May 17, 2009

Waiting for Godot last night was brilliant, and probably the bit of theater for which I came, the one that didn’t have the taint of product on it. I wish I’d seen Nathan Lane’s Estragon before I did my own. Four huge talents subordinated themselves to ensemble and to script, and the result was dazzling. . . . so dazzling that the superfluity of the second act was more apparent, but let that ride. Adam wanted autographs, so we lingered at the stage door. Nathan Lane and John Goodman were hustled to their limos by beefy bodyguards. John Glover and Bill Irwin stopped, signed autographs, got pictures taken, hobnobbed, then melted into the night on foot. May some spirit of good will bless them! After a vain search for the right bar, Steve and Adam and I ended the evening in a piano bar in the Edison. No seats were left but at the singer’s table, right in front of the piano, where one had to smile and nod and pretend one was in love with the old smoky bar standards.

I realize when I’m around people like Steve that, comparatively speaking, I have seen very little theater. In only a handful of cases can I compare one production of a play to another. My proportion of the crappy or the semi-crappy, the underground, the experimental, and student work is very high, but there’s not much occasion to chat about that. The ten other souls who saw some of these works dissolve into eternity and are found no more.

Morning stroll to Central Park in the almost-too-cold wind. It’s the date of the New York AIDS walk, and hundreds of people gathered with the names of their lost loved ones on their t-shirts. Went to Columbus Circle, bought a cappuccino for myself and a croissant for the birds. I fed them from my hands. It was the most joy I’ve had this weekend. A derelict who was watching said, “I wish somebody cared about me as much as you care about those birds.” I gave him $20. He bought coffee and a croissant, and crumbled the croissant for the birds, even as I had done.

Evening. S and A are gone, and I have had my meeting with the Foundation, and there are no shows, and I withdraw to my room a block from Times Square, feeling a little–lonely.