there, an hour and a half...
i suddenly grabbed this teddy bearand threw it in the air... ...at which 140 or 130 peoplesuddenly exploded. you know, it was likea... a jackson pollack painting, you know. human beings exploded out of this tightlittle circle that was singing the song. and before i knew it,there were two circles, dancing, you know... ...one dancing clockwise,the other dancing counterclockwise... ...with this rhythmmostly from the waist down. in other words, like an american indian dance,with this thumping, persistent rhythm. now, you could easily see,'cause we're talking about group trance...
...where the line between something like thisand something like hitler's nuremberg rallies... ...is, in a way, a very thin line. anyway, after about an hourof this wild, hypnotic dancing... grotowski and i found ourselves sitting oppositeeach other in the middle of this whole thing. and we threw the teddy bearback and forth. you know, on one level,you could say this is childish. and i gave the teddy bear suck,suddenly, at my breast. and then i threw the teddy bear to him,and he gave it suck at his breast. and then the teddy bearwas thrown up into the air again...
...at which there was another explosionof form into... something. and these...what was it like?you know, this is the... there's something like a kaleidoscope,like a human kaleidoscope. the evening was made upof shiftings of the kaleidoscope. now, the only other thingsthat i remember... ...other than constantly tryingto guide this thing... ...which was always involved with eithermovement, rhythm, repetition or song... or chanting, because,uh, two people in my group... ...had brought musical instruments,a flute and a drum...
...which, of course,are sacred instruments... ...was that sometimes the roomwould break up... ...into six or seven different thingsgoing on at once. you know, six or sevendifferent improvisations... ...all of which seemed, in some way,related to each other. it was... it was likea magnificent cobweb. and at one point, i noticed that grotowskiwas at the center of one group... ...huddled around a bunch of candlesthat they'd gathered together. and like a little childfascinated by fire...
i saw that he had his hand right in the flameand 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 foundi could hold it there for as long as i liked... ...and there was no burnand no pain. but when i tried to put my right hand in theflame, i couldn't hold it there for a second. so grotowski said, " if it burns,try to change some little thing in yourself. " and i tried to do that.didn't work. then i remember a very, very beautifulprocession with the sheet... ...and there was somebodybeing carried below the sheet.
you know, the sheet was likesome great biblical canopy. and the entire group was weavingaround the room and chanting. and then at one point,people were dancing... ...and i was dancing with a girl... ...and suddenly our hands beganvibrating near each other... ...like this...vibrating, vibrating. and we went down to our knees,and suddenly i was sobbing in her arms... ...and she was sort of cradling me in her arms,and then she started to cry too. and then we... then we justhugged each other for a moment.
and, uh, then we joined the dance again. and then at a certain point,hours later... ...we returned to the singingof the song of saint francis... ...and that was the end of the beehive. and then, again, when it was over, it wasjust like the theater after a performance. you know, people sort of put ontheir earrings and their wristwatches... ...and we went offto the railroad station... ...to drink a lot of beerand have a good dinner. oh, and there was one girl,who wasn't in our group...
...but who just wouldn't leave,so we took her along with us. huh. god. well, tell me some of the other thingsyou did with your group. well... oh, i remember oncewhen we were in the city... ...we tried doing an improvisation...you know,the kind that i used to do in new york. uh, everybody was supposed to beon an airplane... ...and they've all learned from the pilotthere's something wrong with the motor. but what was unusualabout this improvisation... ...was that two people whoparticipated in it... fell in love.
they've, in fact, married. and when we were...yeah, out of fear... ...of being on this plane,they fell in love... ...thinking they were going to dieat any moment. and when we went to the forest,these two disappeared... ...because they understoodthe... the experiment so well... ...that they realized that to go off togetherin the forest was much more important... ...than any kind of experimentthe group could do as a whole. so, uh, about halfwaythrough the week...
...we stumbled intoa clearing in the forest... ...and the two of themwere fast asleep in each other's arms. it was around dawn,and we put flowers on them... ...to let them know we'd been there,and then we crept away. and then on the last day of our stayin the forest, these two showed up... ...and they shook me by my hands,and they thanked me very much... ...for the wonderful workthey'd been able to do, you see. they understood what it was about. i mean, that, of course, posesthe question of what was it about.
but it has...has somethingto do with living. and then on the final dayof our stay in the forest... ...the whole group did somethingso wonderful for me, wally. they arranged a christening...a baptism... for me. and they filled the castle with flowers. and it was just a miracle of light... ...because they had literally set uphundreds of candles and torches. i mean, no churchcould have looked more beautiful. there was a simple ceremony, and oneof them played the role of my godmother...
...and another played the roleof my godfather. and i was given a new name.they called me yendrush. and some of the peopletook it completely seriously... ...and some of them found it funny. but, uh, i really feltthat i had a new name. and then we had an enormous feast,with blueberries picked from the field... ...and chocolate someonehad gone a great distance to buy... ...and raspberry soup and rabbit stew. and we sang polish songsand greek songs...
...and everybody dancedfor the rest of the night. - hmm.- oh, i have a picture. see, this was... let's see. oh, yeah.this was me in the forest. see? - god!- that's what i felt like. - that's the state i was in.- god. yeah. i remember george, uh, told mehe'd seen you around that time. he said you looked likeyou'd come back from a war. yeah, i remember meeting him. he, uh...he asked me a lot of friendly questions.
i think i called you up, too,that summer, didn't i? i think i was out of town. yeah, well, most people i met thoughtthere was something wrong with me. they didn't say that, but i could tell thatthat was what they thought. but... ...you see, what i thinki experienced... was... ...for the first time in my life... ...to know what it meansto 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 led towalt whitman, that led to leaves of grass. that feeling of being connectedto everything... ...means to also be connected to death. and that's pretty scary. but i really felt as if i were floatingabove the ground, not walking. you know, and i could do thingslike go out to the highway... ...and watch the lights go from red to greenand think, " how wonderful. "
and then one day, in the early fall... i was out in the country,walking in a field... ...and i suddenly heard a voicesay, "little prince. " of course, the little princewas a book that i always thought of... ...as disgusting, childish treacle. but still, i thought, " well, you know,if a voice comes to me in a field"... this was the first voice i had ever heard. maybe i should go and read the book. now, that same morningi'd got a letter...
...from a young womanwho'd been in my group in poland. and in her letter she'd written,"you have dominated me. " you know,she spoke very awkward english. so she'd gone to the dictionary,and she'd crossed out the word " dominated"... ...and she'd said,"no. the correct word is 'tamed. "' and then when i went to townand bought the book and started to read it... i saw that " taming" was the mostimportant word in the whole book. by the end of the book, i was in tears,i was so moved by the story. and then i went and tried to writean answer to her letter...
'cause she'd written me a very 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,i outlined it with a pen... ...and i wrote in the center somethinglike, " your heart is in my hand. " something like that. then i went overto my brother's house to swim... 'cause he lives nearby in the countryand he has a pool. and he wasn't home.i went into his library... ...and he had bought at an auctionthe collected issues of minotaure.
you know, the surrealist magazine? oh, it's a great,great surrealist magazine of the '20s and '30s. and i never...you know,i consider myself a bit of a surrealist. i had never, ever seena copy of minotaure. and here they all were,bound, year after year. so, at random,i picked one out, i opened it up... ...and there was a full-page reproductionof the letter " a"... ...from tenniel's alice in wonderland. and i thought, that...well, you know,it's been a day of coincidences... ...but that's not unusual that the surrealistswould have been interested in alice...
...and i did a play of alice. so at random,i opened to another page... ...and there were four handprints. one was andrã© breton,another was andrã© derain... ...the third was andrã©...i've got it written down somewhere. it's not malraux. it's, like, someone...another of the surrealists. all a's, and the fourthwas antoine de saint-exupã©ry... ...who wrote the little prince. and they'd shown these handprintsto some kind of expert...
...without sayingwhose hands they belonged to. and under exupã©ry's,it said that he was an artist... ...with very powerful eyes... ...who was a tamer of wild animals. i thought,"this is incredible, you know. " and i looked back to seewhen the issue came out. it came out on the newsstandsmay 12, 1934... ...and i was born during the dayof may 11, 1934. so, well, that's what started me on, uh,saint-exupã©ry and the little prince.
now, of course today... ...today i think there's a very fascistic thingunder the little prince. you know, i...well, no, i think there's a kind of... i think a kind of s.s. totalitariansentimentality in there somewhere. you know, there's something, you know...that... ...that love of, um... well, that masculine loveof a certain kind of oily muscle. you know what i mean?i mean, i can't quite put my finger on it. but i can just imaginesome beautiful s.s. man...
...loving the little prince. now, i don't know why, but there'ssomething wrong with it. it stinks. well, didn't george tell me that you were gonnado a play that was based on the little prince? hmm. well, what happened, wally... ...was that fall i was in new york... ...and i met this young japanesebuddhist priest named kozan... ...and i thought he was puckfrom the midsummer night's dream. you know,he had this beautiful, delicate smile. i thought he was the little prince.
so, naturally, i decidedto go off to the sahara desert... ...to work on the little princewith two actors and this japanese monk. you did? well, i mean, i was still in a verypeculiar state at that time, wally. you know, i would... i would lookin the rearview mirror of my car... ...and see little birdsflying out of my mouth. and i remember always beingexhausted in that period. i always felt weak. you know, i reallydidn't know what was going on with me. i would just sit out there all alonein the country for days...
...and do nothing but write in my diary. - and i was always thinking about death.- huh. but you went to the sahara. oh,yes, we went off into the desert... ...and we rode through the deserton camels. and we rode and we rode. and then at night we would walk outunder that enormous sky... ...and look at the stars. i just kept thinking about the same thingsthat i was always thinking about at home...
...particularly about chiquita. in fact, i thought aboutjust about nothing but my marriage. and then i rememberone incredibly dark night... ...being at an oasis, and there werepalm trees moving in the wind... ...and i could hear kozan singingfar away in that beautiful bass voice. and i tried to follow his voicealong the sand. you see, i thought he hadsomething to teach me, wally. and sometimesi would meditate with him. sometimes i'd go offand meditate by myself.
you know,i would see images of chiquita. once i actually saw her growing old... ...and her hair turning grayin front of my eyes. and i would just wail and yell my lungs outout there on the dunes. anyway,the desert was pretty horrible. it was pretty cold. we were searching for something, but wecouldn't tell if we were finding anything. you know that once kozan and i... ...we were sitting on a dune,and we just ate sand.
no, we weren't trying to be funny.i started, then he started. we just ate sand and threw up.that's how desperate we were. in other words, we didn't know why we werethere. we didn't know what we were looking for. the entire thing seemedcompletely absurd, arid and empty. it was like, uh...like a last chance or something. so what happened then? well, in those days... i went completely on impulse. so on impulse i brought kozan backto stay with us in new york...
...after we got back from the sahara,and he stayed for six months. - and he really sort of took over the whole family, in a way.- what do you mean? well, there was certainly a centermissing in the house at the time. there certainly wasn't a father,'cause i was always thinking... ...about going off to tibetor doing god knows what. and so he taught the whole familyto meditate... ...and he told them all about asia and the eastand his monastery and everything. he really captivated everybodywith an incredible bag of tricks. he had literallydeveloped himself, wally...
...so that he could push on his fingersand rise off out of his chair. i mean, he could literally go like this... you know, push on his fingersand go into like a headstand... ...and just hold himself therewith two fingers. or if chiquita would suddenly geta little tension in her neck... ...well, he'd immediately have her down on thefloor, he'd be walking up and down on her back... ...doing these unbelievable massages,you know. and the children found him amazing. i mean, you know, we'd visit friendswho had children...
...and immediatelyhe'd be playing 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 monkwas doing in these holy robes. i mean, he was an acrobat,a ventriloquist... ...a magician, everything. you know,the amazing thing was that... i don't think he had any interestin children whatsoever. none at all.i don't think he liked them.
i mean, you know,when he stayed with us... ...in the first week, really, the kidswere just googly-eyed over him. but then a couple of weeks later,chiquita and i could be out... ...and marina could have fluor a temperature of 104... ...and he wouldn't even go inand say hello to her. but he was taking over more and more. i mean, his own habitshad completely changed. you know, he started wearing these elegantgucci shoes under his white monk's robes. he was eating huge amounts of food.
i mean, he ate twice as muchas nicolas ate, you know? this tiny little buddhistwhen i first met him, you know... ...was eating a little bowl of milk...hot milk with rice... ...was now eating huge beef. it was just very strange. you know, and we had tried working together,but really our work consisted mostly... ...of my trying to do these incredibly painfulprostrations that they do in the monastery. you know, so really we hadn'tbeen working very much. anyway, we were out in the country, andwe all went to christmas mass together.
you know, he was all dressed upin his buddhist finery. and it was one of those... one of those awful,dreary catholic churches on long island... ...where the priest talks aboutcommunism and birth control. and as i was sitting there in mass, i waswondering, " what in the world is going on?" i mean, here i am. i'm a grown man... ...and there's this strange person livingin the house, and i'm not working... you know, i was doing nothingbut scribbling a little poetry in my diary. and i can't get a job teaching anymore,and i don't know what i want to do. when all of a sudden a huge creatureappeared, looking at the congregation.
it was about, i'd say, 6'8"...something like that, you know... ...and it was...it was half bull, half man... ...and its skin was blue. it had violets growing out of its eyelidsand poppies growing out of its toenails. and it just stood therefor the whole mass. i mean, i could not makethat creature disappear. you know, i thought, " oh, well. you know,i'm just seeing this 'cause i'm bored. " you know, close my...i could not make that creature go away. okay. now, i didn't talk with people about it,because they'd think i was weird...
...but i felt that this creaturewas somehow coming to comfort me... ...that somehowhe was appearing to say... "well, you may feel low and you mightnot be able to create a play right now... "but look at what can come to youon christmas eve. hang on, old friend. "i may seem weird to you,but on these weird voyages... "weird creatures appear. it's part of the journey.you're okay. hang in there. " by the way, uh, did you ever see... ...that play, uh, the violets are blue?
no. oh, when you mentioned the violets,it-it reminded me of that. it-it was about, um, people... ...being, uh, strangledon a... on a submarine. hmm. well, so that was...that was christmas. what happened after that? - do you really want to hear about all this?- yeah. well, around that time...
i was beginning to think about going to india.and kozan suddenly left one day. i was beginning to get into a lotof very strange ideas around that time. now, for example, i'd developed this...well, i got this idea which i... now, it was very appealing to meat the time, you know... ...which was that i would have a flag,a large flag... ...and that wherever i worked,this flag would fly. or if we were outside, say, with a group, thatthe flag could be the thing we lay on at night... ...and that somehow, betweenworking on this flag and lying on this flag... ...this flag flying over us...
...that the flag would pick upvibrations of a kind... ...that would still be in the flagwhen i brought it home. so i went down to meet this flag makerthat i'd heard about. and you know, there wasthis very straightforward-looking guy. you know, very sweet, really healthy-lookingand everything. nice big, blond. and he had a beautiful, clean loftdown in the village with lovely, happy flags. and i was all into the little prince,and i talked to him about the little prince... ...these adventures and everything, how ineeded the flag and what the flag should be. he seemed to really connect with it.
so, two weeks later, i came back. he showed me a flag that i thoughtwas very odd, you know... 'cause i had, you know...well, you know... i had expected somethinggentle and lyrical. there was something about thisthat was so powerful... ...it was almost overwhelming. and it did include the tibetan swastika. he put a swastika in your flag? no, it was the tibetan swastika,not the nazi swastika.
it's one of the most ancienttibetan symbols. and it was just strange, you know? but i brought it home,because my idea with this flag... ...was that before i left...you know, before i left for india... i wanted several people who were close to meto have this flag in the room for the night... ...to sleep with it, you know, and thenin the morning to sew something into the flag. so i took the flag into marina, and i said,"hey, look at this. what do you think of this?" and she said, " what is that? that's awful. "i said, " it's a flag. " and she said, " i don't like it. "
i said, " i kind of thought you might liketo spend the night with it, you know. " but she really thoughtthe flag was awful. so then chiquita threw this partyfor me before i left for india... ...and the apartmentwas filled with guests. and at one point chiquita said,"the flag, the flag. where's the flag?" and i said, " oh, yeah. the flag. "and i go and get the flag, and i open it up. chiquita goes absolutely whiteand runs out of the room and vomits. so the party just comes to a haltand breaks up. and then the next dayi gave it to this young woman...
...who'd been in my group in poland,who was now in new york. i didn't tell her anythingabout any of this. at 5:00 in the morning,she called me up and she said... "i gotta come and see you right away. "i thought, " oh, god. " she came up, and she said, " i saw things...i saw things around this flag. "now, i know you're stubborn, and i knowyou want to take this thing with you... "but if you'd follow my advice,you'd put it in a hole in the ground... ...and burn it and cover it with earth,cause the devil's in it. " i never took the flag with me.
in fact, i gave it to her, and, uh,she... she had a ceremony with it... ...six months later, in france,with some friends... ...in which, uh, they did burn it. god. that's really, really amazing. so, did you ever go to india? oh, yes, i... i went to indiain the spring, wally... ...and i came back homefeeling all wrong. i mean, you know, i'd been to india,and i'd just felt like a tourist.
i'd found nothing. so i was... i was spending, uh, the summeron long island with my family... ...and i heard about this communityin scotland called findhorn... ...where people sang and talkedand meditated with plants. and it was founded by several rathermiddle-class english and scottish eccentrics. some of them intellectuals,and some of them not. and i'd heard that they'dgrown things in soil... ...that supposedly nothing can grow in,'cause it's almost beach soil... ...and that they'd built... not built... they'dgrown the largest cauliflowers in the world...
...and there are sort of cabbages. and they've grown treesthat can't grow in the british isles. so i went there.i mean, it is an amazing place, wally. i mean, if there are insectsbothering the plants... ...they will talk with the insectsand, you know, make an agreement... ...by which they'll set aside a special patchof vegetables just for the insects... ...and then the insectswill leave the main part alone. - huh.- things like that. and everything they dothey do beautifully.
i mean, the buildings just shine. and i mean, for instance, the icebox,the stove, the car... they all have names. and since you wouldn't treat helen,the icebox... ...with any less respectthan you would margaret, your wife... ...you know, you make sure that helen is as cleanas margaret, or treated with equal respect. and when i was there, wally,i remember being in the woods... ...and i would look at a leaf,and i would actually see that thing... ...that is alive in that leaf. and then i remember just runningthrough the woods as fast as i could...
...with this incredible laughcoming out of me... ...and really being in that state,you know,where laughter and tears seem to merge. i mean, it absolutely blasted me open. when i came out of findhorn,i was hallucinating nonstop. i was seeing clouds as creatures. the people on the airplaneall had animals' faces. i mean, i was on a trip. it was like beingin a william blake world suddenly. things were exploding. so immediately i went to belgrade,'cause i wanted to talk to grotowski.
grotowski and i got togetherat midnight in my hotel room... ...and we drank instant coffeeout of the top of my shaving cream... ...and we talked from midnightuntil 11:00 the next morning. - god. what did he say?- nothing! i talked. he didn't say a word. and...and then i guess really... ...the last big experience of this kindtook place that fall. it was out at montauk on long island... ...and there were only about nineof us involved, mostly men.
and we borrowed dick avedon's propertyout at montauk. and the country out thereis like heathcliff country. it's absolutely wild. what we wanted to do waswe wanted to take, you know... we wanted to take all souls' eve,halloween... ...and use it as a point of departurefor something. so each one of us preparedsome sort of event for the others... ...somehow in the spiritof all souls' eve. but the biggest eventwas three of the people...
...kept disappearingin the middle of the night each night... ...and we knew they werepreparing something big... ...but we didn't know what. and midnight on halloween,under a dark moon, above these cliffs... ...we were all told to gather at the topmost cliffand that we would be taken somewhere. and we did.and we waited, and it was very, very cold. and then the three of them... helen, billand fred... showed up wearing white. you know, something they'd made outof sheets... looked a little spooky, not funny. and they took us into the basement of this housethat had burned down on the property.
and in this ruined basement, they had set upa table with benches they'd made. and on this table they had laid out paper,pencils, wine and glasses. and we were all asked to sit at the tableand to make out our last will and testament. you know, to think about and write downwhatever our last words were to the world... ...or to somebody we were very close to. and that's quite a task. i must have been there for aboutan hour and a half or so, maybe two. and then one at a time they would askone of us to come with them... ...and i was one of the last.
and they came for me,and they put a blindfold 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 tiny roomthat had once had tools in it. and they took me down the steps,into this basement... ...and the room was just filledwith harsh white light. then they told me to get undressedand give them all my valuables. then they put me on a table,and they sponged me down. well, you know, i just started flashingon-on-on death camps and secret police.
i don't know what happened to the other people,but i just started to cry uncontrollably. uh, then-then they got me to my feetand they took photographs of me, naked. and then naked, again blindfolded,i was run through these forests... ...and we came to a kind of tent made of sheets,with sheets on the ground. and there were all these naked bodies... ...huddling togetherfor warmth against the cold. must have been left therefor about an hour. and then again, one by one,one at a time, we were led out. the blindfold was put on...
...and i felt myself being loweredonto something like a stretcher. and the stretcher was carried a long way,very slowly, through these forests... ...and then i felt myselfbeing lowered into the ground. they had, in fact, dug six graves... ...eight feet deep. and then i felt these pieces of woodbeing put on me. and i cannot tell you, wally,what i was going through. and then the stretcher was loweredinto the grave... ...and then this wood was put on me...
...and then my valuables were put on me,in my hands. and they'd taken, you know,a kind of sheet or canvas... ...and they'd stretched about this muchabove my head... ...and then they shoveled dirtinto the grave... ...so that i really had the feelingof being buried alive. and after being in the gravefor about half an hour... i mean, i didn't know how longi'd be in there... i was resurrected,lifted out of the grave... ...blindfold taken off,and run through these fields.
and we came to a great circle of fire,with music and hot wine... ...and everyone danced until dawn. and then at dawn... ...to the best of our ability,we filled up the graves... ...and went back to new york. and that was really the last big event.i mean, that was the end. i mean, you know, i began to realize... i just didn't want to do these thingsanymore, you know? i felt sort of becalmed, you know,like that chapter in moby dick...
...where the wind goes out of the sails. and then last winter, without, uh,thinking about it very much... i went to see this agent i know to tell himi was interested in directing plays again. actually,he seemed a little surprised... ...to see that rip van winklewas still alive. mmm. i didn't know they were so small. well,you know, frankly... i'm sort of repelled by the whole story,if you really want to know.
- what?- ah, you know... who did i think i was, you know? i mean, that's the story of some kindof spoiled princess, you know. who did i think i was,the shah of iran? you know, i really wonder if people suchas myself are really not albert speer, wally. - you know, hitler's architect, albert speer?- what? no, i've been thinking a lot about him recentlybecause, uh, i think i am speer. and i think it's time that i was caughtand tried the way he was. what are you talking about?
well, you know, he was a very cultivated man,an architect, an artist, you know... ...so he thought the ordinary rules of lifedidn't apply to him either. i mean, i really feelthat everything i've done... ...is horrific,just horrific. my god. but why? you see...you see, i've seen a lot of deathin the last few years, wally... ...and there's one thingthat's for sure about death... you do it alone, you see.that seems quite certain, you see. that i've seen. that the peoplearound your bed mean nothing.
your reviews mean nothing.whatever it is, you do it alone. and so the question is, when i get on mydeathbed, what kind of a person am i gonna 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. why should you feel that way? you see, i've had a very rough timein the last few months, wally. three different people in my familywere in the hospital at the same time. then my mother died. then marina had something wrong with her back,and we were terribly worried about her.
you know, so... so, i mean,i'm feeling very raw right now. i mean, uh... i mean, i can't sleep,my nerves are shot. i mean, i'm affected by everything. you know, la-last week i had this really nicedirector from norway over for dinner... ...and he's someonei've known for years and years... ...and he's somebodythat i think i'm quite fond of. and i was sitting there just thinkingthat he was a pompous, defensive... ...conservative stuffed shirtwho was only interested in the theater. he was talking and talking. his motherhad been a famous norwegian comedienne.
i realized he had said " i remember my mother"at least 400 times during the evening. and he was telling story after storyabout his mother. you know, i'd heard these stories20 times in the past. he was drinking this whole bottleof bourbon very quietly. his laugh was so horrible. you know, i could hear his laugh...the pain in that laugh, the hollowness. you know, what being that woman's sonhad done to him. you know, so at a certain point i just hadto ask him to leave... nicely, you know. i told him i had to get up earlythe next morning, 'cause it was so horrible.
it was just as if he had diedin my living room. you know, then i went into the bathroomand cried 'cause i felt i'd lost a friend. and then after he'd gone,i turned the television on... ...and there was this guy who hadjust won the something-something. some sports event... some kind of a great bigcheck and some kind of huge silver bottle. and he, you know... he couldn't stuffthe check in the bottle... ...and he put the bottle in front of his noseand pretended it was his face. he wasn't really listeningto the guy who was interviewing him... ...but he was smiling malevolently at his friends,and i looked at that guy and i thought...
"what a horrible, empty,manipulative rat. " then i thought, " that guy is me. " then last night actually, you know,it was our 20th wedding anniversary... ...and i took chiquita to seethis show about billie holiday. i looked at these show business people whoknow nothing about billie holiday, nothing. you see, they were really kind of,in a way, intellectual creeps. and i suddenly had this feeling. i mean, you know iwas just sitting there, crying through most of the show. and i suddenly had this feelingi was just as creepy as they were... ...and that my whole lifehad been a sham...
...and i didn't have the gutsto be billie holiday either. i mean, i really feelthat i'm just washed up, wiped out. i feel i've just squandered my life. andrã©, now, how can you saysomething like that? i mean... well, you know, i may be ina very emotional state right now, wally... ...but since i've come back home i've justbeen finding the world we're living in... ...more and more upsetting. i mean, last week i went downto 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,they're always very friendly. you know that seven or eight peopletold me how wonderful i looked? and then one person... one... a womanwho runs the casting office, said... "gee, you look horrible.is something wrong?" now, she...you know, we started talking.of course, i started telling her things. and she suddenly burst into tearsbecause an aunt of hers who's 80... ...whom she's very fond of, went intothe hospital for a cataract, which was solved. but the nurse was so sloppy,she didn't put the bed rails up...
...and so the aunt fell out of bedand is now a complete cripple. so you know, we were talkingabout hospitals. now, you know, this woman,because of who she is... you know, 'cause this had happenedto her very, very recently. - she could see me with complete clarity.- uh-huh. she didn't know anythingabout what i'd been going through. but the other people, what they sawwas this tan, or this shirt... ...or the fact that the shirtgoes well with the tan. so they said, " gee, you look wonderful. "
now, they're livingin an insane dreamworld. they're not looking.that seems very strange to me. right, because they just didn'tsee anything, somehow... ...except, uh, the few little thingsthat they wanted to see. yeah, you know, it's like what happenedjust before my mother died. you know, we'd gone to the hospitalto see my mother... ...and i went in to see her... ...and i saw this woman who looked as badas any survivor of auschwitz or dachau. and i was out in the hallsort of comforting my father...
...when a doctor who was a specialistin a problem she had with her arm... ...went into her roomand came out just beaming. and he said, " boy, don't we havea lot of reason to feel great? isn't it wonderfulhow she's coming along?" now, all he saw was the arm.that's all he saw. now, here's another personwho's existing in a dream. who, on top of that,is a kind of butcher... ...who's committinga kind of familial murder... ...because when he comes out of that room,he psychically kills us...
...by taking us into a dream world... ...where we become confusedand frightened... 'cause the moment before,we saw somebody who already looked dead... ...and now here comes a specialistwho tells us they're in wonderful shape. i mean, they were literallydriving my father crazy. i mean, you know, here's an 82-year-old manwho's very emotional... ...and you know, and if you go in one moment,and you see the person's dying... ...and you don't want them to die, and thena doctor comes out five minutes later... ...and tells you they're in wonderful shape...
i mean, you know, you can go crazy. - yeah. i know what you mean.- i mean, the doctor didn't see my mother. the people at the public theaterdidn't see me. i mean, we're just walking aroundin some kind of fog. i think we're all in a trance.we're walking around like zombies. i don't... i don't think we're even awareof ourselves or our own reaction to things. we...we're just going around all daylike unconscious machines... ...and meanwhile there's all of this rageand worry and uneasiness... ...just building upand building up inside us.
that's right. it just builds up, uh... ...and then it just leaps outinappropriately. i mean, i rememberwhen i was, uh, acting in this play... ...based on the master and margaritaby bulgakov. and i was playing the part of the cat. but they had trouble, uh,making up my cat suit... ...so i didn't get it delivered to metill the night of the first performance. particularly the head... i mean,i'd never even had a chance to try it on. and about four of my fellow actorsactually came up to me...
...and they said these thingswhich i just couldn't help thinking... ...were attempts to destroy me. you know, one of them said, uh,"oh, well, now that head... "will totally change your hearingin the performance. "you may hear everythingcompletely differently... "and it may be very upsetting. "now, i was once in a performancewhere i was wearing earmuffs... ...and i couldn't hear anythinganybody said. " and then another one said, " oh, you know,whenever i wear even a hat on stage...
i tend to faint. " i mean, those remarkswere just full of hostility... ...because, i mean, if i'd listened to those people,i would have gone out there on stage... ...and i wouldn't have been able to hear anything,and i would have fainted. but the hostilitywas completely inappropriate... ...because, in fact,those people liked me. i mean, that hostility was justsome feeling that was, you know... ...left over fromsome previous experience. because somehowin our social existence today...
...we're only allowed toexpress our feelings, uh... ...weirdly and indirectly. if you express them directly,everybody goes crazy. well, did you express your feelingsabout what those people said to you? no. i mean, i didn't even knowwhat i felt till i thought about it later. and i mean, at the most, you know,in a situation like that, uh... ...even if i had known what i felt... i might say something,if i'm really annoyed... ...like, uh, " oh, yeah.well, that's just fascinating...
...and, uh, i probably willfaint tonight,just as you did. " i do just the same thing myself. we can't be direct, so we end upsaying the weirdest things. i mean, i remember a night. it wasa couple of weeks after my mother died. and i was in pretty bad shape. and i had dinner with threerelatively close friends... ...two of whom hadknown my mother quite well... ...and all three of whomhad known me for years. you know that we went through thatentire evening without my being able to...
...for a moment,get anywhere near what... not that i wanted to sitand have this dreary evening... ...in which i was talking about all this painthat i was going through and everything. really, not at all. but the fact that nobody could say... "gee, what a shame about your mother"or " how are you feeling?" it was just as if nothing had happened.they were all making these jokes and laughing. i got quite crazy, as a matter of fact. one of these people mentioneda certain man whom i don't like very much...
...and i started screeching about howhe had just been found in the bronx river... ...and his penis had dropped off from gonorrhea,and all kinds of insane things. and later, when i got home, i realized i'd justbeen desperate to break through this ice. yeah. i mean, do you realize, wally, if you broughtthat situation into a tibetan home... that'd be just so far out. i mean,they wouldn't be able to understand it. that would be simply...simply so weird, wally. if four tibetans came together,and tragedy had just struck one of the ones... ...and they spent the whole evening going...
i mean,you know,tibetans would have looked at that... ...and would have thought that wasthe most unimaginable behavior. - but for us, that's common behavior.- mm-hmm. i mean, really, the... the africans would haveprobably put their spears into all four of us... 'cause it would have driven them crazy. they would have thought we weredangerous animals or something like that. - right.- i mean, that's absolutely abnormal behavior. is everything all right, gentlemen? - great.- yeah.
but those aretypical evenings for us. i mean, we go to dinners and partieslike that all the time. these evenings are reallylike sort of sickly dreams... ...because people are talking in symbols. everyone is sort of floating throughthis fog of symbols and unconscious feelings. no one says what they'rereally thinking about. then people will start making these jokesthat are really some sort of secret code. right. well, what often happensin some of these evenings... ...is that these really crazy little fantasieswill just start being played with, you know...
...and everyone will be talking at onceand sort of saying... "hey, wouldn't it be great if frank sinatraand mrs. nixon and blah-blah-blah... ...were in such and such a situation?" you know, always with famous people,and always sort of grotesque. or people will be talking aboutsome horrible thing... ...like... like, uh, the death of that girlin the car with ted kennedy... ...and they'll just beroaring with laughter. i mean, it's really amazing.it's just unbelievable. that's the only way anything is expressed,through these completely insane jokes.
i mean, i think that's why i never understandwhat's going on at a party. i'm always completely confused. you know, uh, debby once said,after one of these new york evenings... ...she thought she'd traveleda greater distance... ...just by journeying from her originsin the suburbs of chicago... ...to that new york evening... ...than her grandmother had traveledin, uh, making her way... ...from the steppes of russiato the suburbs of chicago. i think that's right.
you know, it may... 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. uh-huh. that was one of the reasonsthat, uh, grotowski gave up the theater. he just felt that people in their lives nowwere performing so well... ...that performance in the theaterwas sort of superfluous... ...and, in a way, obscene. isn't it amazinghow often a doctor...
...will live up to our expectationof how a doctor should look? when you see a terrorist on television,he looks just like a terrorist. i mean, we live in a worldin which fathers... ...or single people, or artists... ...are all trying to live upto someone's fantasy... ...of how a father, or a single person,or an artist should look and behave. they all act as if they know exactly howthey ought to conduct themselves... ...at every single moment... ...and they all seem totally self-confident.
of course, privately peopleare very mixed up about themselves. they don't know what they shouldbe doing with their lives. - they're reading all these self-help books.- oh, god! i mean, those books are just so touching,because they show... ...how desperately curious we all areto know how all the others of us... ...are really getting on in life... ...even though, by performingthese roles all the time... ...we're just hiding the reality of ourselvesfrom everybody else. i mean, we live in suchludicrous ignorance of each other.
we usually don't knowthe things we'd like to know... ...even about our supposedlyclosest friends. i mean... i mean, you know... ...suppose you're going throughsome kind of hell in your own life. well, you would love to know if your friendshave experienced similar things. but we just don't dare to ask each other. no. it would be like askingyour friend to drop his role. i mean, we just put no value at allon perceiving reality. i mean, on the contrary, this incredibleemphasis that we all place now...
...on our so-called careers... ...automatically makes perceiving realitya very low priority... ...because if your life is organized aroundtrying to be successful in a career... ...well, it just doesn't matter whatyou perceive or what you experience. you can really sort of shut your mind offfor years ahead, in a way. you can sort ofturn on the automatic pilot. you know,just the way your mother's doctorhad on his automatic pilot... ...when he went inand he looked at the arm... ...and he totally failedto perceive anything else.
that's right. our... our minds are justfocused on these goals and plans... ...which in themselvesare not reality. no. goals and plans are not... i mean, they're... they're fantasy.they're part of a dream life. i mean, you know, it always justdoes seem so ridiculous, somehow... ...that everybody has to havehis little... his little goal in life. i mean, it's so absurd, in a way, when youconsider that it doesn't matter which one it is. right. and because people'sconcentration is on their goals... ...in their lifethey just live each moment by habit.
really, like the norwegian tellingthe same stories over and over again. - mm-hmm.- life becomes habitual. and it is today. i mean, very few things happen nowlike that moment... ...when marlon brando sent the indian womanto accept the oscar... ...and everything went haywire. things just very rarelygo haywire now. and if you're just operating by habit... ...then you're not really living.
i mean, you know, in sanskrit,the root of the verb " to be"... ...is the same as " to grow"or " to make grow. " - do you know about roc?- hmm? oh, well. roc was a wonderful man. he was one of the foundersof findhorn... ...and he was one of scotland's...well,he was scotland's greatest mathematician... ...and he was one of the century'sgreat mathematicians. and he prided himself on the factthat he had no fantasy life, no dream life...
...nothing to stand be...no imaginary life... ...nothing to stand between himand the direct perception of mathematics. and one day when he was in his mid-50s,he was walking in the gardens of edinburgh... ...and he saw a faun. the faun was very surprised because faunshave always been able to see people... ...but you know,very few people ever see them. you know, uh,those little imaginary creatures. - not a deer.- oh. - you call them fauns, don't you?- i thought a fawn was a baby deer.
yeah, well, there's a deer that's called a fawn,but these are like those little imagi... - oh! the kind that debussy...- yes. right. well, so he got to know the faun,and 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 have talks with the fauns. then one day, after a while, when, you know,they'd really gotten to know him... ...they asked himif he would like to meet pan... ...because pan would like to meet him.
and of course,pan was afraid of terrifying him... ...because he knewof the christian misconception... ...which portrayed pan as an evil creature,which he's not. but roc said he would love to meet pan,and so they met... ...and pan indirectly sent himon his way on a journey... ...in which he met the other peoplewho began findhorn. but roc used to practicecertain exercises... ...like, uh, for instance,if he were right-handed... ...all today he would do everythingwith his 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 fall into a trance,out of habit. he had a whole series of very simpleexercises that he had invented... ...just to keepseeing, feeling, remembering. because you have to learn now. it didn't used to be necessary,but today you have to learn something... ...like, uh, are you really hungry...
...or are you just stuffing your face... because that's what you do,out of habit? i mean, you can afford to do it,so you do it... ...whether you're hungry or not. you know, if you go tothe buddhist meditation center... ...they make you tasteeach bite of your food... ...so it takes two hours...it's horrible... to eat your lunch. but you're consciousof the taste of your food. if you're just eating out of habit,then you don't taste the food...
...and you're not conscious of the realityof what's happening to you. you enter the dream world again. now, do you think maybewe live in this dream world... ...because we do so many things every daythat affect us in ways... ...that somehowwe're just not aware of? i mean, you know, i was thinking,um, last christmas... debby and i were givenan electric blanket. i can tell you that it is justsuch a marvelous advance... ...over our old way of life, and it is just great.
but, uh, it is quite differentfrom not having an electric blanket... ...and i sometimes sort of wonder,well, what is it doing to me? i mean, i sort of feel, uh,i'm not sleeping quite in the same way. no, you wouldn't be. i mean, uh, and my dreamsare sort of different... ...and i feel a little bit differentwhen i get up in the morning. i wouldn't put an electric blanket onfor anything. first, i'd be worried i might get electrocuted.no, i don't trust technology. but i mean, the main thing, wally,is that i think that that kind of comfort...
...just separates you from realityin a very direct way. - you mean...- i mean, if you don't have that electric blanket... ...and your apartment is coldand you need to put on another blanket... ...or go into the closet and pile up coatson top of the blankets you have... ...well, then you know it's cold. and that sets up a link of things. you have compassion for the per...well, is the person next to you cold? are there other people in the worldwho are cold? what a cold night!i like the cold.
my god, i never realized.i don't want a blanket. it's fun being cold. i can snuggle up against you even morebecause it's cold. all sorts of things occur to you. turn on that electric blanket,and it's like taking a tranquilizer... ...or it's like being lobotomizedby watching television. i think you enterthe dream world again. i mean, what does it do to us, wally,living in an environment... ...where something as massiveas the seasons, or winter, or cold... ...don't in any way affect us?
i mean, we're animals, after all. i mean, what does that mean? i think that means that insteadof living under the sun... ...and the moon and the skyand the stars... ...we're living in a fantasy worldof our own making. yeah, but i mean, i would nevergive up my electric blanket, andrã©. i mean, because new yorkis cold in the winter. i mean, our apartment is cold.it's a difficult environment. i mean, our livesare tough enough 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... ...because, uh, the world is very abrasive. i mean, uh,i'm trying to protect myself... ...because, really, there are these abrasivebeatings to be avoided everywhere you look. but, wally, don't you... don't you seethat comfort can be dangerous? i mean, you like to be comfortable,and i like to be comfortable too... ...but comfort can lull youinto a dangerous tranquillity. i mean, my mother knewa woman, lady hatfield...
...who was one of the richest womenin 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 would eat. and actually her body was starving,but she didn't know it... 'cause she was quite happy eating her chicken,and so she finally died. see, i honestly believethat we're all like lady hatfield now. we're having a lovely, comfortable timewith our electric blankets and our chicken... ...and meanwhile we're starving becausewe're so cut off from contact with reality... ...that we're not getting any real sustenance,'cause we don't see the world.
we don't see ourselves. we don't see how our actionsaffect other people. have you read martin buber's bookon hasidism? - no.- well, here's a view of life. i mean, he talks about the beliefof the hasidicjews... ...that there are spirits chainedin everything. there are spirits chained in you.there are spirits chained in me. well, there are spirits chainedin this table. and that prayer is the action of liberatingthese enchained embryo-like spirits...
...and that every action of ours in life... ...whether it's, uh,doing business, or making love... ...or having dinner together,or whatever... ...that every action of oursshould be a prayer... ...a sacrament in the world. now, do you think we're living like that? why do you thinkwe're not living like that? i think it's because if we allowed ourselvesto see what we do every day... ...we might just find it too nauseating.
i mean, the way we treat other people. you know, every day, several times a day,i walk into my apartment building. the doorman calls me mr. gregory,and i call him jimmy. already, what's the differencebetween that... ...and the southern plantation ownerwho's got slaves? you see, i think that an act of murderis committed in that moment... ...when i walk into that building. because here's a dignified, intelligent man...a man of my own age... ...and when i call him jimmy,then he becomes a child, and i'm an adult...
...because i can buy my wayinto the building. right. that's right. i mean, my god,when i was a latin teacher... i mean, people used to treat me... i mean, uh, you know,if i would go to a party... ...of professional or literary people... i mean, i was just treated, uh,in the nicest sense of the word... ...uh, like a dog. i mean, in other words,there was no question...
...of my being able to participate onan equal basis in a conversation with people. i mean, you know, i'd occasionallyhave conversations with people... ...but then, uh,when they asked what i did... ...which would always happenafter about five minutes... ...uh, you know, their faces... even if they were enjoying the conversation, orthey were flirting with me, or whatever it was... ...their faces would just have that expressionjust like the portcullis crashing down. you know, those medieval gates.they would just walk away. i mean, i literally lived like a dog.
and i mean, uh, when debby wasworking as a secretary, you know... ...if she would tell people what she did,they would just go insane. i mean, it would be justas if she'd said, uh... "oh, well, i've been serving a life sentencerecently, uh, for child murdering. " i mean, my god, you know, when you talkabout our attitudes toward other people... i mean, i think of myself... ...as just a very decent,good person, you know... ...just because i thinki'm reasonably friendly... ...to most of the peoplei happen to meet every day.
i mean, i really thinkof myself quite smugly. i just think i'm a perfectly nice guy,uh, you know... ...so long as i think of the worldas consisting of, you know... ...just the small circle of the peoplethat i know as friends... ...or the few people that we knowin this little world of our little hobbies... ...the theater or whatever it is. and i'm really quite self-satisfied.i'm just quite happy with myself. i just have no complaint about myself. i mean, you know, let's face it.
i mean, there's a whole enormous worldout there that i just don't ever think about. i certainly don't take responsibilityfor how i've lived in that world. i mean, you know, if i were actuallyto sort of confront the fact... ...that i'm sort of sharing this stage... ...with-with-with this starving personin africa somewhere... ...well, i wouldn't feel so greatabout myself. so naturally i just... i just blot all thosepeople right out of my perception. so, of course...of course, i'm ignoring... ...a whole section of the real world.
but frankly, you know... ...when i write a play, in a way, one of the thingsi guess i think i'm trying to do... ...is i'm trying to bring myself upagainst some little bits of reality... ...and i'm trying to share that, uh,with an audience. i mean... i mean,of course we all know, uh... ...the theater is, uh,in terrible shape today. i mean, uh... i mean, at least a few years agopeople who really cared about the theater... ...used to say, " the theater is dead. " and now everybody's redefinedthe theater in such a trivial way...
...that, i mean... i mean, god... i know people who are involved withthe theater who go to see things now that... i mean, a few years agothese same people... ...would have just been embarrassedto have even seen some of these plays. i mean, they would have just shrunk,you know,just in horror... ...at the superficiality of these things. 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 theatercan do something very important. i mean, i do think the theater can helpbring people in contact with reality. now, now, you may not feel that at all.you may just find that totally absurd. yeah, but, wally,don't you see the dilemma? you're not taking into accountthe period we're living in. i mean, of course that's whatthe theater should do. i mean, i've always felt that. you know, when i was a young director,and i directed the bacchae at yale... ...my impulse, when pentheus has beenkilled by his mother and the furies...
...and they pull the tree back,and they tie him to the tree... ...and fling him into the air, and he fliesthrough space and he's killed... ...and they rip him to shredsand i guess cut off his head... ...my impulse was that the thing to do wasto get a head from the new haven morgue... ...and pass it around the audience. now, i wanted agaweto bring on a real head... ...and that this head should bepassed around the audience... ...so that somehow people realizedthat this stuff was real, see? that it was real stuff.
- now, the actress playing agaweabsolutely refused to do it. you know, gordon craigused to talk about... ...why is there gold or silver in the churchesor something... the great cathedrals... ...when actors could be wearinggold and silver? and i mean, people who saw eleonora dusein the last couple of years of her life, wally... ...people said that is was likeseeing light on stage, or mist... ...or the essence of something. i mean, then when you thinkabout bertolt brecht... he somehow created a theaterin which people could observe...
...that was vastly entertainingand exciting... ...but in which the excitementdidn't overwhelm you. he somehow allowed you the distancebetween the play and yourself... ...that, in fact, two human beings needin order to live together. you know, the question is whetherthe theater now can do for an audience... ...what brecht tried to door what craig or duse tried to do. can it do it now? 'cause, you see, i think thatpeople today are so deeply asleep... ...that unless, you know, you're putting onthose sort of superficial plays...
...that just help your audienceto sleep more comfortably... ...it's very hard to knowwhat to do in the theater. because, you see, i think that if youput on serious, contemporary plays... ...by writers like yourself... ...you may only be helping to deadenthe audience in a different way. what do you mean? well, i mean, wally... ...how does it affect an audienceto put on one of these plays... ...in which you show that peopleare totally isolated now...
...and they can't reach each other,and their lives are desperate? or how does it affect them to see a playthat shows that our world... ...is full of nothing but shockingsexual events, and terror, and violence? does that help to wake upa sleeping audience? see, i don't think so,'cause i think it's very likely... ...that the picture of the world that you'reshowing them in a play like that... ...is exactly the picture of the worldthey have already. i mean, you know, they knowtheir own lives and relationships... ...are difficult and painful.
and if they watch the evening newson television... ...well, there what they seeis a terrifying, chaotic universe... ...full of rapes and murdersand hands cut off by subway cars... ...and children pushing their parentsout of windows. so the play tells them thattheir impression of the world is correct... ...and that there's absolutely no way out. there's nothing they can do. and they end up feelingpassive and impotent. i mean, look... look, at somethinglike that christening...
...that my group arranged for mein the forest in poland. well, there was an example of somethingthat really had all the elements of theater. it was worked on carefully.it was thought about carefully. it was done withexquisite taste and magic. and they, in fact, created something... ...which, in this case, was, in a way,just for an audience of one...just for me. but they created somethingthat had ritual, love, surprise... ...denouement,beginning, a middle and end... ...and was an incredibly beautifulpiece of theater.
and the impact that it hadon its audience... on me... ...was somehow a totally positive one. it didn't deaden me.it brought me to life. yeah, but i mean, are you sayingthat it's impossible... i mean, uh... i mean...i mean, uh, isn't it a little upsetting... ...to come to the conclusion that there'sno way to wake people up anymore... ...except to involve them in some kindof a strange, uh, christening in poland... ...or some kind of a strange experienceon top of mount everest? i mean, uh, because, uh,you know that the awful thing is...
...if you really say that it's-it's necessary... ...to, uh, take everybody to, uh, everest... ...it's really tough, because everybodycan't be taken to everest. i mean, there must have been periods in historywhen it would have been possible... ...to, uh, save the patientthrough less drastic measures. i mean, there must have been periodswhen in order to give people... ...a strong or meaningful experience... ...you wouldn't actually have totake them to everest. but you do now.in some way or other, you do now.
you know, there was a time when youcould have just, for instance, written... i don't know,uh, sense and sensibility byjane austen. and i'm sure the people who read it hada pretty strong experience. i'm sure they did. i mean, all right, now you're sayingthat people today wouldn't get it. maybe that's true. but i mean, isn't thereany kind of writing or any kind of a play... i mean, isn't it still legitimatefor writers... ...to try to portray realityso that people can see it? i mean, really, tell me, why do werequire a trip to mount everest... ...in order to be able to perceiveone moment 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 youcould become fully aware... ...of what existed in the cigar storenext door to this restaurant... i think it would justblow your brains out. i mean... i mean, isn't therejust as much reality to be perceived... ...in a cigar storeas there is on mount everest? i mean, what do you think? i think that not only is there nothingmore real about mount everest...
i think there's nothing that different,in a certain way. i mean, because realityis uniform, in a way... ...so that if your...if your perceptions are... i mean, if your own mechanismis operating correctly... ...it would become irrelevant to goto mount everest, and sort of absurd... ...because, i mean... it just...i mean, of course, on some level, i mean... ...obviously it's very differentfrom a cigar store on 7 th avenue. - but i mean...- well, i agree with you, wally. but the problem is that peoplecan't see the cigar store now.
i mean, things don't affect peoplethe way they used to. i mean, it may very well bethat 10 years from now... ...people will pay $10,000 in cashto be castrated... ...just in order to be affected by something. 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 lyingin the bathtub all day... ...just playing with their plastic duck...
...and now they're just thinking,"well, what can i do?" okay. yes. we're bored. we're all bored now. but has it every occurred to you, wally,that the process... ...that creates this boredomthat we see in the world now... ...may very well be a self-perpetuating,unconscious form of brainwashing... ...created by a world totalitarian governmentbased on money... ...and that all of this is much more dangerousthan one thinks... ...and it's not just a questionof individual survival, wally...
...but that somebody who's boredis asleep... ...and somebody who's asleepwill not say no? see, i keep meeting these people...i mean, uh,just a few days ago... i met this man whom i greatly admire. he's a swedish physicist.gustav bjã¶rnstrand. and he told me that heno longer watches television... ...he doesn't read newspapers,and he doesn't read magazines. he's completelycut them out of his life... ...because he really does feel that we're livingin some kind of orwellian nightmare now...
...and that everything that you hear nowcontributes to turning you into a robot. and when i was at findhorn, i metthis extraordinary english tree expert... ...who had devoted his lifeto saving trees. just got back from washington,lobbying to save the redwoods. he's 84 years old,and he always travels with a backpack... 'cause he never knowswhere he's gonna be tomorrow. and when i met him at findhorn,he said to me, " where are you from?" i said, " new york. " he said, " ah, new york.yes, that's a very interesting place. do you know a lot of new yorkers who keep talkingabout the fact that they want 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't think it's that way at all. " he said, " i think that new york is the newmodel for the new concentration camp... "where the camp has been builtby the inmates themselves... "and the inmates are the guards, and theyhave this pride in this thing they've built. "they've built their own prison. "and so they existin a state of schizophrenia... "where they are both guardsand prisoners. "and as a result, they no longer have...having been lobotomized...
"the capacity to leavethe prison they've made... ...or to even see it as a prison. " and then he went into his pocket,and he took out a seed for a tree... ...and he said, " this is a pine tree. " he put it in my hand and he said,"escape before it's too late. " see, actually,for two or three years now... chiquita and i have had this very unpleasantfeeling that we really should get out. we really feel likejews in germanyin the late '30s. get out of here.
of course, the problem iswhere to go. 'cause it seems quite obvious that thewhole world is going in the same direction. see, i think it's quite possiblethat the 1960s... ...represented the last burst of the human beingbefore he was extinguished... ...and that this is the beginningof the rest of the future, now... ...and that from now on there'll simply beall these robots walking around... ...feeling nothing, thinking nothing. and there'll be nobody left almostto remind them... ...that there once was a speciescalled a human being...
...with feelings and thoughts... ...and that history and memoryare right now being erased... ...and soon nobodywill really remember... ...that life existed on the planet. now, of course, bjã¶rnstrand feelsthat there's really almost no hope... ...and that we're probablygoing back to a very savage... ...lawless, terrifying period. findhorn peoplesee it a little differently. they're feeling that there'll bethese pockets of light...
...springing upin different parts of the world... ...and that these will be, in a way,invisible planets on this planet... ...and that as we, or the world,grow colder... ...we can take invisible space journeysto these different planets... ...refuel for what it is we need to doon the planet itself... ...and come back. and it's their feeling thatthere have to be centers now... ...where people can come and reconstructa new future for the world. and when i was talkingto, uh, gustav bjã¶rnstrand...
...he was saying that actually these centersare growing up everywhere now... ...and that what they're trying to do,which is what findhorn was trying to do... ...and, in a way, what i was trying to do... i mean,these things can't be given names... ...but in a way, these are all attemptsat creating a new kind of school... ...or a new kind of monastery. and bjã¶rnstrand talks aboutthe concept of" reserves"... ...islands of safety where historycan be remembered... ...and the human beingcan continue to function...
...in order to maintain the speciesthrough a dark age. in other words, we're talkingabout an underground... ...which did exist in a different wayduring the dark ages... ...among the mystical ordersof the church. and the purpose of this underground... ...is to find out how to preservethe light, life, the culture... ...how to keep things living. you see, i keep thinkingthat what we need... ...is a new language...
...a language of the heart... ...a language, as in the polish forest,where language wasn't needed. some kind of language between peoplethat is a new kind of poetry... ...that's the poetry of the dancing beethat tells us where the honey is. and i think that in orderto create that language... ...you're going to have to learn howyou can go through a looking glass... ...into another kind of perception... ...where you have that senseof being united to all things... ...and suddenly you understand everything.
are you ready for some dessert? uh, i think i'll just have an espresso.thank you. - very good.- i'll... i'll also have one. thank you. and...and, uh, could i alsohave, uh, an amaretto? certainly, sir. thank you. you see, wally, there's this incrediblebuilding that they built at findhorn. and the man who designed ithad never designed anything in his life. he wrote children's books.
and some people wanted it to bea sort of hall of meditation... ...and others wanted it to bea kind of lecture hall. but the psychic part of the communitywanted it to serve another function as well... ...because they wanted it to be a kindof spaceship which at night could rise up... ...and let the u.f.o.'s know that thiswas a safe place to land... ...and that they would find friends there. so, the problem was...'cause it needed a massive kind of roof... ...was how to have a roofthat would stay on the building... ...but at the same time be able to fly upat night and meet the flying saucers.
so, the architectmeditated and meditated... ...and he finally came up withthe very simple solution... ...of not actually joining the roofto the building... ...which means that it should fall off... ...because they have great galesup in northern scotland. so, to keep it from falling off,he got beach stones from the beach... ...or we did,'cause i-i worked on this building... ...all up and down the roof,just like that. and the idea was that the energythat would flow from stone to stone...
...would be so strong, you see... ...that it would keep the roof downunder any conditions... ...but at the same time, if the roof neededto go up, it would be light enough to go up. well...it works, you see. now, architectsdon't know why it works... ...and it shouldn't work,'cause it should fall off. but it works. it does work. the gales blow, and the roof should fall off,but it doesn't fall off. yep.
well, uh... ...do you want to knowmy actual response to all this? - do you want to hear my actual response?- yes! see, my actual response...i mean... i mean... i mean,i'm just trying to... to survive, you know? i mean,i'm just trying to earn a living... ...just trying to pay my rent and my bills. i mean, uh... ah, i live my life.
i enjoy staying home with debby. i'm reading charlton heston'sautobiography. and that's that. i mean, you know...i mean, occasionally, maybe... debby and i will step outside,we'll go to a party or something. and if i can occasionally get my little talenttogether and write a little play... ...well, then that's just...that's just wonderful. and i mean, i enjoy reading aboutother little plays people have written... ...and reading the reviews of those playsand what people said about them...
...and what people saidabout what people said. and i mean, i have... i have a list of errandsand responsibilities that i keep in a notebook. i enjoy going through the notebook... ...carrying out the responsibilities,doing the errands... ...and crossing them off the list. and, i mean, i just... i just don't knowhow anybody could enjoy anything more... ...than i enjoy, uh, readingcharlton heston's autobiography... ...or, uh, you know, uh,getting up in the morning... ...and having the cup of cold coffeethat's been waiting for me all night...
...still there for meto drink in the morning... ...and no cockroach or flyhas-has died in it overnight. i mean, i'm just so thrilledwhen i get up... ...and i see that coffee there,just the way i wanted it. i mean, i just can't imagine... ...how anybody could enjoy something elseany more than that. i mean... i mean, obviously, if the cockroach...if there is a dead cockroach in it... ...well, then i just have a feelingof disappointment, and i'm sad. but i mean, i... i just...i just don't think...
i feel the need for anything morethan all this. whereas, you know,you seem to be saying... ...that, uh... ...it's inconceivable that anybody couldbe 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't believe... even for you... i mean, don't you find... isn't it pleasantjust to get up in the morning... ...and there's chiquita,there are the children...
...and the times is delivered,you can read it. i mean, maybe you'll direct a play,maybe you won't direct a play. but forget about the playthat you may or may not direct. why is it necessary to...why not lean backand just enjoy these details? i mean, and there'd be a delicious cupof coffee and a piece of coffeecake. i mean, why is it necessaryto have more than this... ...or to even think abouthaving more than this? i mean, i don't really knowwhat you're talking about. i mean... i mean,i know what you're talking about...
...but i don't really knowwhat you're talking about. and i mean, you know, even if i wereto totally agree with you, you know... ...and even if i were to accept the ideathat there's just no way for anybody... ...to have personal happiness now... ...well, you know,i still couldn't accept the idea... ...that the way to make life wonderfulwould be to just totally... ...you know,reject western civilization... ...and fall back into some kind of beliefin some kind of weird something... i mean, i don't even know howto begin talking about this...
...but you know, in the middle ages... ...before the arrival ofscientific thinking as we know it today... ...well, people could believe anything. anything could be true...the statue of the virgin mary... ...could speak or bleedor whatever it was. but the wonderful thingthat happened... ...was that then in the developmentof science in the western world... ...certain things did come slowlyto be known and understood. i mean, you know...
...obviously, all ideas in scienceare constantly being revised. i mean, that's the whole point. but we do at least know that the universehas some shape and order... ...and that, uh, you know, trees do notturn into people or goddesses... ...and there are very good reasonswhy they don't... ...and you can't just believeabsolutely anything. whereas, the thingsthat you're talking about... i mean... i mean, you foundthe handprint in the book... ...and there were... there were three andrã©sand one antoine de saint-exupã©ry.
and to me that is a coincidence. but...and-and then, you know,the people who put that book together... ...well, they had their own reasonsfor putting it together. but to you it was significant, as if that bookhad been written 40 years ago... ...so that you would 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 i geta fortune cookie in a chinese restaurant... i mean, of course,even i have a tendency... i mean, you know... i mean, of course,i would hardly throw it out.
i mean, i read it.i read it, and... and, uh... i just instinctively sort of...you know, if it says something like, uh... "a conversation with a dark-haired manwill be very important for you"... ...well, i just instinctively think, you know,"who do i know who has dark hair? did we have a conversation?what did we talk about?" in other words, uh, there's somethingin me that makes me read it... ...and i instinctively interpret itas if it were an omen of the future. but in my conscious opinion, which isso fundamental to my whole view of life... i mean, i would just have to change totallyto not have this opinion.
in my conscious opinion,this is simply something... ...that was written in the cookie factoryseveral years ago and in no way refers to me. i mean, you know,the... the fact that i got it... i mean, the man who wrote itdid not know anything about me. i mean, he could not have knownanything about me. there's no way that this cookiecould actually have to do with me. and the fact that i've gotten itis just basically a joke. and i mean, if i were gonna goon a trip on an airplane... ...and i got a fortune cookiethat said " don't go"...
i mean, of course, i admit i might feela bit nervous for about one second. but in fact, i would go because,i mean... ...that trip is gonna be successfulor unsuccessful... ...based on the state of the airplaneand the 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 of, uh, prophecy,or a sign, or an omen. because if you believe in omens,then that means that the universe... i mean, i don't even know howto begin to describe this.
that means that the futureis somehow sending messages... ...backwards to the present. which-which means that the futuremust exist in some sense already... ...in order to be ableto send these messages. and it also means that things in the universeare there for a purpose... to give us messages. whereas i think that thingsin the universe are just there. i mean, they don't mean anything. i mean, you know, if the turtle's egg falls outof the tree and splashes on the paving stones... ...it's just because that turtle was clumsy...by accident.
and-and to decide whether to sendmy ships off to war on the basis of that... ...seems a big mistake to me. well, what information wouldyou send your ships to war on? because if it's all meaningless... ...what's the difference whetheryou accept the fortune cookie... ...or the statisticsof the ford foundation? it doesn't seem to matter. well, the meaningless factof the fortune cookie or the turtle's egg... ...can't possibly have any relevanceto the subject you're analyzing.
whereas a group of meaningless factsthat are collected and interpreted... ...in a scientific waymay quite possibly be relevant. because the wonderful thingabout scientific theories about things... ...is that they're based on experimentsthat can be repeated. well, it's true, wally. i mean, you know,following omens and so on... ...is probably just a wayof letting ourselves off the hook... ...so that we don't have to take individualresponsibility for our own actions. but i mean, giving yourself overto the unconscious...
...can leave you vulnerable to all sortsof very frightening manipulation. and in all the work that i was involved in,there was always that danger. and there was always that questionof tampering with people's lives... ...because if i lead one of these workshops,then i do become partly a doctor... ...and partly a therapist,and partly a priest. and i'm not a doctor,or a therapist, or a priest. and already someof these new monasteries... ...or communities or whateverwe've been talking about... ...are becoming institutionalized...
...and i guess even in a way, at times,sort of fascistic. you know, there's a sort of self-satisfiedelitist paranoia that grows up... ...a feeling of" them" and " us"...that is very unsettling. but i mean, uh, the thing is, wally, i thinkit's the exaggerated worship of science... ...that has led us into this situation. i mean, science has been held up to usas a magical force... ...that would somehow solve everything. well, quite the contrary.it's done quite the contrary. it's destroyed everything.
so that is what has really led,i think... ...to this very strong, deep reactionagainst science that we're seeing now... ...just as the nazi demons that werereleased in the '30s in germany... ...were probably a reaction againsta certain oppressive kind of knowledge... ...and culture and rational thinking. so i agree that we're talking aboutsomething potentially very dangerous. but modern science has not beenparticularly less dangerous. right. well, i agree with you. i completely agree.
no, you know, the truth is... i think i do know what really disturbs meabout the work you've described... ...and i don't even know if i can express it. but somehow it seems that the whole pointof the work that you did in those workshops... ...when you get right down to itand you ask what was it really about... the whole point, really, i think... ...was to enable the people in the workshops,including yourself... ...to somehow sort of strip awayevery scrap of purposefulness... ...from certain selected moments.
and the point of it was so that you wouldthen all be able to experience... ...somehow just pure being. in other words, you were trying to discover whatit would be like to live for certain moments... ...without having any particular thingthat you were supposed to be doing. and i thinki just simply object to that. i mean, i just don't think i accept the ideathat there should be moments... ...in which you're not tryingto do anything. i think, uh,it's our nature, uh, to do things. i think we should do things.
i think that, uh, purposefulness... ...is part of our ineradicablebasic human structure. and to say that we ought tobe able to live without it... ...is like saying that, uh, a tree ought tobe able to live without branches or roots. but... but actually, without branchesor roots, it wouldn't be a tree. i mean, it would just be a log.do you see what i'm saying? uh-huh. uh-huh. i mean, in other words, if i'm sitting at homeand i have nothing to do... ...well, i naturally reach for a book.
i mean, what would be so great aboutjust sitting there and, uh, doing nothing? it just seems absurd. and if debby is there? well, that's just the same thing. i mean, is there reallysuch a thing as, uh... ...two people doing nothingbut just being together? i mean, would they simply then... ...be, uh, " relating,"to use the word we're always using? i mean, what would that mean?
i mean, either we'regonna have a conversation... ...or we're going to, uh,carry out the garbage... ...or we're going to do something,separately or together. i mean, do you see what i'm saying? i mean, what does it meanto just, uh, simply, uh, sit there? that makes you nervous. well, well, why shouldn't it make me nervous?it just seems ridiculous to me. that's interesting, wally. you know, when i went to ladakh in westerntibet and stayed on a farm for a month...
...well, there, you know, when people come overin the evening for tea, nobody says anything. unless there's something to say,but there almost never is. so they just sit there and drink their tea,and it doesn't seem to bother them. i mean, you see, the trouble, wally,with always being active and doing things... ...is that i think it's quite possibleto do all sorts of things... ...and at the same timebe completely 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 them mechanically,as we were saying before?
because i really do believethat if you're just living mechanically... ...then you have to change your life. i mean, you know, when you're young,you go out on dates all the time. you go dancing or something.you're floating free. and then one day suddenlyyou find yourself in a relationship... ...and suddenly everything freezes. and this can be truein your work as well. and i mean, of course,if you're really alive inside... ...then of course there's no problem.
i mean, if you're living with somebodyin one little room... ...and there's a life going on between youand the person you're living with... ...well, then a whole adventurecan be going on right in that room. but there's always the dangerthat things can go 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. you know, it's not that wonderfulto spend your life on the road. my own overwhelming preferenceis to stay in that room if you can.
but you know, if you live with somebody fora long time, people are constantly saying... "well, of course it's not as greatas it used to be, but that's only natural. the first blush of a romance goes,and that's the way it has to be. " now, i totally disagree with that. but i do think that you have to constantly askyourself the question, with total frankness: is your marriage still a marriage? is the sacramental element there? just as you have to ask aboutthe sacramental element in your work... is it still there?
i mean, it's a very frightening thing, wally,to have to suddenly realize... ...that, my god, i thought i was living my life,but in fact i haven't been a human being. i've been a performer. i haven't been living. i've been acting.i've... i've acted the role of the father. i've acted the role of the husband.i've acted the role of the friend. i've acted the role of the writer,or director, or what have you. i've lived in the same room with this person,but i haven't really seen them. i haven't really heard them.i haven't really been with them. yeah, i know some peopleare just sometimes...
...uh, existing just side by side. i mean, uh, the other person's, uh, facecould just turn into a great wolf's face... ...and, uh, it just wouldn't be noticed. and it wouldn't be noticed, no.it wouldn't be noticed. i mean, when i was in israela little while ago... i mean, i have this picture of chiquitathat was taken when she... i always carry it with me. it was takenwhen she was about 26 or something. and it's in summer,and she's stretched out on a terrace... ...in this sort of old-fashioned long skirtthat's kind of pulled up.
and she's slim and sensualand beautiful. and i've always looked at that pictureand just thought about just how sexy she looks. and then last year in israel,i looked at the picture... ...and i realized that that face in the picturewas the saddest face in the world. that girl at that time was just lost... ...so sad and so alone. i've been carrying this picture for yearsand not ever really seeing what it is, you know. i just never reallylooked at the picture. and then, at a certain point, i realized i'djust gone for a good 18 years unable to feel...
...except in the most extreme situations. i mean, to some extent, i still hadthe ability to live in my work. that was why i was such a work junkie. that was why i felt that every play that i didwas a matter of my life or my death. but in my real life, i was dead. i was a robot. i mean, i didn't even allow myselfto get angry or annoyed. i mean, you know, todaychiquita, nicolas, marina... all day long, as people do, they do things thatannoy me and they say things that annoy me.
and today i get annoyed.and they say, " why are you annoyed?" and i say, " because you're annoying,"you know. and when i allowed myselfto consider the possibility... ...of not spendingthe rest of my life with chiquita... i realized that what i wanted most in lifewas to always be with her. but at that time, i hadn't learned whatit would be like to let yourself react... ...to another human being. and if you can't reactto another person... ...then there's no possibilityof action or interaction.
and if there isn't, i don't really knowwhat the word " love" means... ...except duty, obligation,sentimentality, fear. i don't know about you, wally, but i... i just had to put myself into a kind of trainingprogram to learn how to be a human being. i mean, how did i feel about anything?i didn't know. what kind of things did i like? what kind ofpeople did i really want to be with? you know? and the only waythat i could think of to find out... ...was to just cut out all the noiseand stop performing all the time... ...and just listen to what was inside me.
see, i think a time comeswhen 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 cut out the noise. yeah. of course, personally,i- i just, uh... i usually don't, uh...like those quiet moments, you know. i really don't. i mean, uh, i don't know ifit's that, uh, freudian thing or what... but, uh, you know, the fearof unconscious impulses...
...or my own aggressionor whatever, but, uh... ...if things get too quiet, and i find myselfjust, uh, sitting there... ...you know,as we were saying before... i mean, whether i'm by myself,or-or i'm-i'm with someone else... i just, uh...i just have this feeling of... ...uh, my god,i'm going to be revealed. in other words, i'm adequateto do any sort of a task, um... ...but i'm not adequate, uh,just to... to be a human being. i mean, in other words, i'm not, uh...
if i'm just, uh, trapped thereand i'm not allowed to do things... ...but all i can do is just,um, be there... ...well, i'll just fail. i mean, in other words, uh... i can pass any other sort of a test... ...and, you know, i can even get an " a"if i put in the required effort... ...but i just don't, uh... i just don't have a cluehow to pass this test. i mean... i mean, of course,i realize this isn't a test...
...but, um, i see it as a test... ...and i feel i'm going to fail it. i mean, it's... it's very scary. i just feel, uh,just totally at sea.i mean... well, you know,i could imagine a life, wally... ...in which each day would becomean incredible, monumental, creative task... ...and we're not necessarily up to it. i mean, if you felt like walking outon the person you live with, you'd walk out. then if you felt like it,you'd come back.
but meanwhile, the other personwould have reacted to your walking out. it would be a life of such feeling. i mean, what was amazingin the workshops i led... ...was how quickly people seemedto fall into enthusiasm... ...celebration,joy, wonder,abandon, wildness, tenderness. could we stand to live like that? yeah, i think it's that moment of contactwith another person. i mean, that's what scares us. i mean, that moment of beingface to face with another person.
i mean, now... you wouldn't think it would be so frightening.it's strange that we find it so frightening. well, it isn't that strange. i mean, first of all, there are somepretty good reasons for being frightened. i mean, you know, the human beingis a complex and dangerous creature. i mean, really,if you start 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 really is somethingto strive for, i think, i really do.
yeah, it's just so patheticif one doesn't do that. of course there's a problem, because the closeryou come, i think, to another human being... ...the more completely mysterious...and unreachable... ...that person becomes. i mean, you know, you have to reach out,you have to go back and forth with them... ...and you have to relate, and yet you'rerelating to a ghost or something. i don't know,because we're ghosts. we're phantoms.who are we? and that's to face, to confront the factthat you're completely alone.
and to accept that you're aloneis to accept death. you mean, because somehow when youare alone, you're alone with death. i mean, nothing's obstructing your view of it,or something like that. right. you know, if i understood it correctly,i think, uh, heidegger said... ...that, uh, if you were to experienceyour own being to the full... ...you'd be experiencing the decayof that being toward death... ...as a part of your experience. you know, in the sexual act there'sthat moment of complete forgetting...
...which is so incredible. then in the next moment,you start to think about things: ...work on the play,what you've got to do tomorrow. i don't know if this is true of you,but i think it must be quite common. the world comes in quite fast. now, that again may be because we'reafraid to stay in that place of forgetting... ...because that, again, is close to death. like peoplewho are afraid to go to sleep. in other words, you interrelate, and youdon't know what the next moment will bring.
and to not knowwhat the next moment will bring... ...brings you closerto a perception of death. you see, that's why i thinkthat people have affairs. i mean, you know, in the theater,if you get good reviews... ...you feel for a momentthat you've got your hands on something. you know what i mean?i mean, it's a good feeling. but then that feeling goes quite quickly. and once again you don't knowquite what you should do next. what'll happen?
well, have an affair,and up to a certain point... ...you can really feelthat you're on firm ground, you know. there's a sexual conquest to be made.there are different questions. does she enjoy the ears being nibbled? how intensely can you talk about schopenhauerat some elegant french restaurant? whatever nonsense it is. it's all, i think, to give you the semblancethat there's firm earth. well, have a real relationshipwith a person that goes on for years... that's completely unpredictable.
then you've cut off all your ties to the land,and you're sailing into the unknown... ...into uncharted seas. i mean, you know, people hold on to theseimages of father, mother, husband, wife... ...again for the same reason... 'cause they seem to providesome firm ground. but there's no wife there. what does that mean?a wife. a husband. a son. a baby holds your hands...
...and then suddenly there's this huge manlifting you off the ground... ...and then he's gone. where's that son? all the other customersseemed to have left hours ago. we got the bill,and andrã© paid for our dinner. really? i treated myself to a taxi. i rode home through the city streets. there wasn't a street,there wasn't a building...
...that wasn't connectedto some memory in my mind. there, i was buying a suitwith my father. there, i was havingan ice cream soda after school. when i finally came in,debby was home from work... ...and i told her everythingabout my dinner with andrã©.
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