July 20, 2021
Suggestions on working on an absurdist piece like Samuel Beckett. Excellent question and my mentor, the guy who brought me to New York, who I just happen to have here again, Alan Schneider, who directed the original “Waiting for Godot”, most of the American Pinter premieres, many Beckett premieres. You’re always playing a person. The style of the play is absurdist, but you can’t be “absurdist”. Life is absurd. We work so hard to build relationships, to build shelter, then it ends. I don’t believe in it. I think the only thing we take out of this life, I actually know this, is what we learned through what we love. That’s what carries on, that’s what goes on. That explains child prodigies on any musical instrument. They love that music so much, it made the trip. Now I cannot prove that for sure, but you can’t disprove it. You’re always playing a person. If you’re doing Winnie in “Happy Days”, who is buried up to her waist in act 1 and 2 in dirt, she’s buried up to her neck, which I was thinking about this week, this particular play, you gotta play a person, because if you’re playing an idea, you can’t play an idea. If you’re playing a metaphor, I don’t care about metaphors, they’re not flesh and blood. If you play a caricature, it’s general. You always gotta play a person, person, person, person.