RUDIMENTS, pt. 239
Making Cars
How many layers deep is a normal
life? I often wondered about that too.
I couldn't use myself as a guide, I
figured, because I never felt myself
normal. First off, and technically, I'd
been deemed dead and came back,
when hit by that train. So I had a
bias towards the other-side, having
had a glimpse (It's really nothing
more than roomfuls of different-aged
people doing endless crossword
puzzles from these enormous books
and each puzzle being done is made
up of clues from that individual's
own life, and some of the answers
are apparent while others aren't. There
are some really startled expressions
going on when these spirit/people,
as in a big, boring library, find some
shock or surprise over what a clue
is getting at for an answer. It was
pretty cool. The other thing that was
weird was, in all these rooms, there
were no rest-rooms and no sort of
dining areas or foods available. But,
at least no one needed glasses). So,
looking to others I sought to see
what sort of layers there were -
I found that lots of people had a
lot of layers, some not so many.
-
I early on developed an interest in
drama; read a lot of plays and all.
but they just ended up bugging me.
Drama and plays are OK when you're
acting them out and they're becoming
a production, But there's little use,
really, in actually just 'reading' them.
How much can you take of all those
stage directions, lighting instructions,
descriptions of candles and their
light, sounds, cups and saucers, looks
on faces, emotions, 'sounds in the
distance,' etc. Egads it's enough to
drive you mad, and it's not very
manly either. Yes, that sounds
really crude and old-fashioned for
me to put here, but it's how I feel and
always felt. These playwright guys
were always suspect to me, though
I loved reading about them - Eugene
O'Neil, Tennessee Williams, Bertolt
Brecht, Max Frisch, there were a
bunch. I ate those stories up ('he
sits beneath a dangling lightbulb, in
a sparsely furnished room. The sink
is dripping water, a noise to which
he shows no reaction; drinking
endless cups of tea, while cigarettes
- unfinished - burn in two different
swan-shaped ashtrays nears his sister's
collection of toy stuffed koalas and
a couch-pillow that reads, 'Acapulco.')
...But, reading those plays, dryly and
in isolation is not much better than
the endless lists of names and begats
in some 10-inch thick bible. You have
to wonder though about all the overly
'precious' stuff that's portrayed. It's
bit too much for me; I mean how
could a guy write all that. It's tedious
and almost psychologically raw.
-
I never liked romantic stuff, or emotive
stuff, or second-guessing, adventurous
stuff. It's all just words and they're
each predictive and worked out ahead
of time by the playwright for effect and
so as to 'elicit' the desired result. It's
all fake. Why can't they just get over
Mama and all that precious-memory
stuff and just jot down their material
leaving out all the overwrought and
tense portrayal stuff? On the other
hand (and here's the problem) actors
love all that. That's their careers,
embodying all that fakery, pretension,
and smarmy stuff. There are entire
schools of acting means and methods.
There are 5o people per square inch
around these stages and schools and
acting classes, and in those spaces
each crowded little person is sure
they've found the way to best burst
out with all their personal histories
in dramatic form. Embody the
intention. Read the character. Act
not just the instant, but that instant's
past as well. Pull in all that's led up
to it. Mine the angst!
-
Glutton for punishment, I guess. I
loved all that. In 1935 (I learned all
this later, once in NYC, burrowing
down into a million tons of information
which was flowing everywhere.
The New York Public Library was
like a new wall of heaven, ever
outwardly expanding, and you
could just hang there, like a pigeon
perched on whatever, and coo to your
heart's delight) [Is that image too
precious?] Clifford Odets wrote a
play called 'Waiting For Lefty.' In
the context of its days, it embodied
something we'd now call 'Agit-Prop' -
short for agitation-propaganda; kind
of like Depression-era propaganda
for what were considered 'leftist'
politics. It's mostly about activism
for organizing, union-activities,
rallies and speechmaking, a decrepit
and disappointed home life, a
low-quality doctor who causes a
death by incompetency, but his
appointment being based on local
politics (he was someone's, nephew),
thus bouncing the competent doctor,
who becomes embittered and hostile.
The play, in the language of theater,
does manage to pull in lots of issues
and topical occurrences. At least
it 'addresses' something, unlike a
cartoon or a western of the same
movie era, which just filled people's
heads with fluff and kept them
FROM revolting. This play had
different aims. I used to walk the
streets of New York seeing people
and imagining each of them as
embodied in a role in this play.
And then I realized how little
people knew or cared about
anything anyway. They'd rather
have a car.
-
I was a million things (layers,
I guess), all wrapped up in
one myself : I thrived on the
adventure and excitement of
the dramas wrought. I was
writing, I was doing art, if not
BEING an artist fully, I was
experiencing all sorts of things.
I did not yet have a camera, but
oh if I did, and how I now wish
I'd had one. I was broke, penniless,
I was stealing, scrounging, sure
of nothing, involved in activities
which only invited trouble, running
from the draft, helping run a
safe-house for draft evaders,
getting people off to Canada,
there were drugs and drug money,
my 11th street apartment had
become a mental ward, there were
two dead hippies, at least, that I
knew of, sourced out of a place
rented in my name. I won't go
on. My entire operation was a
needle-shot to the brain, a
dramatist's paradise. The whole
idea, by the way, of 'Waiting
For Lefty' is that Lefty never
shows. He is killed, somewhere
way off-stage and out-of-script,
organizing, or trying to maintain
the organizing of, a taximen's
unionization effort. Taxi drivers
are debating a strike. One man, is
against it (Harry Fatt), the others
turn on him, a debate and rally
ensues. Fatt brings in a goon,
violence bubbles, coming close.
There are flashbacks, there are
'Where's Lefty?', their elected
leader, moments; other subplots are
the Dr. Benner episode; the home
life of a guy named Joe; Florrie,
Clayton, dances and socials. At
the end, a worker rushes in with
the news that Lefty has been shot
to death. Ready to make a new
world, the workers in unison yell
'Strike!'
-
This was all big stuff through the
30's and 40's, and it was being
re-staged often, right through the
60's in various hotbed playhouses
around it. Reading it now, everything
fits, it's so put together as to seem
pandering,; it's predictable and
makes one feel uncomfortable. It's
just not 'modern,' or up to (this)
date. But there's so much within
it that it's worth studying just to see
how it was composed. The workers
all talk a little funny; poorly, stilted.
'All we workers got a good man
behind us now!' - sloganeering,
odd phrases. They want to destroy
order, saying that they are being
'trapped by the government and we
can't get out.' All that, by itself,
would be tendentious and boring.
So there's a romance angle thrown
in, tensions in a home life, poverty
markers, competitions, with a
brother and a sister feuding...
-
I know I can't keep rattling all
this off, because I become as
boring as what I'm trying to
explain. Most of us never get
the opportunity to go on -
complaining. All the stuff we
ever get, through school and the
rest, is always 'uplift,' on some
weird trajectory - happy, stupid
things. We never get the good
roles, the dark and meaty stuff
with which to portray a truer,
more solid reality; the dense
matter of life - which is, after
all, what should really be taught
and portrayed. It stays fresher,
and dates better, then fluff. Maybe
someone should write a play, titled,
'I'm Sick Of Your Happiness.' Of
course then, some spunkhead
like me would probably come
along, criticizing it to death.
No comments:
Post a Comment