My Dinner with Andre (1981) - full transcript

Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, apparently playing themselves, share their lives over the course of an evening meal at a restaurant. Gregory, a theater director from New York, is the more talkative of the pair. He relates to Shawn his tales of dropping out, traveling around the world, and experiencing the variety of ways people live, such as a monk who could balance his entire weight on his fingertips. Shawn listens avidly, but questions the value of Gregory's seeming abandonment of the pragmatic aspects of life.

[ Shawn Narrating]

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 work

to try to make a living...

I became an actor...

and people don't hire you.

So you just spend your days

doing the errands of your trade,

Today I'd had to be up

by 10:00 in the morning...

to make some

important phone calls.

Then I'd gone to the stationery store

to buy envelopes. Then to the Xerox shop.

There were dozens of things to do.

By 5:00 I'd finally made it

to the post office...

and mailed off

several copies of my plays...

meanwhile checking constantly

with my answering service...

to see if my agent

had called with any acting work.

In the morning, the mailbox

had 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 old

I was rich, I was an aristocrat...

riding around in taxis,

surrounded by comfort...

and all I thought about

was 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 than

to go home and have my girlfriend Debby...

cook me a nice, delicious dinner.

But for the last several years

our financial circumstances...

have forced Debby to work

three nights a week as a waitress.

After all, somebody had to

bring in a little money.

So I was on my own.

But the worst thing of all was that I'd been

trapped by an odd series of circumstances...

into agreeing to have dinner

with a man I'd been avoiding literally for years.

His name was André Gregory.

At one time he'd been

a very close friend of mine....

as well as my most valued colleague

in the theater.

In fact, he was the man

who had first discovered me...

and put one of my plays

on the professional stage,

When I'd known André, he'd been at the height

of his career as a theater director

The amazing work he did with his company

the Manhattan Project...

Had just stunned audiences

throughout the world.

But then something

had happened to André,

He dropped out of the theater.

He sort of disappeared,

For months at a time, his family seemed

only to know that he was traveling...

In some odd place like Tibet...

which was really weird

because he loved his wife and children.

He never used to like

to leave home at all,

Or else you'd hear that someone had met him

at a party and he'd been telling people...

that he talked with trees

or something like that.

Obviously, something terrible

had happened to André,

The whole idea of meeting him

made me very nervous.

I mean, I really wasn't up

for that sort of thing,

I had problems of my own.

I mean, I couldn't help André.

Was I supposed to be a doctor, or what?

- Hello.

- Hello.

- Here you go.

- Thank you.

- Yes, sir.

- Sir, my name is Wallace Shawn.

I'm expected at the table

of André Gregory.

That table will be a moment, sir.

If you like,

you may have a drink at the bar.

- Good evening, sir.

- 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 André, and he'd suggested

that we meet in this particular restaurant...

I'd been rather surprised, because

André's taste used to be very ascetic...

even though people have always known

that he had some money somewhere.

I mean, how the hell else could he have

been flying off to Asia and so on...

and still have been supporting his family?

The reason I was meeting André was that

an acquaintance of mine, George Grassfield...

had called me

and just insisted that I had to see him.

Apparently, George had been walking his dog

in an odd section of town the night before...

and he'd suddenly come upon André...

leaning against a crumbling old building

and sobbing.

André had explained to George

that he'd just been watching....

the Ingmar Bergman movie

Autumn Sonata...

about 25 blocks away...

and he'd been seized

by a fit of ungovernable crying...

when the character played

by Ingrid Bergman had said...

"I could always live in my art,

but never in my life."

Wally!

- Wow.

- My God.

[Wally Narrating] I remember, when I first

started working with André's company...

I couldn't get over the way the actors

would 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.

[ Wally Narrating]

I was feeling incredibly nervous.

I wasn't sure I could stick through

an entire meal with him.

Great.

So we talked about this and that.

He told me a few things

about Jerzy Grotowski...

the great Polish theater director...

who was a friend and almost like

a kind of a guru of André's.

He'd also dropped out of the theater.

Grotowski was a pretty

unusual character himself

At one time, he'd been quite fat, then he'd

lost an incredible amount of weight...

and become very thin

and grown a beard.

- Your table is ready, if you feel like sitting down.

- Oh.

- Oh.

- Yes. Thank you.

[Wally Narrating] I was beginning to realize

that the only way to make this evening bearable...

would be to ask André

a few questions.

Asking questions always relaxes me,

In fact, I sometimes think

that 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?

I think we can do without this.

- Yes, sir.

- Thank you.

What about this one?

Seven swimming shrimp.

- Ready for your order?

- Ah, yes.

Uh, the Galuska...

How do you prepare that?

[Wally Narrating] André seemed

to 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 think I'll have

the 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 pate;

light, made of fish.

- Does it have bones in it?

- No bones.

Perfectly safe.

Well, um - What is

the Bramborova Polévka?

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 time

that we saw each other?

[Wally Narrating] So we talked for a while

about 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.

[Wally] Finally, I got around to asking him

what he'd been up to in the last few years.

Oh, God. I'm just dying to hear it.

- Really?

- Really.

At first, he seemed

a little reluctant to go into it...

so I just kept asking,

and finally he started to answer.

...conference

on paratheatrical work then.

And, this must have been

about five years ago...

and, Grotowski and I were walking

along Fifth Avenue and we were talking.

You see, he'd invited me to come

to teach that summer in Poland.

You know, to teach a workshop

to 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 plays

seemed ridiculous.

I didn't know what to do.

I mean, I just couldn't do it.

So he said, "Why don't you tell me anything

you'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 speak

neither English nor French...

...either women who've been in the theater

for 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 play

the 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 have

some very interesting men...

...but you don't have to work with them.

...These are all people who have in common

the 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 forest

were 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 this

wonderful group of young men and women.

And the forest he had found us

was absolutely magical.

You know, it was a huge forest.

I mean, the trees were so large...

that four or five people linking their arms

couldn't get their arms around the trees.

So we were camped out beside

the ruins of this tiny little castle...

and we would eat around this great stone slab

that served as a sort of a table.

And our schedule was that usually

we'd start work around sunset...

and then generally we'd work

until about 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning.

And then, because the Poles

love to sing and dance...

we'd sing and dance until about

10:00 or 11:00 in the morning.

And then we'd have our food, which

was generally bread, jam, cheese and tea.

And then we'd sleep

from around noon to sunset,

Now, technically, of course.

Technically, the situation

is a very interesting one...

because if you find yourself in a forest

with 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 do

is just sit there and wait...

for someone to have

an impulse to do something.

Now, in a way that's something

like a theatrical improvisation.

I mean, you know, if you were a director

working on a play by Chekhov...

you might have the actors playing

the mother, the son and the uncle...

all sit around in a room and do

a 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 rainy

Sunday afternoon on Sorin's estate...

and you're all trapped

in the drawing room together."

And then everyone would improvise...

saying and doing what their character

might 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 follow

the 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 situation

to hide behind...

and there's no other person

to hide behind.

What you're doing, in fact,

is you're asking those same questions...

that Stanislavsky said the actor should

constantly 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 going

right back to childhood...

where a group of children simply come

into a room or are brought into a room...

without toys... and begin to play.

Grown-ups were learning

how to play again.

So, you would,

all sit together somewhere...

and, you would play in some way.

- But what would you actually do?

- Well, I could give you a good example.

You see, we worked, together

for 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 were

supposed 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 like

to participate in one.

Just instinctively I feel it would

be something interesting."

And he said, "Well, certainly.

In fact, why don't you, with your group...

lead the beehive

instead of participating in one?"

You know, 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 strangers

come 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 knew

a few fragments of this song of Saint Francis...

and it's a song in which you

thank 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 repeats itself

over and over again.

And this became our theme song.

I really must play this thing

for you one day...

because you just can't believe that a group

of people who don't know how to sing...

could create something so beautiful.

So, I decided that when the people

arrived for the beehive...

that our group would already be there

singing this very beautiful song...

and that we would simply sing it

over and over again.

One of the people decided to bring

her very large teddy bear, you know.

Well, she's a little afraid of this event.

And somebody wanted

to bring a sheet.

And somebody else wanted

to bring a large bowl of water...

in case people got hot or thirsty.

And somebody suggested

that we have candles...

that there be no artificial light,

but candlelight.

And I remember watching people

preparing for this evening.

Of course, there was no makeup,

and there were no costumes...

but it was exactly the way that people

prepare for a performance.

You know, people sort of taking off

their jewelry and their watches...

and stowing it away

and 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 15s

and what have you.

And we were just sitting there,

and we were singing this very beautiful song.

And people started to sit with us

and started to learn the song.

Now, there is, of course,

as in any performance or improvisation...

instinct for when things

are gonna get boring.

So, at a certain point... It may have taken

an hour to get there, an hour and a half...

I suddenly grabbed this teddy bear

and threw it in the air...

at which 140 or 130 people

suddenly exploded.

You know, it was like

a Jackson Pollack painting, you know.

Human beings exploded out of this tight

little 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 rhythm

mostly 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 this

and something like Hitler's Nuremberg rallies...

is, in a way, a very thin line.

Anyway, after about an hour

of this wild, hypnotic dancing...

Grotowski and I found ourselves sitting opposite

each other in the middle of this whole thing.

And we threw the teddy bear

back 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 bear

was thrown up into the air again...

at which there was another explosion

of 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 up

of shiftings of the kaleidoscope.

Now, the only other things

that I remember...

other than constantly trying

to guide this thing...

which was always involved with either

movement, rhythm, repetition or song...

Or chanting, because, two people in my group...

had brought musical instruments,

a flute and a drum...

which, of course,

are sacred instruments...

was that sometimes the room

would break up...

into six or seven different things

going on at once.

You know, six or seven

different improvisations...

all of which seemed, in some way,

related to each other.

It was like

a magnificent cobweb.

And at one point, I noticed that Grotowski

was at the center of one group...

huddled around a bunch of candles

that they'd gathered together.

And like a little child

fascinated by fire...

I saw that he had his hand right in the flame

and was holding it there.

And as I approached his group,

I wondered if I could do it.

I put my left hand in the flame and I found

I could hold it there for as long as I liked...

and there was no burn

and no pain.

But when I tried to put my right hand in the

flame, I couldn't hold it there for a second.

So Grotowski said, "lf 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 beautiful

procession with the sheet...

and there was somebody

being carried below the sheet.

You know, the sheet was like

some great biblical canopy.

And the entire group was weaving

around the room and chanting.

And then at one point,

people were dancing...

and I was dancing with a girl...

and suddenly our hands began

vibrating 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 just

hugged each other for a moment.

And, then we joined the dance again.

And then at a certain point,

hours later...

we returned to the singing

of the song of Saint Francis...

and that was the end of the beehive.

And then, again, when it was over, it was

just like the theater after a performance.

You know, people sort of put on

their earrings and their wrist watches...

and we went off

to the railroad station...

to drink a lot of beer

and 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.

God. Well, tell me some of the other things

you did with your group.

Well, I remember once

when 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 be

on an airplane...

and they've all learned from the pilot

there's something wrong with the motor.

But what was unusual

about this improvisation...

was that two people who

participated 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 die

at any moment.

And when we went to the forest,

these two disappeared...

because they understood

the experiment so well...

that they realized that to go off together

in the forest was much more important...

than any kind of experiment

the group could do as a whole.

So, about halfway

through the week...

we stumbled into

a clearing in the forest...

and the two of them

were 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 stay

in the forest, these two showed up...

and they shook me by my hands,

and they thanked me very much...

for the wonderful work

they'd been able to do, you see.

They understood what it was about.

I mean, that, of course, poses

the question of what was it about.

But it has something

to do with living,

And then on the final day

of our stay in the forest...

the whole group did something

so wonderful for me, Wally.

They arranged a christening,

a baptism, for me.

And they filled the castle with flowers.

And it was just a miracle of light...

because they had literally set up

hundreds of candles and torches.

I mean, no church

could have looked more beautiful.

There was a simple ceremony, and one

of them played the role of my godmother...

and another played the role

of my godfather.

And I was given a new name.

They called me Yendrush.

And some of the people

took it completely seriously...

and some of them found it funny.

But, I really felt

that I had a new name.

And then we had an enormous feast,

with blueberries picked from the field...

and chocolate someone

had gone a great distance to buy...

and raspberry soup and rabbit stew.

And we sang Polish songs

and Greek songs...

and everybody danced

for 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, told me

he'd seen you around that time.

He said you looked like

you'd come back from a war.

Yeah, I remember meeting him.

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 thought

there was something wrong with me,

They didn't say that, but I could tell that

that was what they thought.

But...

you see, what I think

I experienced... was...

for the first time in my life...

to know what it means

to be truly alive.

Now, that's very frightening...

because with that comes

an immediate awareness of death...

'cause they go hand in hand.

You know, the kind of impulse that led to

Walt Whitman, that led to Leaves of Grass,

That feeling of being connected

to everything...

means to also be connected to death.

And that's pretty scary.

But I really felt as if I were floating

above the ground, not walking.

You know, and I could do things

like go out to the highway...

and watch the lights go from red to green

and 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 voice

say, "Little Prince".

Of course, The Little Prince

was 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 morning

I'd got a letter...

from a young woman

who'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 town

and bought the book and started to read it...

I saw that "taming" was the most

important 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 write

an 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 something

like, "Your heart is in my hand."

Something like that.

Then I went over

to my brother's house to swim...

'cause he lives nearby in the country

and he has a pool.

And he wasn't home.

I went into his library...

and he had bought at an auction

the 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 seen

a 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 reproduction

of the letter

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 surrealists

would 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 André Breton,

another was André Derain...

the third was André -

I've got it written down somewhere.

It's not Malraux. It's, like, someone...

Another of the surrealists.

All A's, and the fourth

was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry...

who wrote The Little Prince.

And they'd shown these handprints

to some kind of expert...

without saying

whose hands they belonged to.

And under Exupéry'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 see

when the issue came out.

It came out on the newsstands

May 12, 1934...

and I was born during the day

of May 11,1934.

So, well, that's what started me on,

Saint-Exupéry and The Little Prince.

Now, of course today...

today I think there's a very fascistic thing

under The Little Prince.

You know, I...

Well, no, I think there's a kind of...

I think a kind of SS totalitarian

sentimentality in there somewhere.

You know, there's something, you know, that...

that love of...

Well, that masculine love

of 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 imagine

some beautiful SS man...

...loving The Little Prince.

Now, I don't know why, but there's

something wrong with it. It stinks.

Well, didn't George tell me that you were gonna

do 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 Japanese

Buddhist priest named Kozan...

and I thought he was Puck

from the Midsummer Night's Dream,

You know,

he had this beautiful, delicate smile.

I thought he was the Little Prince.

So, naturally, I decided

to go off to the Sahara desert...

to work on The Little Prince

with two actors and this Japanese monk.

You did?

Well, I mean, I was still in a very

peculiar state at that time, Wally.

You know, I would look

in the rearview mirror of my car.

And see little birds

flying out of my mouth.

And I remember always being

exhausted in that period.

I always felt weak. You know, I really

didn't know what was going on with me.

I would just sit out there all alone

in the country for days...

and do nothing but write in my diary.

And I was always thinking about death.

But you went to the Sahara,

Oh, yes, we went off into the desert....

and we rode through the desert

on camels.

And we rode and we rode.

And then at night we would walk out

under that enormous sky...

and look at the stars.

I just kept thinking about the same things

that I was always thinking about at home...

particularly about Chiquita.

In fact, I thought about

just about nothing but my marriage.

And then I remember

one incredibly dark night...

being at an oasis, and there were

palm trees moving in the wind...

and I could hear Kozan singing

far away in that beautiful bass voice.

And I tried to follow his voice

along the sand.

You see, I thought he had

something to teach me, Wally.

And sometimes

I would meditate with him.

Sometimes I'd go off

and meditate by myself.

You know,

I would see images of Chiquita.

Once I actually saw her growing old...

and her hair turning gray

in front of my eyes.

And I would just wail and yell my lungs out

out there on the dunes.

Anyway,

the desert was pretty horrible.

It was pretty cold.

We were searching for something, but we

couldn'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 were there.

We didn't know what we were looking for.

The entire thing seemed

completely absurd, arid and empty.

It was like, 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 back

to 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 center

missing in the house at the time,

There certainly wasn't a father,

'cause I was always thinking...

about going off to Tibet

or doing God knows what.

And so he taught the whole family

to meditate...

and he told them all about Asia and the East

and his monastery and everything.

He really captivated everybody

with an incredible bag of tricks.

He had literally

developed himself, Wally...

so that he could push on his fingers

and rise off out of his chair.

I mean, he could literally go like this...

You know, push on his fingers

and go into like a headstand...

and just hold himself there

with two fingers.

Or if Chiquita would suddenly get

a little tension in her neck...

well, he'd immediately have her down on the floor,

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 friends

who had children...

and immediately

he'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 monk

was 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 interest

in 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 kids

were just googly-eyed over him.

But then a couple of weeks later,

Chiquita and I could be out...

and Marina could have flu

or a temperature of 104...

and he wouldn't even go in

and say hello to her.

But he was taking over more and more.

I mean, his own habits

had completely changed.

You know, he started wearing these elegant

Gucci shoes under his white monk's robes.

He was eating huge amounts of food.

I mean, he ate twice as much

as Nicolas ate, you know?

This tiny little Buddhist

when 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 painful

prostrations that they do in the monastery.

You know, so really we hadn't

been working very much.

Anyway, we were out in the country, and

we all went to Christmas mass together.

You know, he was all dressed up

in his Buddhist finery.

And it was one of those awful,

dreary Catholic churches on Long Island...

where the priest talks about

communism and birth control.

And as I was sitting there in mass, I was

wondering, "What in the world is going on?"

I mean, here I am. I'm a grown man..

And there's this strange person living

in the house, and I'm not working...

You know, I was doing nothing

but 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 creature

appeared, looking at the congregation.

It was about, I'd say, 6'8"

something like that, you know...

and it was half bull, half man...

and its skin was blue.

It had violets growing out of its eyelids

and poppies growing out of its toenails.

And it just stood there

for the whole mass.

I mean, I could not make

that 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 creature

was somehow coming to comfort me...

that somehow

he was appearing to say...

"Well,you may feel low and you might

not be able to create a play right now...

but look at what can come to you

on 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, did you ever see...

that play, The Violets are Blue?

No.

Oh, when you mentioned the violets,

it reminded me of that.

It was about people...

being, strangled on a submarine.

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 lot

of 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 me

at the time, you know...

which was that I would have a flag,

a large flag...

and that wherever I worked,

this flag would fly.

Or if we were outside, say, with a group, that

the flag could be the thing we lay on at night...

and that somehow, between

working on this flag and lying on this flag...

this flag flying over us...

that the flag would pick up

vibrations of a kind...

that would still be in the flag

when I brought it home.

So I went down to meet this flag maker

that I'd heard about.

And you know, there was

this very straightforward-looking guy.

You know, very sweet, really healthy-looking

and everything. Nice big, blond.

And he had a beautiful, clean loft

down 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 I

needed 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 thought

was very odd, you know...

'cause I had, you know,

well, you know...

I had expected something

gentle and lyrical.

There was something about this

that 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 ancient

Tibetan 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 me

to have this flag in the room for the night...

to sleep with it, you know, and then

in the morning to sew something into the flag.

Sol 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 like

to spend the night with it, you know."

But she really thought

the flag was awful.

So then Chiquita threw this party

for me before I left for India...

and the apartment

was 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 white

and runs out of the room and vomits.

So the party just comes to a halt

and breaks up.

And then the next day

I 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 anything

about any of this.

At 5:00 in the morning,

she called me up and she said...

"I got to 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 know

you 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,

she had a ceremony with it...

six months later, in France,

with some friends...

in which, they did burn it.

God.

That's really, really amazing.

So, did you ever go to India?

Oh, yes, I went to India

in the spring, Wally...

and I came back home

feeling 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 spending, the summer

on Long Island with my family...

and I heard about this community

in Scotland called Findhorn...

where people sang and talked

and meditated with plants.

And it was founded by several rather

middle-class English and Scottish eccentrics.

Some of them intellectuals,

and some of them not.

And I'd heard that they'd

grown things in soil...

that supposedly nothing can grow in,

'cause it's almost beach soil...

and that they'd built, not built, they'd

grown the largest cauliflowers in the world...

and there are sort of cabbages.

And they've grown trees

that can't grow in the British Isles.

So I went there.

I mean, it is an amazing place, Wally.

I mean, if there are insects

bothering the plants...

they will talk with the insects

and, you know, make an agreement...

by which they'll set aside a special patch

of vegetables just for the insects...

and then the insects

will leave the main part alone.

- Huh.

- Things like that.

And everything they do

they 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 respect

than you would Margaret, your wife...

you know, you make sure that Helen is as clean

as 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 running

through the woods as fast as I could...

with this incredible laugh

coming 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 airplane

all had animals' faces.

I mean, I was on a trip. It was like being

in 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 together

at midnight in my hotel room...

and we drank instant coffee

out of the top of my shaving cream...

and we talked from midnight

until 11:00 the next morning.

- God. What did he say?

- Nothing!

I talked. He didn't say a word.

And then I guess really...

the last big experience of this kind

took place that fall.

It was out at Montauk on Long Island...

and there were only about nine

of us involved, mostly men.

And we borrowed Dick Avedon's property

out at Montauk.

And the country out there

is like Heathcliff country.

It's absolutely wild.

What we wanted to do was

we wanted to take, you know...

We wanted to take All Souls' Eve,

Halloween...

and use it as a point of departure

for something.

So each one of us prepared

some sort of event for the others...

somehow in the spirit

of All Souls' Eve.

But the biggest event

was three of the people...

kept disappearing

in the middle of the night each night...

and we knew they were

preparing 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 cliff

and 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, Bill

and Fred... showed up wearing white.

You know, something they'd made out

of sheets... looked a little spooky, not funny.

And they took us into the basement of this house

that had burned down on the property.

And in this ruined basement, they had set up

a 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 table

and to make out our last will and testament.

You know, to think about and write down

whatever 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 about

an hour and a half or so, maybe two.

And then one at a time they would ask

one 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 room

that had once had tools in it.

And they took me down the steps,

into this basement...

and the room was just filled

with harsh white light.

Then they told me to get undressed

and give them all my valuables.

Then they put me on a table,

and they sponged me down.

Well, you know, I just started flashing

on death camps and secret police.

I don't know what happened to the other people,

but I just started to cry uncontrollably.

Uh, then they got me to my feet

and 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 together

for warmth against the cold.

Must have been left there

for 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 lowered

onto something like a stretcher.

And the stretcher was carried a long way,

very slowly, through these forests...

and then I felt myself

being lowered into the ground.

They had, in fact, dug six graves...

eight feet deep.

And then I felt these pieces of wood

being put on me.

And I cannot tell you, Wally,

what I was going through.

And then the stretcher was lowered

into 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 much

above my head...

and then they shoveled dirt

into the grave...

so that I really had the feeling

of being buried alive.

And after being in the grave

for about half an hour...

I mean, I didn't know how long

I'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 things

anymore, 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,

thinking about it very much...

I went to see this agent I know to tell him

I was interested in directing plays again.

Actually,

he seemed a little surprised...

to see that Rip Van Winkle

was still alive.

Mmm.

God.

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 kind

of spoiled princess, you know.

Who did I think I was,

the Shah of Iran?

You know, I really wonder if people such

as myself are really not Albert Speer, Wally.

- You know, Hitler's architect, Albert Speer?

- What?

No, I've been thinking a lot about him recently

because, I think I am Speer.

And I think it's time that I was caught

and 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 life

didn't apply to him either.

I mean, I really feel

that everything I've done...

is horrific, just horrific.

My God. But why?

You see, I've seen a lot of death

in the last few years, Wally...

and there's one thing

that's for sure about death...

You do it alone, you see.

That seems quite certain, you see.

That I've seen. That the people

around your bed mean nothing.

Your reviews mean nothing.

Whatever it is, you do it alone.

And so the question is, when I get on my

deathbed, what kind of a person am I gonna be?

And I'm just very dubious about the kind

of 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 time

in the last few months, Wally.

Three different people in my family

were 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, I mean,

I'm feeling very raw right now.

I mean, I can't sleep,

my nerves are shot.

I mean, I'm affected by everything.

You know, last week I had this really nice

director from Norway over for dinner...

and he's someone

I've known for years and years...

and he's somebody

that I think I'm quite fond of.

And I was sitting there just thinking

that he was a pompous, defensive...

conservative stuffed shirt

who was only interested in the theater.

He was talking and talking. His mother

had 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 story

about his mother.

You know, I'd heard these stories

20 times in the past.

He was drinking this whole bottle

of 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 son

had done to him.

You know, so at a certain point I just had

to ask him to leave... nicely, you know.

I told him I had to get up early

the next morning, 'cause it was so horrible.

It was just as if he had died

in my living room.

You know, then I went into the bathroom

and 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 had

just won the something.

Some sports event, some kind of a great big

check and some kind of huge silver bottle.

And he, you know, he couldn't stuff

the check in the bottle...

and he put the bottle in front of his nose

and pretended it was his face.

He wasn't really listening

to 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 see

this show about Billie Holiday.

I looked at these show business people who

know 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 I was

just sitting there, crying through most of the show.

And I suddenly had this feeling

I was just as creepy as they were...

and that my whole life

had been a sham...

and I didn't have the guts

to be Billie Holiday either.

I mean, I really feel

that I'm just washed up, wiped out.

I feel I've just squandered my life.

André, now, how can you say

something like that?

I mean,

Well, you know, I may be in

a very emotional state right now, Wally...

but since I've come back home I've just

been finding the world we're living in...

more and more upsetting.

I mean, last week I went down

to the Public Theater one afternoon.

You know, when I walked in,

I said hello to everybody...

'cause I know them all, and they all know me,

they're always very friendly.

You know that seven or eight people

told me how wonderful I looked?

And then one person, one, a woman

who runs the casting office, said...

"Gee, you look horrible.

ls something wrong?"

Now, she, you know, we started talking.

Of course, I started telling her things.

And she suddenly burst into tears

because an aunt of hers who's 80...

whom she's very fond of, went into

the 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 bed

and is now a complete cripple.

So you know, we were talking

about hospitals.

Now, you know, this woman,

because of who she is...

You know, 'cause this had happened

to her very, very recently.

She could see me with complete clarity.

She didn't know anything

about what I'd been going through.

But the other people, what they saw

was this tan, or this shirt...

or the fact that the shirt

goes well with the tan.

So they said, "Gee, you look wonderful."

Now, they're living

in an insane dream world.

They're not looking.

That seems very strange to me.

Right, because they just didn't

see anything, somehow...

except, the few little things

that they wanted to see.

Yeah, you know, it's like what happened

just before my mother died.

You know, we'd gone to the hospital

to see my mother...

and I went in to see her...

and I saw this woman who looked as bad

as any survivor of Auschwitz or Dachau.

And I was out in the hall

sort of comforting my father...

when a doctor who was a specialist

in a problem she had with her arm...

went into her room

and came out just beaming.

And he said, "Boy, don't we have

a lot of reason to feel great?

Isn't it wonderful

how she's coming along?"

Now, all he saw was the arm.

That's all he saw.

Now, here's another person

who's existing in a dream.

Who, on top of that,

is a kind of butcher...

who's committing

a 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 confused

and frightened...

'cause the moment before,

we saw somebody who already looked dead...

and now here comes a specialist

who tells us they're in wonderful shape.

I mean, they were literally

driving my father crazy.

I mean, you know, here's an 82-year-old man

who'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 then

a 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 Theater

didn't see me.

I mean, we're just walking around

in some kind of fog.

I think we're all in a trance.

We're walking around like zombies.

I don't think we're even aware

of ourselves or our own reaction to things.

We're just going around all day

like unconscious machines...

and meanwhile there's all of this rage

and worry and uneasiness...

just building up

and building up inside us.

That's right. lt just builds up...

and then it just leaps out

inappropriately.

I mean, I remember

when I was, acting in this play...

based on The Master and Margarita

by Bulgakov.

And I was playing the part of the cat.

But they had trouble,

making up my cat suit...

so I didn't get it delivered to me

till 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 actors

actually came up to me...

and they said these things

which I just couldn't help thinking...

were attempts to destroy me.

You know, one of them said,

"Oh, well, now that head...

...will totally change your hearing

in the performance.

...You may hear everything

completely differently...

...and it may be very upsetting.

"Now, I was once in a performance

where I was wearing earmuffs...

and I couldn't hear anything

anybody said."

And then another one said, "Oh, you know,

whenever I wear even a hat on stage...

...I tend to faint."

I mean, those remarks

were 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 hostility

was completely inappropriate...

because, in fact,

those people liked me.

I mean, that hostility was just

some feeling that was, you know...

left over from

some previous experience.

Because somehow

in our social existence today...

we're only allowed to

express our feelings.

Weirdly and indirectly.

If you express them directly,

everybody goes crazy.

Well, did you express your feelings

about what those people said to you?

No. I mean, I didn't even know

what I felt till I thought about it later.

And I mean, at the most, you know,

in a situation like that...

even if I had known what I felt...

I might say something,

if I'm really annoyed...

like, "Oh, yeah.

Well, that's just fascinating...

and, I probably will

faint tonight, just as you did."

I do just the same thing myself.

We can't be direct, so we end up

saying the weirdest things.

I mean, I remember a night. It was

a couple of weeks after my mother died.

And I was in pretty bad shape.

And I had dinner with three

relatively close friends...

two of whom had

known my mother quite well...

and all three of whom

had known me for years.

You know that we went through that

entire evening without my being able to...

for a moment,

get anywhere near what...

Not that I wanted to sit

and have this dreary evening...

in which I was talking about all this pain

that 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 mentioned

a certain man whom I don't like very much...

and I started screeching about how

he 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 just

been desperate to break through this ice.

Yeah.

I mean, do you realize, Wally, if you brought

that 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 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 was

the most unimaginable behavior.

But for us, that's common behavior.

I mean, really, the Africans would have

probably put their spears into all four of us...

'cause it would have driven them crazy.

They would have thought we were

dangerous animals or something like that.

- Right.

- I mean, that's absolutely abnormal behavior.

Is everything all right, gentlemen?

- Great.

- Yeah.

But those are

typical evenings for us.

I mean, we go to dinners and parties

like that all the time.

These evenings are really

like sort of sickly dreams...

because people are talking in symbols.

Everyone is sort of floating through

this fog of symbols and unconscious feelings.

No one says what they're

really thinking about.

Then people will start making these jokes

that are really some sort of secret code.

Right. Well, what often happens

in some of these evenings...

is that these really crazy little fantasies

will just start being played with, you know...

and everyone will be talking at once

and sort of saying...

"Hey, wouldn't it be great if Frank Sinatra

and Mrs. Nixon and blah-blah-blah...

were in such and such a situation?"

You know, always with famous people,

and always sort of grotesque.

Or people will be talking about

some horrible thing...

like, the death of that girl

in the car with Ted Kennedy...

and they'll just be

roaring with laughter.

I mean, it's really amazing.

It's just unbelievable.

That's the only way anything is expressed,

through these completely insane jokes.

I mean, I think that's why I never understand

what's going on at a party.

I'm always completely confused.

You know, Debby once said,

after one of these New York evenings...

she thought she'd traveled

a greater distance...

just by journeying from her origins

in the suburbs of Chicago...

to that New York evening...

than her grandmother had traveled

in, making her way...

from the steppes of Russia

to the suburbs of Chicago.

I think that's right.

You know, it may be, Wally,

that one of the reasons...

that we don't know

what's going on...

is that when we're there at a party,

we're all too busy performing.

That was one of the reasons

that, Grotowski gave up the theater.

He just felt that people in their lives now

were performing so well...

that performance in the theater

was sort of superfluous...

and, in a way, obscene.

Huh.

Isn't it amazing

how often a doctor...

will live up to our expectation

of how a doctor should look?

When you see a terrorist on television,

he looks just like a terrorist.

I mean, we live in a world

in which fathers...

or single people, or artists...

are all trying to live up

to 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 how

they ought to conduct themselves...

at every single moment.

And they all seem totally self-confident.

Of course, privately people

are very mixed up about themselves.

Yeah.

They don't know what they should

be 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 are

to know how all the others of us...

are really getting on in life...

even though, by performing

these roles all the time...

we're just hiding the reality of ourselves

from everybody else.

I mean, we live in such

ludicrous ignorance of each other.

We usually don't know

the things we'd like to know...

even about our supposedly

closest friends.

I mean, you know..

Suppose you're going through

some kind of hell in your own life.

Well, you would love to know if your friends

have experienced similar things.

But we just don't dare to ask each other.

No. It would be like asking

your friend to drop his role.

I mean, we just put no value at all

on perceiving reality.

I mean, on the contrary, this incredible

emphasis that we all place now...

on our so-called careers...

automatically makes perceiving reality

a very low priority...

because if your life is organized around

trying to be successful in a career...

well, it just doesn't matter what

you perceive or what you experience.

You can really sort of shut your mind off

for years ahead, in a way.

You can sort of

turn on the automatic pilot.

You know, just the way your mother's doctor

had on his automatic pilot...

when he went in

and he looked at the arm...

and he totally failed

to perceive anything else.

That's right. Our minds are just

focused on these goals and plans...

which in themselves

are not reality.

No. Goals and plans are not...

I mean, they're fantasy.

They're part of a dream life.

I mean,you know, it always just

does seem so ridiculous, somehow...

that everybody has to have

his little goal in life.

I mean, it's so absurd, in a way, when you

consider that it doesn't matter which one it is.

Right. And because people's

concentration is on their goals...

in their life

they just live each moment by habit.

Really, like the Norwegian telling

the same stories over and over again.

Life becomes habitual.

And it is today.

I mean, very few things happen now

like that moment...

when Marlon Brando sent the Indian woman

to accept the Oscar...

and everything went haywire.

Things just very rarely

go 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."

Huh.

- Do you know about Roc?

- Hmm?

Oh, well.

Roc was a wonderful man.

He was one of the founders

of Findhorn...

and he was one of Scotland's, well,

he was Scotland's greatest mathematician...

and he was one of the century's

great mathematicians.

And he prided himself on the fact

that he had no fantasy life, no dream life...

nothing to stand by, no imaginary life...

nothing to stand between him

and the direct perception of mathematics.

And one day when he was in his mid-60s,

he was walking in the gardens of Edinburgh...

and he saw a faun.

The faun was very surprised because fauns

have always been able to see people...

but you know,

very few people ever see them.

You know,

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 would

come 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 him

if he would like to meet Pan...

because Pan would like to meet him.

And of course,

Pan was afraid of terrifying him...

because he knew

of 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 him

on his way on a journey...

in which he met the other people

who began Findhorn.

But Roc used to practice

certain exercises...

like, for instance,

if he were right-handed...

all today he would do everything

with 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 simple

exercises that he had invented...

just to keep

seeing, feeling, remembering.

Because you have to learn now.

It didn't used to be necessary,

but today you have to learn something...

like, 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 to

the Buddhist Meditation Center...

they make you taste

each bite of your food...

so it takes two hours...

it's horrible, to eat your lunch.

But you're conscious

of 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 reality

of what's happening to you.

You enter the dream world again.

Now, do you think maybe

we live in this dream world...

because we do so many things every day

that affect us in ways...

that somehow

we're just not aware of?

I mean, you know, I was thinking,

um, last Christmas...

Debby and I were given

an electric blanket.

I can tell you that it is just

such a marvelous advance...

...over our old way of life, and it is just great.

But, it is quite different

from not having an electric blanket...

and I sometimes sort of wonder,

well, what is it doing to me?

I mean, I sort of feel,

I'm not sleeping quite in the same way.

No, you wouldn't be.

I mean, and my dreams

are sort of different...

and I feel a little bit different

when I get up in the morning.

I wouldn't put an electric blanket on

for 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 reality

in a very direct way.

- You mean...

- I mean, if you don't have that electric blanket...

and your apartment is cold

and you need to put on another blanket...

or go into the closet and pile up coats

on 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 world

who 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 more

because 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 lobotomized

by watching television.

I think you enter

the dream world again.

I mean, what does it do to us, Wally,

living in an environment...

where something as massive

as 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 instead

of living under the sun...

and the moon and the sky

and the stars...

we're living in a fantasy world

of our own making.

Yeah, but I mean, I would never

give up my electric blanket, André.

I mean, because New York

is cold in the winter.

I mean, our apartment is cold.

It's a difficult environment.

I mean, our lives

are tough enough as it is.

I'm not looking for ways to get rid of

the few things that provide relief and comfort.

I mean, on the contrary,

I'm looking for more comfort...

because, the world is very abrasive.

I mean,

I'm trying to protect myself...

because, really, there are these abrasive

beatings to be avoided everywhere you look.

But, Wally, don't you see

that comfort can be dangerous?

I mean, you like to be comfortable,

and I like to be comfortable too...

but comfort can lull you

into a dangerous tranquillity.

I mean, my mother knew

a woman, Lady Hatfield...

who was one of the richest women

in the world...

and she died of starvation

because 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 believe

that we're all like Lady Hatfield now.

We're having a lovely, comfortable time

with our electric blankets and our chicken...

and meanwhile we're starving because

we'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 actions

affect other people.

Have you read Martin Buber's book

On Hasidism?

- No.

- Well, here's a view of life.

I mean, he talks about the belief

of the Hasidic Jews...

that there are spirits chained

in everything.

There are spirits chained in you.

There are spirits chained in me.

Well, there are spirits chained

in this table.

And that prayer is the action of liberating

these enchained embryo-like spirits...

and that every action of ours in life...

whether it's,

doing business, or making love...

or having dinner together,

or whatever...

that every action of ours

should be a prayer...

a sacrament in the world.

Now, do you think we're living like that?

Why do you think

we're not living like that?

I think it's because if we allowed ourselves

to 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 difference

between that...

and the Southern plantation owner

who's got slaves?

You see, I think that an act of murder

is 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 way

into 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, you know,

if I would go to a party...

of professional or literary people...

I mean, I was just treated,

in the nicest sense of the word...

...like a dog.

I mean, in other words,

there was no question...

of my being able to participate on

an equal basis in a conversation with people.

I mean, you know, I'd occasionally

have conversations with people...

but then,

when they asked what I did...

which would always happen

after about five minutes...

you know, their faces...

Even if they were enjoying the conversation, or

they were flirting with me, or whatever it was...

their faces would just have that expression

just 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, when Debby was

working as a secretary, you know...

if she would tell people what she did,

they would just go insane.

I mean, it would be just

as if she'd said...

"Oh, well, I've been serving a life sentence

recently, for child murdering."

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

about our attitudes toward other people...

I mean, I think of myself...

as just a very decent,

good person, you know...

just because I think

I'm reasonably friendly...

to most of the people

I happen to meet every day.

I mean, I really think

of myself quite smugly.

I just think I'm a perfectly nice guy,

uh, you know...

so long as I think of the world

as consisting of, you know...

just the small circle of the people

that I know as friends...

or the few people that we know

in 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 world

out there that I just don't ever think about.

I certainly don't take responsibility

for how I've lived in that world.

I mean, you know, if I were actually

to sort of confront the fact...

that I'm sort of sharing this stage...

with this starving person

in Africa somewhere...

well, I wouldn't feel so great

about myself.

So naturally I just blot all those

people right out of my perception.

So, 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 things

I guess I think I'm trying to do...

is I'm trying to bring myself up

against some little bits of reality...

and I'm trying to share that,

with an audience.

I mean, of course we all know.

The theater is,

in terrible shape today.

I mean, at least a few years ago

people who really cared about the theater...

used to say, "The theater is dead."

And now everybody's redefined

the theater in such a trivial way...

that, I mean, God...

I know people who are involved with

the theater who go to see things now that...

I mean, a few years ago

these same people...

would have just been embarrassed

to 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 attitude

unbearable...

because I really do think the theater

can do something very important.

I mean, I do think the theater can help

bring 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 account

the period we're living in.

I mean, of course that's what

the 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 been

killed 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 flies

through space and he's killed...

and they rip him to shreds

and I guess cut off his head...

my impulse was that the thing to do was

to get a head from the New Haven morgue...

and pass it around the audience.

Now, I wanted Agawe

to bring on a real head...

and that this head should be

passed around the audience...

so that somehow people realized

that this stuff was real, see?

That it was real stuff.

Now, the actress playing Agawe

absolutely refused to do it.

You know, Gordon Craig

used to talk about...

why is there gold or silver in the churches

or something, the great cathedrals...

when actors could be wearing

gold and silver?

And I mean, people who saw Eleonora Duse

in the last couple of years of her life, Wally...

people said that is was like

seeing light on stage, or mist...

or the essence of something.

I mean, then when you think

about Bertolt Brecht...

He somehow created a theater

in which people could observe...

that was vastly entertaining

and exciting...

but in which the excitement

didn't overwhelm you.

He somehow allowed you the distance

between the play and yourself...

that, in fact, two human beings need

in order to live together.

You know, the question is whether

the theater now can do for an audience...

what Brecht tried to do

or what Craig or Duse tried to do.

Can it do it now?

'Cause, you see, I think that

people today are so deeply asleep...

that unless, you know, you're putting on

those sort of superficial plays...

that just help your audience

to sleep more comfortably...

it's very hard to know

what to do in the theater.

Because, you see, I think that if you

put on serious, contemporary plays...

by writers like yourself...

you may only be helping to deaden

the audience in a different way.

What do you mean?

Well, I mean, Wally...

how does it affect an audience

to put on one of these plays...

in which you show that people

are totally isolated now...

and they can't reach each other,

and their lives are desperate?

Or how does it affect them to see a play

that shows that our world...

is full of nothing but shocking

sexual events, and terror, and violence?

Does that help to wake up

a sleeping audience?

See, I don't think so,

'cause I think it's very likely...

that the picture of the world that you're

showing them in a play like that...

is exactly the picture of the world

they have already.

I mean, you know, they know

their own lives and relationships...

are difficult and painful.

And if they watch the evening news

on television...

well, there what they see

is a terrifying, chaotic universe...

full of rapes and murders

and hands cut off by subway cars...

and children pushing their parents

out of windows.

So the play tells them that

their impression of the world is correct...

and that there's absolutely no way out.

There's nothing they can do.

And they end up feeling

passive and impotent.

I mean, look, at something

like that christening...

that my group arranged for me

in the forest in Poland.

Well, there was an example of something

that really had all the elements of theater.

It was worked on carefully.

It was thought about carefully.

It was done with

exquisite 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 something

that had ritual, love, surprise...

denouement,

beginning, a middle and end...

and was an incredibly beautiful

piece of theater.

And the impact that it had

on 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 saying

that it's impossible...

I mean, isn't it a little upsetting...

to come to the conclusion that there's

no way to wake people up anymore...

except to involve them in some kind

of a strange, christening in Poland...

or some kind of a strange experience

on top of Mount Everest?

I mean, because,

you know that the awful thing is...

if you really say that it's necessary...

to take everybody to Everest...

it's really tough, because everybody

can't be taken to Everest.

I mean, there must have been periods in history

when it would have been possible...

to, save the patient

through less drastic measures.

I mean, there must have been periods

when in order to give people...

a strong or meaningful experience...

you wouldn't actually have to

take them to Everest.

But you do now.

In some way or other, you do now.

You know, there was a time when you

could have just, for instance, written...

I don't know,

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

And I'm sure the people who read it had

a pretty strong experience. I'm sure they did.

I mean, all right, now you're saying

that people today wouldn't get it.

Maybe that's true. But I mean, isn't there

any kind of writing or any kind of a play...

I mean, isn't it still legitimate

for writers...

to try to portray reality

so that people can see it?

I mean, really, tell me, why do we

require a trip to Mount Everest...

in order to be able to perceive

one moment of reality?

I mean, is Mount Everest

more real than New York?

I mean, isn't New York real?

I mean, you see, I think if you

could become fully aware...

of what existed in the cigar store

next door to this restaurant...

I think it would just

blow your brains out.

I mean, isn't there

just as much reality to be perceived...

in a cigar store

as there is on Mount Everest?

I mean, what do you think?

I think that not only is there nothing

more real about Mount Everest...

I think there's nothing that different,

in a certain way.

I mean, because reality

is uniform, in a way...

so that if your, if your perceptions are...

I mean, if your own mechanism

is operating correctly...

it would become irrelevant to go

to Mount Everest, and sort of absurd...

because, I mean, it just,

I mean, of course, on some level, I mean...

obviously it's very different

from a cigar store on 7th Avenue.

- But I mean...

- Well, I agree with you, Wally.

But the problem is that people

can't see the cigar store now.

I mean, things don't affect people

the way they used to.

I mean, it may very well be

that 10 years from now...

people will pay $10,000 in cash

to be castrated...

just in order to be affected by something.

Well, why do you think that is?

I mean, why is that?

I mean, is it just because people

are lazy today, or they're bored?

I mean, are we just

like bored, spoiled children...

who've just been lying

in 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 boredom

that we see in the world now...

may very well be a self-perpetuating,

unconscious form of brainwashing...

created by a world totalitarian government

based on money...

and that all of this is much more dangerous

than one thinks...

and it's not just a question

of individual survival, Wally...

but that somebody who's bored

is asleep...

and somebody who's asleep

will not say no?

See, I keep meeting these people...

I mean, just a few days ago...

I met this man whom I greatly admire.

He's a Swedish physicist.

Gustav Bjornstrand.

And he told me that he

no longer watches television...

he doesn't read newspapers,

and he doesn't read magazines.

He's completely

cut them out of his life...

because he really does feel that we're living

in some kind of Orwellian nightmare now...

and that everything that you hear now

contributes to turning you into a robot.

And when i was at Findhorn, i met

this extraordinary English tree expert...

who had devoted his life

to 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 knows

where 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 talking about

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 new

model for the new concentration camp...

...where the camp has been built

by the inmates themselves...

...and the inmates are the guards, and they

have this pride in this thing they've built.

...They've built their own prison.

...And so they exist

in a state of schizophrenia...

...where they are both guards

and prisoners.

...And as a result, they no longer have,

having been lobotomized...

...the capacity to leave

the 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 unpleasant

feeling that we really should get out.

We really feel like Jews in Germany

in the late '30s.

Get out of here.

Of course, the problem is

where to go.

'Cause it seems quite obvious that the

whole world is going in the same direction.

See, I think it's quite possible

that the 1960s...

represented the last burst of the human being

before he was extinguished...

and that this is the beginning

of the rest of the future, now...

and that from now on there'll simply be

all these robots walking around...

feeling nothing, thinking nothing.

And there'll be nobody left almost

to remind them...

that there once was a species

called a human being...

with feelings and thoughts...

and that history and memory

are right now being erased...

and soon nobody

will really remember...

that life existed on the planet.

Now, of course, Bjornstrand feels

that there's really almost no hope...

and that we're probably

going back to a very savage...

lawless, terrifying period.

Findhorn people

see it a little differently.

They're feeling that there'll be

these pockets of light...

springing up

in 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 journeys

to these different planets...

refuel for what it is we need to do

on the planet itself...

and come back.

And it's their feeling that

there have to be centers now...

where people can come and reconstruct

a new future for the world.

And when I was talking

to, Gustav Bjornstrand...

he was saying that actually these centers

are 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 attempts

at creating a new kind of school...

or a new kind of monastery.

And Bjornstrand talks about

the concept of "reserves"

islands of safety where history

can be remembered...

and the human being

can continue to function...

in order to maintain the species

through a dark age.

In other words, we're talking

about an underground...

which did exist in a different way

during the Dark Ages...

among the mystical orders

of the church.

And the purpose of this underground...

is to find out how to preserve

the light, life, the culture...

how to keep things living,

You see, I keep thinking

that 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 people

that is a new kind of poetry...

that's the poetry of the dancing bee

that tells us where the honey is.

And I think that in order

to create that language...

you're going to have to learn how

you can go through a looking glass...

into another kind of perception...

where you have that sense

of 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 also have one. Thank you.

And, could I also

have, an amaretto?

Certainly, sir.

Thank you.

You see, Wally, there's this incredible

building that they built at Findhorn.

And the man who designed it

had never designed anything in his life.

He wrote children's books.

And some people wanted it to be

a sort of hall of meditation...

and others wanted it to be

a kind of lecture hall.

But the psychic part of the community

wanted it to serve another function as well...

because they wanted it to be a kind

of spaceship which at night could rise up...

and let the UFO's know that this

was 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 roof

that would stay on the building...

but at the same time be able to fly up

at night and meet the flying saucers.

So, the architect

meditated and meditated...

and he finally came up with

the very simple solution...

of not actually joining the roof

to the building...

which means that it should fall off...

because they have great gales

up in northern Scotland.

So, to keep it from falling off,

he got beach stones from the beach...

or we did,

'cause I worked on this building...

all up and down the roof,

just like that.

And the idea was that the energy

that would flow from stone to stone...

would be so strong, you see...

that it would keep the roof down

under any conditions...

but at the same time, if the roof needed

to go up, it would be light enough to go up.

Well, it works, you see.

Now, architects

don'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 know

my actual response to all this?

- Do you want to hear my actual response?

- Yes!

See, my actual response, I mean...

I mean,

I'm just trying 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...

Ah, I live my life.

I enjoy staying home with Debby.

I'm reading Charlton Heston's

autobiography.

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 talent

together and write a little play...

well, then that's just wonderful.

And I mean, I enjoy reading about

other little plays people have written...

and reading the reviews of those plays

and what people said about them...

and what people said

about what people said.

And I mean, I have a list of errands

and 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 don't know

how anybody could enjoy anything more...

than I enjoy, reading

Charlton Heston's autobiography...

or, you know,

getting up in the morning...

and having the cup of cold coffee

that's been waiting for me all night...

still there for me

to drink in the morning...

and no cockroach or fly

has died in it overnight.

I mean, I'm just so thrilled

when 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 else

any more than that.

I mean, obviously, if the cockroach,

if there is a dead cockroach in it...

well, then I just have a feeling

of disappointment, and I'm sad.

But I mean, I just don't think...

I feel the need for anything more

than all this.

Whereas, you know,

you seem to be saying...

that, uh...

it's inconceivable that anybody could

be having a meaningful life today...

and, you know,

everyone is totally destroyed...

and we all need to live

in these outposts.

But I mean, you know,

I just can't believe, even for you...

I mean, don't you find, isn't it pleasant

just 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 play

that you may or may not direct.

Why is it necessary to, why not lean back

and just enjoy these details?

I mean, and there'd be a delicious cup

of coffee and a piece of coffeecake.

I mean, why is it necessary

to have more than this...

or to even think about

having more than this?

I mean, I don't really know

what you're talking about.

I mean,

I know what you're talking about...

but I don't really know

what you're talking about.

And I mean, you know, even if I were

to totally agree with you, you know...

and even if I were to accept the idea

that 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 wonderful

would be to just totally...

you know,

reject Western civilization...

and fall back into some kind of belief

in some kind of weird something.

I mean, I don't even know how

to begin talking about this...

but you know, in the Middle Ages...

before the arrival of

scientific thinking as we know it today...

well, people could believe anything.

Anything could be true,

the statue of the Virgin Mary...

could speak or bleed

or whatever it was.

But the wonderful thing

that happened...

was that then in the development

of science in the Western world...

certain things did come slowly

to be known and understood.

I mean, you know...

obviously, all ideas in science

are constantly being revised.

I mean, that's the whole point.

But we do at least know that the universe

has some shape and order...

and that, you know, trees do not

turn into people or goddesses...

and there are very good reasons

why they don't...

and you can't just believe

absolutely anything.

Whereas, the things

that you're talking about...

I mean, I mean, you found

the handprint in the book...

and there were three "André"s

and one Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

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 reasons

for putting it together.

But to you it was significant, as if that book

had 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 get

a 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...

I just instinctively sort of,

you know, if it says something like, uh...

"A conversation with a dark-haired man

will 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, there's something

in me that makes me read it...

and I instinctively interpret it

as if it were an omen of the future.

But in my conscious opinion, which is

so fundamental to my whole view of life...

I mean, I would just have to change totally

to not have this opinion.

In my conscious opinion,

this is simply something...

that was written in the cookie factory

several 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 it

did not know anything about me.

I mean, he could not have known

anything about me.

There's no way that this cookie

could actually have to do with me.

And the fact that I've gotten it

is just basically a joke.

And I mean, if I were gonna go

on a trip on an airplane...

and I got a fortune cookie

that said "Don't go!"

I mean, of course, I admit I might feel

a bit nervous for about one second.

But in fact, I would go because,

I mean...

that trip is gonna be successful

or unsuccessful...

based on the state of the airplane

and the state of the pilot.

And the cookie is in no position

to know about that.

And I mean, you know, it's the same...

with any kind of, 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 how

to begin to describe this.

That means that the future

is somehow sending messages...

backwards to the present.

Which, which means that the future

must exist in some sense already...

in order to be able

to send these messages.

And it also means that things in the universe

are there for a purpose... to give us messages.

Whereas I think that things

in the universe are just there.

I mean, they don't mean anything.

I mean, you know, if the turtle's egg falls out

of the tree and splashes on the paving stones...

it's just because that turtle was clumsy

by accident.

And, and to decide whether to send

my ships off to war on the basis of that...

seems a big mistake to me.

Well, what information would

you send your ships to war on?

Because if it's all meaningless...

what's the difference whether

you accept the fortune cookie...

or the statistics

of the Ford Foundation?

It doesn't seem to matter.

Well, the meaningless fact

of the fortune cookie or the turtles egg...

can't possibly have any relevance

to the subject you're analyzing.

Whereas a group of meaningless facts

that are collected and interpreted...

in a scientific way

may quite possibly be relevant.

Because the wonderful thing

about scientific theories about things...

is that they're based on experiments

that can be repeated.

Well, it's true, Wally.

I mean, you know,

following omens and so on...

İs probably just a way

of letting ourselves off the hook...

so that we don't have to take individual

responsibility for our own actions.

But I mean, giving yourself over

to the unconscious...

can leave you vulnerable to all sorts

of very frightening manipulation.

And in all the work that I was involved in,

there was always that danger.

And there was always that question

of 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 some

of these new monasteries...

or communities or whatever

we've been talking about...

are becoming institutionalized...

and I guess even in a way, at times,

sort of fascistic.

You know, there's a sort of self-satisfied

elitist paranoia that grows up...

a feeling of "them" and "us"...

that is very unsettling.

But I mean, the thing is, Wally, I think

it's the exaggerated worship of science...

that has led us into this situation.

I mean, science has been held up to us

as 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 reaction

against science that we're seeing now...

just as the Nazi demons that were

released in the '30s in Germany...

were probably a reaction against

a certain oppressive kind of knowledge...

and culture and rational thinking.

Sol agree that we're talking about

something potentially very dangerous.

But modern science has not been

particularly 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 me

about the work you've described...

and I don't even know if I can express it.

But somehow it seems that the whole point

of the work that you did in those workshops...

when you get right down to it

and 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 away

every scrap of purposefulness...

from certain selected moments.

And the point of it was so that you would

then all be able to experience...

somehow just pure being.

In other words, you were trying to discover what

it would be like to live for certain moments...

without having any particular thing

that you were supposed to be doing.

And I think

I just simply object to that.

I mean, I just don't think I accept the idea

that there should be moments...

in which you're not trying

to do anything.

I think,

it's our nature, to do things.

I think we should do things.

I think that, purposefulness...

is part of our ineradicable

basic human structure.

And to say that we ought to

be able to live without it...

is like saying that, a tree ought to

be able to live without branches or roots.

But, but actually, without branches

or roots, it wouldn't be a tree.

I mean, it would just be a log.

Do you see what I'm saying?

I mean, in other words, if I'm sitting at home

and I have nothing to do...

well, I naturally reach for a book.

I mean, what would be so great about

just sitting there and, doing nothing?

It just seems absurd.

And if Debby is there?

Well, that's just the same thing.

I mean, is there really

such a thing as, uh...

two people doing nothing

but just being together?

I mean, would they simply then...

be, "relating,"

to use the word we're always using?

I mean, what would that mean?

I mean, either we're

gonna have a conversation...

or we're going to,

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 mean

to just, simply, sit there?

That makes you nervous.

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 western

Tibet and stayed on a farm for a month...

well, there, you know, when people come over

in 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 possible

to do all sorts of things...

and at the same time

be completely dead inside.

I mean, you're doing all these things,

but are you doing them...

because you really feel

an impulse to do them...

or are you doing them mechanically,

as we were saying before?

Because I really do believe

that if you're just living mechanically...

then you have to change your life.

I mean, you know, when you're young,

you go out on dates all the time.

You go dancing or something.

You're floating free.

And then one day suddenly

you find yourself in a relationship...

and suddenly everything freezes.

And this can be true

in 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 somebody

in one little room...

and there's a life going on between you

and the person you're living with...

well, then a whole adventure

can be going on right in that room.

But there's always the danger

that things can go dead.

Then I really do think you have to kind of

become a hobo or something, you know...

like Kerouac,

and go out on the road.

I really believe that.

You know, it's not that wonderful

to spend your life on the road.

My own overwhelming preference

is to stay in that room if you can.

But you know, if you live with somebody for

a long time, people are constantly saying...

"Well, of course it's not as great

as 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 ask

yourself the question, with total frankness:

"Is your marriage still a marriage?"

"Is the sacramental element there?"

Just as you have to ask about

the 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 people

are just sometimes...

uh, existing just side by side.

I mean, the other person's, face

could just turn into a great wolf's face...

and, it just wouldn't be noticed.

And it wouldn't be noticed, no.

It wouldn't be noticed.

I mean, when I was in Israel

a little while ago...

I mean, I have this picture of Chiquita

that was taken when she...

I always carry it with me. It was taken

when 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 skirt

that's kind of pulled up.

And she's slim and sensual

and beautiful.

And I've always looked at that picture

and just thought about just how sexy she looks.

And then last year in Israel,

I looked at the picture...

and I realized that that face in the picture

was 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 years

and not ever really seeing what it is, you know.

I just never really

looked at the picture.

And then, at a certain point, I realized I'd

just gone for a good 18 years unable to feel...

except in the most extreme situations.

I mean, to some extent, I still had

the 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 did

was 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 myself

to get angry or annoyed.

I mean, you know, today

Chiquita, Nicolas, Marina...

All day long, as people do, they do things that

annoy 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 myself

to consider the possibility...

of not spending

the rest of my life with Chiquita...

I realized that what I wanted most in life

was to always be with her.

But at that time, I hadn't learned what

it would be like to let yourself react...

to another human being.

And if you can't react

to another person...

then there's no possibility

of action or interaction.

And if there isn't, I don't really know

what the word "love" means...

except duty, obligation,

sentimentality, fear.

I mean...

I don't know about you, Wally, but I...

I just had to put myself into a kind of training

program 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 of

people did I really want to be with? You know?

And the only way

that I could think of to find out...

was to just cut out all the noise

and stop performing all the time...

and just listen to what was inside me.

See, I think a time comes

when you need to do that.

Now, maybe in order to do it,

you have to go to the Sahara...

and maybe you can do it at home.

But you need to cut out the noise.

Yeah. Of course, personally,

I, I just...

I usually don't

like those quiet moments, you know.

I really don't.

I mean, I don't know if

it's that, Freudian thing or what...

But, you know, the fear

of unconscious impulses...

or my own aggression

or whatever, but...

if things get too quiet, and I find myself

just, 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,

I just have this feeling of...

my God,

I'm going to be revealed.

In other words, I'm adequate

to do any sort of a task...

but I'm not adequate,

just to, to be a human being.

I mean, in other words, I'm not...

If l'm just, trapped there

and I'm not allowed to do things...

but all I can do is just,

be there...

well, I'll just fail.

I mean, in other words...

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...

I just don't have a clue

how to pass this test.

I mean, of course,

I realize this isn't a test...

but, 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, just totally at sea.

I mean...

Well, you know,

I could imagine a life, Wally...

in which each day would become

an incredible, monumental, creative task...

and we're not necessarily up to it.

I mean, if you felt like walking out

on the person you live with, you'd walk out.

Then if you felt like it,

you'd come back.

But meanwhile, the other person

would have reacted to your walking out.

It would be a life of such feeling.

I mean, what was amazing

in the workshops I led...

was how quickly people seemed

to fall into enthusiasm...

celebration, joy, wonder,

abandon, wildness, tenderness.

Could we stand to live like that?

Yeah, I think it's that moment of contact

with another person.

I mean, that's what scares us.

I mean, that moment of being

face 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 some

pretty good reasons for being frightened.

I mean, you know, the human being

is 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're

really in touch with the other person...

well, that really is something

to strive for, I think, I really do.

Yeah, it's just so pathetic

if one doesn't do that.

Of course there's a problem, because the closer

you 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're

relating 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 fact

that you're completely alone.

And to accept that you're alone

is to accept death.

You mean, because somehow when you

are 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, Heidegger said...

that, if you were to experience

your own being to the full...

you'd be experiencing the decay

of that being toward death...

as a part of your experience.

You know, in the sexual act there's

that 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're

afraid to stay in that place of forgetting...

because that, again, is close to death.

Like people

who are afraid to go to sleep.

In other words, you interrelate, and you

don't know what the next moment will bring.

And to not know

what the next moment will bring...

brings you closer

to a perception of death.

You see, that's why I think

that people have affairs.

I mean, you know, in the theater,

if you get good reviews...

you feel for a moment

that 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 know

quite what you should do next.

What'll happen?

Well, have an affair,

and up to a certain point...

you can really feel

that 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 Schopenhauer

at some elegant French restaurant?

Whatever nonsense it is,

It's all, I think, to give you the semblance

that there's firm earth.

Well, have a real relationship

with a person that goes on for years...

That's completely unpredictable.

Then you've cut of fall your ties to the land,

and you're sailing into the unknown...

into uncharted seas.

I mean, you know, people hold on to these

images of father, mother, husband, wife...

again for the same reason...

'cause they seem to provide

some 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 man

lifting you off the ground...

and then he's gone.

Where's that son?

[Wally Narrating] All the other customers

seemed to have left hours ago,

We got the bill,

and André paid for our dinner,

Really?

[Wally Narrating]

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 connected

to some memory in my mind,

There, I was buying a suit

with my father.

There, I was having

an ice cream soda after school.

When I finally came in,

Debby was home from work....

and I told her everything

about my dinner with André.