New York 3

August 10, 2014

Went to bed hours earlier than one is meant to in New York, which means I rise not only rested but with hours of luxuriant dreams behind me, some of them quite intentional.

Made the taxi driver let me off a mile short of my destination so that I could wander the Village, of which I have a deal of memories, most of them fleeting and ghostly, some of them not at all. I sat in the Starbucks on Bleecker across from Our Lady of Pompeii (what a name!) And wrote, and thought about things. The café was the temple of men, all the workers, all the patrons men, for a while. Everyone wore white t-shirts; the walls, though not actually black and white, gave off that impression; the light from Our Lady of Pompeii coming in a white glare through the window. The men were bent over their laptops, (and I over my diary) tapping out the scripts and novels that will disappoint  women in time to come. The women came then in pink and stripes.

Met Matt, caught up with each other’s lives, and went in to see the Essential Theatre Co’s folk-song rendition of Twelfth Night, starring (to me) Adam as Feste. The production was, in Peter Brooks’s phrase, holy. The set was two ladders with a string of lights between them. The costumes could have been picked up in a thrift store. And yet every moment was miraculous and revealing. I’ve been in the play, and yet it was like I had never experienced it before. It was as if it had never before been performed, and every gesture was a discovery. I felt as if I were an alien, or a god,  looking at mankind, seeing how badly they use their gifts, how reflexively they make the wrong choices, how pig headed, how silly in love, how venal and fearful they are, and yet loving them with my whole heart. It was one of those times in theater– Playboy at the Abbey, The Tempest at the Globe–when I wept with gratitude that things should be so perfect. And Shakespeare goes up, if that were possible, in my regard. His wisdom is the shivering of a silver curtain. His compassion almost cannot be spoken of. Who would have guessed laughter is a kind of compassion? And Adam became a New York Actor in one stroke. All the acting was excellent, so there was not “better” or “best,” but I would pick him and the boy who played Antonio out as the ones with golden roads ahead. I was so proud of him I didn’t know where to look.

A girl I sang with in The Asheville Lyric was Maria.

Matt and Adam and Adam’s friend Will and I retired to the Bonnie Vee near the Bowery (a bar with a military theme) for drinks, and then I hailed a cab to the hotel, and had just enough time to ready myself for Naked Boys Singing at Theatre Row. Though I feared worse, Naked Boys Singing was lighthearted and rather sweet, despite crowd-pleasers such as “I Beat My Meat.” Nakedness is hard to interpret as anything but innocence.

Did finish the evening at the Rum House, though my illness necessarily dropped the usual level of debauchery. Would love to have another day here.