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The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/The Unknown and the General: Difference between revisions
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If ''Strawhead'' is beginning to sound like the story of Marilyn and Rod, I have misrepresented it. Since most of my experience of the play was through my character, it may only be natural that my point of view is rather one-sided, and that may be one of the shortcomings of an actor writing about a production he is in. In fact, a major portion of the play focused on her relationship with Milton Greene the photographer, and his wife, and the haven they created for her. For a brief spate, Rip Torn, one of the brighter, if wilder lights of the American Stage stepped in to play him. I must admit that as a young actor I felt some awe at playing in the same production with this legend of the theater who was trailed by a long line of apocrypha about his work, inspired as it was, perhaps to the point of craziness. He carried a mantle of reputation for doing anything to be real. ''Being'' the character was brought to new heights. Brawls with actors in the middle of a performance on stage if he thought they were inauthentic. Brawls with directors off stage right after. Even he and Norman had a famous story between them, when at the end of ''Maidstone'', the experimental film Norman had made, things got carried away, or did they? | If ''Strawhead'' is beginning to sound like the story of Marilyn and Rod, I have misrepresented it. Since most of my experience of the play was through my character, it may only be natural that my point of view is rather one-sided, and that may be one of the shortcomings of an actor writing about a production he is in. In fact, a major portion of the play focused on her relationship with Milton Greene the photographer, and his wife, and the haven they created for her. For a brief spate, Rip Torn, one of the brighter, if wilder lights of the American Stage stepped in to play him. I must admit that as a young actor I felt some awe at playing in the same production with this legend of the theater who was trailed by a long line of apocrypha about his work, inspired as it was, perhaps to the point of craziness. He carried a mantle of reputation for doing anything to be real. ''Being'' the character was brought to new heights. Brawls with actors in the middle of a performance on stage if he thought they were inauthentic. Brawls with directors off stage right after. Even he and Norman had a famous story between them, when at the end of ''Maidstone'', the experimental film Norman had made, things got carried away, or did they? | ||
That was the point, what was real and what was manufactured? You could never be sure and that was the preferred state. So in the last scene, perhaps out of a frustration that had been building between the two erstwhile friends, or out of some truth of the moment, Rip had whacked Norman with a hammer and Norman, in turn, had bitten him on the ear. All this by way of introduction to describing an amazing scene I had the uneasy privilege of witnessing that occurred between them one day in rehearsal. I had arrived early and was watching the end of a scene that Rip had been working in. He was wandering around far upstage in a dark corner, doing what you would have to call private work, in the sense that he was mostly repeating the lines to himself and occasionally including the other actor in his investigations. Well, it was clear that he wasn’t obligating himself to the text and was free of it, presumably until he was ready and understood it in a felt way. It’s a way of working—what the hell. It is certainly true that because you had no idea what he might do at any given moment, he drew your eye to his haunted being, like a magnet. How this served the playwright might not be altogether clear and, since the session had been going on for some time, there might have been a worm of tension beginning to turn between the two old chums, actor and writer. When the end of the scene was finally reached, Rip ended up about fifteen feet upstage facing Norman, who was standing by the first row of seats. Rip asked,“Can I split for the next half hour? I want to get some lunch.” Legit enough, nobody is served by a hungry actor. I’m sure that if Norman had heard him he would have agreed. Unfortunately, all he did hear was,“Do you need me?” Proud man that we know he is, he answered gruffly, “Need you? No, I don’t need you.” And what Rip heard was “No,” which ''he'' couldn’t figure and lightning-quick also got huffy. “Well, I need some food. I’m leaving,” he flipped over his shoulder and, adding from the doorway, that he’d be back in thirty minutes. Norman missed that last bit altogether. I need to reveal something here: Norman had a cauliflower ear on his right side (maybe from his boxing efforts) that was permanently useless. And Rip’s right ear also happened to be bad, and the way they were facing each other, on a rough diagonal, both malfunctioning organs were the ones doing the receiving or lack thereof. I actually saw this—the two of them mis-hearing half and inventing what was left, until they ended up with completely opposite versions of the same conversation. The hilarity of it must have cowed me, because I wasn’t able to reach out and stop it from happening. Frozen, like in a dream, I could only watch it unravel in front of me. And in this dream two brontosauri were engaging in a rather intimate family squabble and were farting at each other. That’s how surreal it was. Anyway, Rip stormed out wondering what stick Norman had been impaled on and Norman, in some shock, turned to a cohort and said, “That son of a bitch. I’ve known him thirty years and he walked out on me.” Rip never came back. | That was the point, what was real and what was manufactured? You could never be sure and that was the preferred state. So in the last scene, perhaps out of a frustration that had been building between the two erstwhile friends, or out of some truth of the moment, Rip had whacked Norman with a hammer and Norman, in turn, had bitten him on the ear. All this by way of introduction to describing an amazing scene I had the uneasy privilege of witnessing that occurred between them one day in rehearsal. I had arrived early and was watching the end of a scene that Rip had been working in. He was wandering around far upstage in a dark corner, doing what you would have to call private work, in the sense that he was mostly repeating the lines to himself and occasionally including the other actor in his investigations. Well, it was clear that he wasn’t obligating himself to the text and was free of it, presumably until he was ready and understood it in a felt way. It’s a way of working—what the hell. It is certainly true that because you had no idea what he might do at any given moment, he drew your eye to his haunted being, like a magnet. How this served the playwright might not be altogether clear and, since the session had been going on for some time, there might have been a worm of tension beginning to turn between the two old chums, actor and writer. When the end of the scene was finally reached, Rip ended up about fifteen feet upstage facing Norman, who was standing by the first row of seats. Rip asked, “Can I split for the next half hour? I want to get some lunch.” Legit enough, nobody is served by a hungry actor. I’m sure that if Norman had heard him he would have agreed. Unfortunately, all he did hear was, “Do you need me?” Proud man that we know he is, he answered gruffly, “Need you? No, I don’t need you.” And what Rip heard was “No,” which ''he'' couldn’t figure and lightning-quick also got huffy. “Well, I need some food. I’m leaving,” he flipped over his shoulder and, adding from the doorway, that he’d be back in thirty minutes. Norman missed that last bit altogether. I need to reveal something here: Norman had a cauliflower ear on his right side (maybe from his boxing efforts) that was permanently useless. And Rip’s right ear also happened to be bad, and the way they were facing each other, on a rough diagonal, both malfunctioning organs were the ones doing the receiving or lack thereof. I actually saw this—the two of them mis-hearing half and inventing what was left, until they ended up with completely opposite versions of the same conversation. The hilarity of it must have cowed me, because I wasn’t able to reach out and stop it from happening. Frozen, like in a dream, I could only watch it unravel in front of me. And in this dream two brontosauri were engaging in a rather intimate family squabble and were farting at each other. That’s how surreal it was. Anyway, Rip stormed out wondering what stick Norman had been impaled on and Norman, in some shock, turned to a cohort and said, “That son of a bitch. I’ve known him thirty years and he walked out on me.” Rip never came back. | ||
So we had our comic moments and sometimes they were actually part of the play. After all, Norman had nothing if not an incisive sense of irony and the humor that sprang from that. There was a memory scene when I came on as Joe DiMaggio swinging an imaginary bat. Marilyn was going through a phase of “joy through embracing nature” and said something like “I want to run through the flowers, feel the wind on my face, and be free.” To which I replied in Joe’s inimitable Bronx Bomber fashion: “Fine. We got a backyard. Invite some friends over. We’ll have a barbecue.” | So we had our comic moments and sometimes they were actually part of the play. After all, Norman had nothing if not an incisive sense of irony and the humor that sprang from that. There was a memory scene when I came on as Joe DiMaggio swinging an imaginary bat. Marilyn was going through a phase of “joy through embracing nature” and said something like “I want to run through the flowers, feel the wind on my face, and be free.” To which I replied in Joe’s inimitable Bronx Bomber fashion: “Fine. We got a backyard. Invite some friends over. We’ll have a barbecue.” | ||
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<blockquote>To whom it may concern: | <blockquote>To whom it may concern: | ||
This recommendation for Stephan Morrow’s work is unsolicited by him. I have worked with Stephan as his director on two projects: | This recommendation for Stephan Morrow’s work is unsolicited by him. I have worked with Stephan as his director on two projects: ''Strawhead'' which we performed at Actors Studio in workshop for eleven performances, where he played the parts of Joe DiMaggio and a biker; and again in my movie ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'', where he did a superlative job in the role of Stoodie. In both projects he did an exceptionally fine job. He’s not only a strong actor with fine talents, but he’s stand-up and always gives 100% of himself to the project and the people he works with. He’s responsive and active in relation to a director, and I intend to use Stephan Morrow whenever I see a role for him in anything I’m directing in the future. | ||
Sincerely,<br />Norman Mailer</blockquote> | Sincerely,<br />Norman Mailer</blockquote> | ||
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If I describe Norman as a brontosaurus, there was another dinosaur that I would come to know who could only be described as the toughest of the tough guys, and who must have had tyrannosaurus in his genes—the legendary Lawrence Tierney. I can’t recall exactly how we hooked up in L.A. a couple of years after the film, but we became, dare I say, best friends for a while, if such a term could be applied to Larry—at war with the world as he was, even at eighty-three. But I was always flattered that he sanctioned what I did in ''Tough Guys'' and so never felt the whip of contempt with which he could so easily lash out at someone. That would include even someone who had given him a chance to act: like against the young Quentin Tarantino, who had just made ''Reservoir Dogs'' with him. It made sense really. Larry had rubbed shoulders with the criminal element like it was breathing. A self-described video geek, as clever as he might be, wouldn’t hold much water with the original Dillinger. Norman, I might add, he thought OK—and that was saying a lot in his book. So there I was, meeting Larry’s fellow denizens in the middle of the kind of brouhaha you would expect from ex-addicts and parolees in a halfway house, which was where he was residing when I first knew him out there. As near as I could get from him, the story went like this: when he was filming ''Reservoir Dogs'', and playing the godfather of a crew of professional bank robbers, somehow a real gun had ended up in his room and it had gone off with the round going through the wall and almost decapitating someone sitting in the next room—it just missed. Did I mention that the gun was in Larry’s hand? So he ended up in the valley in a group house. The occasion for my being there was that I was taking him out to a gathering of some fellow actors at the famous Jerry’s Deli on Ventura Boulevard. When we arrived, one of the bunch who fancied himself a cut above the rest because he was an aficionado of old films was struck dumb when I introduced Larry. “You mean, ''the'' Lawrence Tierney,” as if he’d seen someone from the dead. And God knows he could’ve been back from Hades, because as Larry once put it, “Ahh. I lost five careers to the bottle.” And meant it. But I confirmed the young actor’s suspicion. Yes, no impostor, this was the man himself. So for a few minutes Larry basked in the adulation that an icon is given recognition in the film capital. Then the conversation went on to other things, as is the wont among young folks in Hollywood, to mostly career considerations. So Larry faded off, flirting with a young redheaded actress. Suddenly, someone was tugging at my sleeve. She had returned and was very nervous, whispering that I might want to check on my ward—I don’t know if that’s how she put it or I did, but that’s certainly what it felt like shepherding Larry around. So I went into an adjoining banquet room that was empty and there he was: stuffing mustards from the tables into the large pockets of his garment of choice—a dark raincoat. I got us out of there ASAP. There are more memories of Larry I have and not all of them quite so pungent, but which would occasion a longer piece on him alone. Some people break ground by writing, others just break the ground. Let’s just say, it was one of God’s little jokes that he would pass peacefully from this plane in his sleep. | If I describe Norman as a brontosaurus, there was another dinosaur that I would come to know who could only be described as the toughest of the tough guys, and who must have had tyrannosaurus in his genes—the legendary Lawrence Tierney. I can’t recall exactly how we hooked up in L.A. a couple of years after the film, but we became, dare I say, best friends for a while, if such a term could be applied to Larry—at war with the world as he was, even at eighty-three. But I was always flattered that he sanctioned what I did in ''Tough Guys'' and so never felt the whip of contempt with which he could so easily lash out at someone. That would include even someone who had given him a chance to act: like against the young Quentin Tarantino, who had just made ''Reservoir Dogs'' with him. It made sense really. Larry had rubbed shoulders with the criminal element like it was breathing. A self-described video geek, as clever as he might be, wouldn’t hold much water with the original Dillinger. Norman, I might add, he thought OK—and that was saying a lot in his book. So there I was, meeting Larry’s fellow denizens in the middle of the kind of brouhaha you would expect from ex-addicts and parolees in a halfway house, which was where he was residing when I first knew him out there. As near as I could get from him, the story went like this: when he was filming ''Reservoir Dogs'', and playing the godfather of a crew of professional bank robbers, somehow a real gun had ended up in his room and it had gone off with the round going through the wall and almost decapitating someone sitting in the next room—it just missed. Did I mention that the gun was in Larry’s hand? So he ended up in the valley in a group house. The occasion for my being there was that I was taking him out to a gathering of some fellow actors at the famous Jerry’s Deli on Ventura Boulevard. When we arrived, one of the bunch who fancied himself a cut above the rest because he was an aficionado of old films was struck dumb when I introduced Larry. “You mean, ''the'' Lawrence Tierney,” as if he’d seen someone from the dead. And God knows he could’ve been back from Hades, because as Larry once put it, “Ahh. I lost five careers to the bottle.” And meant it. But I confirmed the young actor’s suspicion. Yes, no impostor, this was the man himself. So for a few minutes Larry basked in the adulation that an icon is given recognition in the film capital. Then the conversation went on to other things, as is the wont among young folks in Hollywood, to mostly career considerations. So Larry faded off, flirting with a young redheaded actress. Suddenly, someone was tugging at my sleeve. She had returned and was very nervous, whispering that I might want to check on my ward—I don’t know if that’s how she put it or I did, but that’s certainly what it felt like shepherding Larry around. So I went into an adjoining banquet room that was empty and there he was: stuffing mustards from the tables into the large pockets of his garment of choice—a dark raincoat. I got us out of there ASAP. There are more memories of Larry I have and not all of them quite so pungent, but which would occasion a longer piece on him alone. Some people break ground by writing, others just break the ground. Let’s just say, it was one of God’s little jokes that he would pass peacefully from this plane in his sleep. | ||
I mentioned that I was superstitious.Well, that night at the Writers Guild Norman actually ended his talk by reading a passage from none other than ''Ancient Evenings''. So a fitting finale for this piece might be a quote from the section he read from: | I mentioned that I was superstitious. Well, that night at the Writers Guild Norman actually ended his talk by reading a passage from none other than ''Ancient Evenings''. So a fitting finale for this piece might be a quote from the section he read from: | ||
<blockquote>I had dreams of cities drifting down the Nile like floating islands. Yet when the work was done, I felt larger, as if my senses now lived in a larger space. Was it that my heart and lungs had been placed in one jar, and my stomach and small intestines in another? Leave it that my organs were spread out in different places, floating in different fluids and spices, yet still existing about me, a village. Eventually, their allegiance would be lost. Wrapped and placed in the Canopic jars, what they knew of my life would then be offered to their own God.{{sfn|Mailer|1983|pp=25–26}}</blockquote> | <blockquote>I had dreams of cities drifting down the Nile like floating islands. Yet when the work was done, I felt larger, as if my senses now lived in a larger space. Was it that my heart and lungs had been placed in one jar, and my stomach and small intestines in another? Leave it that my organs were spread out in different places, floating in different fluids and spices, yet still existing about me, a village. Eventually, their allegiance would be lost. Wrapped and placed in the Canopic jars, what they knew of my life would then be offered to their own God.{{sfn|Mailer|1983|pp=25–26}}</blockquote> | ||