Houston 5

March 9, 2010

Intermittent sleep last night. I’d slept the sleep of inexplicable exhaustion through most of the afternoon, and I was revved up from the reading. It was one of those times when the acceptability of the prelude left no clue of the excellence of the main event. The reading of Bronzino’s Gaze went over spectacularly well. I was standing in the lobby beforehand when Edward Albee walked in with a protégé. Thankfully he did not remember me from before, and I set quick flame to earlier impressions, and we started over in a little huddle in the lobby. I mentioned that I have acted almost all of his plays, most recently Virginia Woolf, and that gave us something objective to talk about. “That is, of course, George’s play,” says he. He was sharp, engaged, luminously anecdotal. His protégé is writing a dissertation on Albee as Teacher, and had scars and evidence of a tracheotomy, as well as beautiful hair. It is terrifying to have Albee in the audience for one of your plays, but the terror had an excited edge. It turned out that he liked it very much, and at the talk-back defended it against opinion-givers whose opinions he thought misguided. When the dramaturg repeated my question of what speech or monolog could be left out, Albee said, “I’ll be damned if I know what it is.” The lyricism of my language was praised (I was sitting there thinking it was far too dry) and when the term “blow job” was objected to, Albee said to the objector, “You’re just upset because the blow job wasn’t live and performed on stage.” In any case, a far more satisfying outcome than I expected in the middle of the afternoon.

“What do you have coming up?” says I to Edward Albee. “Oh,” says he, “ a play called Me, Myself, and I in New York in September.” I said “I will be there.” And I will.

Nick, the young man sent to pick me up at the airport, was told to look for “Your dad, with red hair.” I found that rather dear.

Evening: There was snow on the north sides of the mountains as we approached Asheville. Everyone in Houston, when told I was from here, said, “Oh, that is beautiful country, isn’t it?” The arty ones said, “That’s really getting a name for itself as a center for the arts.” Does everyone believe this, or is it just what one says?

I have the feeling that my time in Houston was wildly successful. I’ll stop at that, no analysis, no second thoughts.