My Dinner with Andre Page #12

...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... 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, uh... I mean...

I mean, uh, 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, uh, christening in Poland...

...or some kind of a strange experience

on top of Mount Everest?

I mean, uh, because, uh,

you know that the awful thing is...

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

...to, uh, take everybody to, uh, Everest...

...it's really tough, because everybody

can't be taken to Everest.

I mean, there must have been periods in history

when it would have been possible...

...to, uh, 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,

uh, Sense and Sensibility byJane 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... 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... 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 7 th 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...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, uh,just a few days ago...

I met this man whom I greatly admire.

He's a Swedish physicist.

Gustav Bjrnstrand.

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. "

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