Dialogue from the film
My Dinner With André

by Wallace Shawn and André Gregory

 

ANDRÉ:
You see, Wally, the trouble with always being active and doing things is that it's quite possible to do all sorts of things and at the same time be completely dead inside. I mean, you're doing all these things, but are you doing them because you really feel an impulse to do them, or are you doing them mechanically, as we were saying before? Because I do believe that if you're just living mechanically, then you have to change your life. I mean, you know, when you're young, you go out on dates all the time, you go dance or something, you're floating free, and then one day you find yourself in a relationship, and suddenly everything freezes. And this can be true in your work as well. And I mean, as long as you're really alive inside, then of course there's no problem. I mean, you know, if you're living with someone in one little room, and there's a life going on between you and the person you're living with, well then, you know, a whole adventure can be going on right in that room. But there's always that danger that things can go dead. And then I think you really do have to kind of become a hobo or something, you know, like Kerouac, and go out on the road. I really believe that. I mean, it's not that wonderful to spend your life on the road. I mean, my own overwhelming preference is to stay in that room if you can! Now, of course, if you live with somebody for a long time, people are constantly saying, "Well, of course it's not as great as it used to be, but that's only natural. The first blush of a romance goes, you know, and that's the way it has to be." Now, I totally disagree with that. But I do think you have to constantly ask yourself the question, with total frankness, is your marriage still a marriage? Is the sacramental element still there? Just as you have to ask about the sacramental element of your work—is it still there? And I mean, it's a very frightening thing to have to realize suddenly that, my God, I thought I was living my life, but in fact I haven't been a human being. I've been a performer. I haven't been living. I've been acting. I've acted the role of the father. I've acted the role of the husband. I've acted the role of the friend. I've acted the role of the writer or director or whatever. I've lived in the same room with this person, but I haven't really seen them. I haven't really heard them. I haven't really been with them.

WALLY:
I know what you mean. Sometimes people are just existing side by side. I mean, the other—the other person's face could just turn into a great wolf's face for seconds, and it just wouldn't be noticed.

ANDRÉ:
It wouldn't be noticed, no. It wouldn't be noticed. I mean, Wally, when I was in Israel a little while ago—I mean, I have this picture of Chiquita that I always carry with me, and it was taken when she was about twenty-six or something, and it's in summer, and she's stretched out on a terrace in this sort of old-fashioned long skirt that's kind of pulling up, and she's slim and sensual and beautiful, and I've always looked at that picture, and I've always thought about just how sexy she looks. And this year in Israel I looked at the picture, and I realized that the face in the picture sas the saddest face in the world. That girl at that time was lost, just so sad and so alone. And I've been carrying this picture for years, and not ever really seeing what it is, you know. I just had never really looked at that picture. And you see, at a certain point I just simply realized that I had gone for a good eighteen years unable to feel except in the most extreme situations. and I realized that in fact every day of one's life is made up of a thousand constantly shifting feelings. I mean, I always knew this in the theater. That was precisely my conception of what a play was. But I didn't know it in my life. And I didn't really accept the fact that I am a creature who wants to die of love for my daughter one moment, and then the next moment I want to lock her in the cookie jar. I mean, to some extent I still had the ability to live in my work—that was why I was such a work junkie. That was why I felt that every play I did was a matter of my life and death. But in my real life, I was dead. I was a robot. I mean, my life with Chiquita has always been the most important thing in the world to me. But then, it was frozen, because I was afraid that if I allowed myself to feel anything, I'd destroy everything. I mean, Wally, at that time I didn't even allow myself t feel angry or annoyed! I mean, today, you know, well, Nicolas, Marina, and Chiquita all day long, as people will do, will do things that annoy me or say things that annoy me. And today I get annoyed. And they say, "Why are you annoyed?" And I say, "Because you're annoying," you know. And when I allowed myself to consider the possibility of not spending the rest of my life with Chiquita, I realized that what I wanted most in life was to always be with her. But at that time, Wally, I hadn't learned what it would be like to let yourself react to another person, to follow your impulses with another person from moment to moment along a chain of feeling that can change from one second to the next. And you see, if you can't react to another person, then there's no possibility of action or interaction, and if there isn't, then I don't really know what the word "love" means except duty, obligation, sentimantality, fear.... (Pause.) I mean, I don't know about you, Wally, but I just had to put myself into a kind of training program to learn how to be a human being. I mean, what did I feel about anything? I didn't know. What kind of things did I like? I didn't know. What kind of people did I really want to be with? You know. And the only way I could think of to find out was to just cut out all the noise around me and stop performing for a few moments and just listen to what was inside me. I think there comes a time when you need to do that. Now maybe in order to do it, you have to go to the Sahara, and maybe you can do it at home. But you need to cut out the noise.

WALLY:
Yeah. Of course, personally, I don't usually like those quiet moments, you know. I really don't. I mean, I don't know if it's that Freudian thing or what—I mean, a fear of unconscious impulses or my own aggression or—I mean, if things get too quiet, you know, and as we were saying, I find myself just sitting there, whether I'm by myself, or I'm with somebody else, well, I just have this feeling of, My God, I'm going to be revealed. I mean, I'm adequate to do any sort of task, you know, but I'm not adequate just to be a human being. I mean, I'm not—you know, I mean, if I'm just trapped there and I'm not allowed to do things, but I just—all I can do is just be there—I—I will fail. In other words, I can pass any other test and get an "A" if I put in the required effort, but I don't have a clue how to pass this test. Of course, this isn't really a test, but I see it as a test, and I feel I'm going to fail it. I mean, it's really scary. I just feel totally at see. I mean—

ANDRÉ:
I mean, I can imagine a life, Wally, in which each day would become an incredible, monumental creative task—a life in which everybody would just go with their impulses, all day long—they would just be themselves every moment, with others. And we're not necessarily up to it. I mean, if you flet like walking out on the person you live with, you'd walk out. Then if you felt like it you'd come back. But meanwhile the other person would have reacted to your walking out. It would be a life of such feeling. In a way, it would be intoxicating. And I mean, what was amazing in the workshops I led was how quickly people seemed to fall into enthusiasm, celebration, joy, wonder, abandon, wildness, tenderness. And could we stand to live like that? I mean, maybe we're just simply afraid of living. Or maybe what we're really afraid of is thinking about a kind of existance that we've lost, which if we were to remember would make us give up everything.

WALLY:
I think it's that moment of contact with another person. That's what scares us. That moment of being face to face with another person. I mean, you wouldn't think it would be so frightening. It's strange that we find it so frightening.

ANDRÉ:
Well, it isn't that strange. After all, it isn't really that strange, Wally, I mean, after all, there are some pretty good reasons for being frightened, because first of all a human being is a dangerous and complex creature. I mean, really, if you start living each moment—Christ, that's quite a challenge. I mean, if you really reach out and you're really in touch with the other person—well, that really is something to strive for, I think—I really do.

WALLY:
It's just so pathetic if one doesn't do that.

ANDRÉ:
Absolutely. It's just nothing. I mean, at least attempt it—even if you're going blind, do some kind of exercises for our eyes or, you know, something. But of course there's a problem, because the closer you come, I think, to another human being, the more really completely mysterious that person becomes, and the more unreachable. You know, you have to reach out to that person, you have to go back and forth with them, and you have to relate, and yet—you're relating to a ghost. Or something. I don't know. Because we're ghosts. We're phantoms. Who are we?

WALLY:
Right.

ANDRÉ:
And that's to face, to confront the fact that you're completely alone, and to accept that you're alone is to accept death.

WALLY:
You mean, because somehow when you are alone you're alone with death. Nothing's obstructing your view of it, or something like that.

ANDRÉ:
Right.

WALLY:
If I understood it correctly, I think Heidegger said that if you were to experience your own being to the full, you would be experiencing the decay of that being toward death as part of your experience.

ANDRÉ:
(Pause): Yes. You know, in the sexual act there's that moment of complete forgetting which is so incredible, and in the next moment you start to think about things—work on the play, what you've got to do tomorrow. I don't know if this is true of you, but I think it must be quite common. The world comes in quite fast. Now, that may be because we don't have the courage to stay in that place of forgetting, because that is again close to death. Like people who are afraid to go to sleep. In other words, you interrelate, and you don't know what the next moment will bring. And to not know what the next moment will bring, I think, brings you closer to a perception of death. So that, paradoxically, the closer you get to living, in the sense of relating constantly, I guess the closer you get to this thing that we're most afraid of.

WALLY:
Yeah.

ANDRÉ:
You see, I think that's why people have affairs. I mean, you know, in the theater, if you get good reviews you feel for a moment that you've got your hands on something. You know what I mean? It's a good feeling. But then that feeling goes very quickly. And once again you don't know quite what will happen next, what you should do. Well, have an affair and up to a certain point you can really feel you're on firm ground. There is a sexual conquest to be made. There are different questions: does she enjoy the ears being nibbled? how intensely can you talk about Schopenhauer at an elegant French restaurant, or whatever nonsense it is. It's all I think to give you the semblance that there's firm earth. But have a real relationship with a person that goes on for years—well, that's completely unpredictable. Then, you've cut off all your ties to the land, and you're sailing into the unknown, into uncharted seas. And I mean, people hang on to these images of father, mother, husband, wife, again, for the same reason, because they seem to provide some firm ground. But there's no wife there. What does that mean? A wife. A husband. A son. A baby holds your hands and then suddenly, there's this huge man lifting you off the ground, and then he's gone. Where's that son? You know?