Wallace Shawn

This small book by actor and playwright Wallace Shawn seems at first to be disconnected "thoughts" with headings like Murder, Night, and Anxieties. But some of the headings eventually start to repeat, and the section Upheaval (43 ff.) shows that the smaller pieces have been groundwork for the single long essay that comprehends the whole text. The essay is worked through to a point of closure in several subsequent pieces.

The scope of Shawn's meditation is global, although he inserts his personal situation and feelings. While it concerns what others might call "social justice," he uses the simpler and more shopworn "morality." He regards the imperialist domination and ecocide that have been the great products of civilization, and he ponders the possibilities and character of any course correction. He refers to elites as "the lucky," using homier diction and the sense of "fortunate" rather than "best," in what I read as a very fair assessment of human material conditions.

In 2017, the great wellsprings of organized violence seemed to be US empire on the one hand and Islamist resistance ("Bin Ladenism") on the other. The chill of the new cold war with its latest proxy conflicts had not complicated the picture. But I don't think the political analysis here has aged poorly. Much of it concerns phenomena repeated over long scales of time.

Shawn seems to understand that "If power asks why, then power is weakness" (CCXX II:31), and he is nevertheless resolved to ask why, despite little hope of an answer. This mental quest has reconciled him to a position "halfway to decadence" (64). He expresses gratitude to teachers who helped to orient him in this direction of renouncing the privileges that accrue from domination. He also remarks the attraction and hazards of vengeance, ultimately adopting a sort of fatalist psychology--refusing to condemn others in order to resist the role of punisher (cf. Liber XXX, pt. 6).… (mehr)

L'eccezionale lavoro di due attori/registi teatrali che costruiscono un dialogo fra due amici che riesce a toccare, in una sorta di dialogo platonico contemporaneo, le corde più profonde del nostro essere vivi ed essere umani. Sceneggiatura eccezionale per l'altrettanto eccezionale film del 1981 per la regia di Louis Malle.
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A masterpiece of a screenplay, a contemporary platonic dialogue which explorers the deeper meaning of being alive and being human. From this screenplay, the eponymous Louis Malle's masterpiece (1981).
… (mehr)

Over-staying its Welcome
Review of the Audible Original audiobook edition (March 3, 2022) of the original theatrical play "The Fever" (published 1991, premiered in 1990).

This new audiobook recording of Wallace Shawn's play The Fever (1990) derives from its recent reappearance on stage when it became the post-pandemic reopening show at Audible's Minetta Lane Theater in New York City for a run of 18 performances from October 8 to 24, 2021.

My reaction to the audiobook was similar to that of the Stage Buddy review (linked below under the photograph). What is engrossing for about 60 minutes becomes a trial for 90 minutes, regardless of how appealing the actor is. It may be even more difficult with the audio where you don't have the added visual element of watching the actor's performance.

In any case, this was certainly a prescient work when it debuted in 1990 when it talked out the concept of privilege in the developed world and the exploitation of the rest of humanity.


Photograph of actress Lili Taylor in the October 2021 revival of "The Fever", as performed at Audible's Minetta Lane Theater in New York City. Image sourced from Stage Buddy.

The Fever audiobook is a studio recording rather than a live theatre performance.

Trivia and Links
The Fever was adapted as the same-titled film in 2004 directed by Carlo Gabriel Nero with an expanded cast that starred Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson and Angelina Jolie. A trailer can be seen on YouTube here.


Teaser image of 6 new Audible Theater audiobook releases on March 3, 2022. Image sourced from Audible.… (mehr)

Later.

It would be easy to see this in a bad light, dominated as it is by the experiences of André. André is rich, privileged enough to be able to afford a mid-life crisis where he doesn’t have to work and can travel the world rejecting everything he has so far achieved as an artist. Wallace, whom he is trying to convince that this is the right path, is a poor struggling playwright.

As André tells him it is bad to feel warm in one’s apartment in winter – how can one tell one is alive? -, Wallace says happiness for him is when his coffee in the morning, cold from the night before, doesn’t have a cockroach in it. And he means this, he isn’t being a smart-ass. When you are poor you find your pleasures where you can.

A nice juxtaposition. I was reminded of a friend of mine some months ago telling me that life is not about material complacency. She has a penthouse in the city and a house in the south of France, but that doesn’t mean she is wrong, of course. I immediately tossed my warmest coat.

We find a complex balance between the views of the two men and although people tend to side with Wallace, I think it is not as simple as that.

Rest here:

https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/my-dinner-with-andre-by-w...… (mehr)