Next Stop, Greenwich Village Page #4

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- Now. Now.

- ## [High Note]

####[High Note Continues]

####[High Note Ends,

Singing Continues]

I don't care what happens.

Next year I'm going to the Met,

and I'm gonna see him.

He's really great.

Well, I guess...

[Chuckles]

It's time to go, huh?

Uh, listen, next week I'll bring you

a couple curtains, huh?

- We'll see ya.

- Okay.

- I'll probably be here.

- What do you mean, probably?

I can't predict the future.

What if something comes up next Sunday?

What could come up?

- Listen, what time you gonna call me?

- I don't know.

- You'll call me tomorrow night?

- That's what I said.

- I'll call you tomorrow night.

- Let's go, Faye.

Now I get it

from both sides.

Go? Where should I go?

Back to my dungeon in Brooklyn.

For Christ's sake,

will you stop it!

Let's get out of here.

We're not wanted.

We're not wanted here!

Let's go! You were right!

You said on the subway,

we should never come here!

- I didn't say we shouldn't come here.

- Well, somebody said it.!

I'll call you tomorrow.

- What time?

- 4:
00.

Oh.

Somewhere there must be

happy boys and girls...

who can... who can teach us

the way to live.

Somewhere there must be

a city where...

where poverty is no crime,

where music's no shame...

where there's no war

in the streets...

where a man is glad

to be himself...

to live and make

his woman herself.

Give up fighting?

But where do we go?

Tonight, Joe,

we ride in your car...

we speed

through the night...

across the park,

over the Triborough Bridge.

Right. That's it.

We ride.

Clear my head.

We drive through the night.

When you mow down the night

with your headlights, nobody gets you.

You're on top of the world then.

Nobody laughs.

That's it. Speed.

We're off the Earth.

Unconnected.

That's what speed's for.

You don't have to think.

It's an easy way to live.

Lorna, darling...

we'll burn up the night.

Lights, please.

I wasn't involved

for one second.

Well, since you started,

go ahead.

- There's nothing else to say.

- [Laughs]

I was lousy.

It just wasn't real for me.

I was pushing.

- No, I don't think you were pushing.

- Larry, let her finish.

I'm finished.

I'm really finished.

Aw, that's silly.

I was so tense.

I was so nervous. Um...

I just... It was bad.

It was bad.

Now, see, it's beginning

to happen for you a little bit now.

You know why?

Because you feel you were bad.

You feel you failed,

and you punished yourself.

You poked your thumbnail. You poked

your fingers into the palm of your hand.

Have to do specific things.

Some very good things happened

because you touched him.

You tried to do concrete things

to him with your hands.

Then I would be appalled.

I would say, "She put

her hands in her pockets." Kills you.

I just felt the dialogue

was so, you know, stilted...

- that to do that was to make it even more stilted.

- Darlin'...

No, no, no. No. No. When you do things,

then the dialogue recedes...

into its proper place,

and you won't even hear that it's stilted.

It isn't stilted.

It's very beautiful.

- Can I say one thing?

- Yeah.

Well, I don't understand

how you can do the scene...

if, um, you don't understand

the situation.

No, no, no. See, you don't...

You don't work that way.

You don't... number one...

understand and take in...

the whole emotional thing that you think

the scene should have and then do it.

Don't make deals like,

"I will only attack this scene...

if I understand the full

emotional basis of it."

No. It won't work, because

you're making deals with yourself.

You see, you're giving yourself

impossible goals.

Do the small real things.

Concrete, specifiic.

Hands, fingers. Hurt yourself

with your own fingernail.

Bleed for your art a little.

Wouldn't hurt.

You know?

Okay, Lar?

Well, I was nervous.

It's, uh...

It was tough to get involved.

I was aware of you,

of the audience.

- Whole time?

- No, no.

It went away, uh,

when the scene was almost over.

- Yeah?

- I was tense, nervous, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

- That's not funny.

- I'm sorry.

- Is everything a joke to you?

- Not everything.

- See, you're joking right now, right?

- What do you want me to say?

Joking is what's doing you in.

Joking is

the American actor's disease.

It's the American

person's disease.

Because what you're doing is, you're keeping

reality out so that it won't touch you.

The worst kind ofjoking

you can do is to keep life out.

Commenting,

editorializing, joking.

Terrible. Don't do it.

It's fatal.

I don't know.

I guess I'm... hiding from something.

I'm afraid of something

in the scene, so I joke it away.

- You're full of crap, Larry!

- Marco, please.

- No, no. Let him talk.

- I'm running this class, right?

I know, but the man says

I'm full of crap. I'd like to know why.

Even now, right this second,

you're playing the intellectual game.

Can't you be real

for one lousy goddamn second?

Marco, shut up.

I guess I do tend to

intellectualize too much.

Aha! That's it.

Now, look, everybody.

Embroider this on doilies,

write it down in gold...

that this is the most important thing

you have been through in this class yet.

It may be very important

for the rest of your life.

If you find out this one thing, you do

not use your brain to keep the stuff out.

You use your brain

to take it in.

But it's, uh...

It's a tough scene to believe.

Of course it's tough. Any scene is tough

to believe. That's why we're here, right?

Odets is to...

Any playwright is tough.

Odets particularly.

He's writing real...

about real situations...

but he's writing poetically.

He's heightened the thing.

So it sounds artificial to your own ear.

But, you see,

it wouldn't if you were in it.

It's only your objective ear that should

not be operating while you're acting...

that makes it sound that way.

When you're in it, those words will be the

most natural things in the world to you.

The point is,

everything is tough...

simply because not everybody

is Marlon Brando every week, you know?

- I would settle for Laurence Olivier.

- Yeah.

I'd settle

for Zasu Pitts.

[Herbert] Larry, how we doing

on my carrot and celery?

- Working.

- Hi, kiddo.

Hi, buddy.

How are you?

- I thought you were working.

- Lunch.

- You wanna eat here?

- I'm not hungry.

Give me a large celery,

carrot and cucumber.

Right.

- How are you? You okay?

- I don't think so.

- Why? What's the matter?

- Look, Larry, take a break.

- I can't. What's the matter?

- I'm pregnant.

- Where's my celery, carrot and cucumber?

- Are you sure?

Larry, where's my carrot,

celery and cucumber?

It's working!

Did you see a doctor?

Look, I don't wanna talk here.

Um...

- Where's my juice?

- It's...

- Who's this?

- This is Sarah, my girlfriend.

- Beautiful skin.

- I'll be right back, Herb.

- Where you goin'?

- Five minutes, Herb.

What do you mean, five minutes?

This is the lunch hour!

My prime time!

What are you doing to me?

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