www.patrickgrant.com
Recorded on January 12, 2009
in the East Village, New York City
Interviewer/ editor: Patrick Grant
Camera / audio: Carlton Bright
Music: Itaipu / The Canyon by Philip Glass
Philip GLASS on Gerald THOMAS
20:00
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New York City 2009
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Many of Gerald’s pieces are outrageous. They’re outrageously funny, they’re outrageously vulgar, they’re outrageously romantic, but living on the border of outrage is something he’s very comfortable with! (laughs) Of course that is almost a definition of a kind of theater, and if that is a definition, I would say that Gerald has that very well covered.
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Philip GLASS on Gerald THOMAS
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This idea of a theater person who functions in all these different ways is...it’s coincident with a vision of a life that is about the theater. His whole life is really the theater and if not his work, he might talk about film, he might talk about other people’s work, but he’s really...his obsessions are with making a life in the theater.
Those are the people we end up caring about. They bring an authenticity and a passion and a commitment to the work which is a real vocation. A "vocation" in the sense that, of a calling, that he was called to the work and that’s what he does.
And that’s...he almost seems impatient with anything else. Have you noticed that? Almost any other facet of his is life is….with the exception of his amorous connections which are also very important to him and they are often connected to the theater, wonderful women I have known that he has known, that were either producers or actresses or designers that were all connected with the theater…I think if you had no connection with the theater Gerald would probably not even know that you existed (laughs), he wouldn’t care, he wouldn’t care at all. But if you’re connected with that world, that’s the bigger world for him. That's the real world for him.
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A Solid Grounding
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I think it is true that he has a very solid grounding in the history of theater. However it doesn’t mean that he’s going to follow in any of those directions. To be grounded in theater doesn’t mean to necessarily take your cue from that. When you understand the history of theater it gives you confidence about what you do. I think that because he understands that and loves it and has lived with it as his world, it gives him the confidence to be who he is.
But, I think that to have that sold foundation in theater, call it history, call it a lifetime love relationship, it’s like a...at one point, he fell in love with the theater. The whole thing.
I think as a young boy he really began really doing drawings and it evolved, and it turned into that. I think that eventually, for the young person who nourishes that passion or nurtures that passion, that becomes the basis of who they are and it becomes the confidence with which they can act.
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The Dry Opera Co.
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He had done a solo piece of Beckett’s with Julian Beck. It was a beautiful piece. Do you know he was dying at the time? And all you could see was the face. Do you remember that piece?
It was a beautiful piece. He had his company over, the Dry Opera Co. and, I forget what he was working on, and we became friends right away. And he began...he became interested in the music I was doing. We did several pieces.
We did a big piece not long after that called Matto Grosso which is...we went down to the Foz de Iguacu, the big waterfalls that’s in the southern part of the country. We’d gone down together and I got the idea of writing a piece there and Gerald wanted to stage the piece. So we put that together with some other music I had done and it was...it had vocal elements in it but…it was really a music theater piece. And maybe it was a, I think he calls it an opera…I just call it a music theater piece. And we got an orchestra and we got a producer and we did that one big piece.
And then there were a number of other pieces we worked on together. He wanted a…I got into the habit of sending him music because he liked to hear everything new and sometimes these pieces ended up in theater works if he liked them. Oh, Gerald was like that. Whatever he likes, if he likes it, it’s in the piece.
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All-Round Theater Operator
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In the case of Gerald, he writes his own pieces but he would do The Canterbury Tales and he would do the things he would do if he were not the writer. He brings together a lot of the elements himself. He can write, he can produce, he can direct...I’ve rarely seen him onstage though. He has a...he seems to have a...I’ve seen him walk through a piece. Have you seen that?
I’ve seen him walk through a piece. A kind of a, uh, a kind of a Hitchcock walk. You know, just marks it. He doesn’t perform, in that way.
I think of...if we think of where Gerald is coming from in terms of theater…younger than Peter Brook but he knew him and younger than the Living Theatre but he knew them. Very close to Beckett and a few other people in the theater. It was the kind of theater person he was a kind of uh, all-round theater operator. So that would be: he could write, he could galvanize a group of actors into becoming a company, and he has keep companies going from time to time and as long as I have known him. Sometimes they’re somewhat the same people for long periods of time. He’s a beautiful designer, he does beautiful designs.
So, he has some talent for music, you know, too, if you’ve seen him drumming but, you know, but around me he won’t do that.
Well, this is a very bright man and a very educated man and extremely sensitized to these qualities of life which we call “theatrical,” which work on the stage. I think some of his antics off the stage could very well have been on the stage and some of these do take place on the stage.
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A Director's Bottom Line
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I think he was doing a Wagner opera…I think, yeah, he was doing Tristan and the critics we’re booing, and he mooned them. Now, that mooning could become a facet of free speech…I think that’s a real Beckett idea. That’s very…that’s real Beckett!
And that’s part of his repertoire. Part of his repertoire of a personality of idiosyncrasies are, are Beckett. It comes right out of….there’s no…he spent not only years directing Beckett, but in conversation, in correspondence with Beckett so… He adopted him, that was a kind of alter-ego pater familias for him, don’t you think?
So that it, it reminds me of a scene in, it was uh…in Molloy where, this is a , at one point he talks about his, he’s fornicating with someone and he doesn’t know whether it’s in the vagina or in the asshole. He says, and that at one point in the narration stuff, he says, “But the question is: is it true love in the ass?” (laughs)
When Gerald did that mooning thing, it made me think of that. I don’t know why. But I think, I thought it was because, I don’t know what he was thinking of, I never asked him about that. But at any rate, there’s no question that for Gerald, that moment was a moment of, that was a free speech issue. That’s what it was.
We defended Gerald because we’re supposed to, we Americans, we’re supposed to, of course. We have our own problems of free speech. There are certain words we’re not allowed to say, certain words we can’t say in certain places, and even certain words we can’t say at certain times of day.
But when I say free speech in this country is, it’s a matter of interpretation. But, for Gerald it isn’t a matter of interpretation. The press had their say and he wanted to have his say.
And I absolutely do think it was a free speech issue and I had no problem. I think I made comments somewhat like that and I was quoted in the papers in Brazil .
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A Tortured Relationship
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And he also, as you know, was a cartoonist for...his cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker, so he is a published…(gives a quizzical look)…”journalist” would we say? Would he accept that word? Probably not but, he is a published writer for the papers, call it what you will. And a draw-er (sic) for the papers. And at the same time, he feels... he can be extremely hurt by what the press does, and always keenly interested in whatever interest they take in him.
So I would say that his relationship with the press is a whole world in itself. And it becomes a kind of, the press becomes, I would say the press becomes a kind of persona that he is in, is constantly embattled with.
And yet in a certain way, I think it’s not that far from a theatrical relationship in the same way that you would say that he is involved with his audience. The press is simply a part of his audience who has access to newspapers, in that way. So maybe it’s not that different.
So when we say he is obsessed with the press we might say that he is obsessed with his public and what good theater person wouldn’t be? And if he weren’t, why would he be in the theater to begin with? So, all these things may sound pejorative but they’re not really. They’re part of a portrait of a man whose life is in the theater. One part of it is the public, one part is the public who writes for papers, another can be the people who go screaming out of the theater, there are those who stay and those who laugh themselves silly at the things that he does.
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Drawing Essential Qualities
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As a director his, it’s much more than blocking, lighting, it’s not that, he’s not that kind of director. It’s directing that comes from the very inside of the actor and I think that’s why actors are tuned into him.
He wants to, and I think succeeds to often, in drawing essential qualities of who they are. And I think uh, if you look at, they’re sometimes very odd people. Of course he enjoys that tremendously.
It can be hilarious, it can be moving, it can be all kinds of things, and the audience can be offended or they can enraptured. It is really, he lives on that edge of excitement.
So in Flash and Crash Days he had mother and daughter in the same piece. So uh, but, you know, when we talk about Gerald has a relationship to the actors which is very special, to the public, to the writers, uh, to any friend like yourself, or like anyone who works in the theater from time to time, and he can then…and then there are other writers.
He worked with Heiner Müller also uh, he worked in Germany, he went through a period of working in Germany. His German is quite good.
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Brit-zilian
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I called him a “Brit-zilian,” that’s true. Actually, to be truthful, I’m never quite sure, I still don’t know exactly where he was born though he has told me numbers of times. I’m not sure what passports he holds, though he told me that too. I’m not sure where he’s a citizen, I’m not sure where he pays his taxes and I’m not sure where he lives.
I would not bet a dime on any statement about saying where he was born. (laughs) he speaks a number of languages fluently. I mean his Portuguese is, of course, he grew up there, and his English of course, he grew up there, and his German, well, it seems he might have grown up there too. We don’t really know! But that comes from his family, the family was from Berlin.
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Theater of Adrenaline
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I mean, it’s basically, this is in-your-face-theater, this is no-holds-barred. This is wrestling night on cable, not on general television channels you know, where anyone can watch it. It goes on and anything can happen. This is, this is what it is.
It can be hilarious, it can be moving, it can be all kinds of things, and the audience can be offended or they can enraptured. It is really, he lives on that edge of excitement.
It’s like...I would call it Theater of Adrenaline. (laughs) That’s what it is.
And you’re bound to get that reaction and I don’t think he’s disappointed by that. I think he has done it unfailingly for so long that we have to believe that he means it. That’s what he does. That’s what he wants.
So, whether...what the reception will be, I, he…it will be mixed. Everyone will know that he was here or anyone interested in theater will know he was here.
And what they’ll make of it? Well, I don’t know that Gerald really cares so much about that. I think he wants to be able to work. I think he wants, he wants that relationship with the public, the audience, with actors, collaborators. He wants the life in the theater and the liveliness of that life and the immediacy of it and the passion of it. I think he wants that.
How he’ll be received? I think how he’s always received: with surprise, enchantment, chagrin, outrage, love, I mean everything.
You’ll get the whole works. You’ll get the whole thing.
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~~~ END ~~~
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www.geraldthomas.com
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