Tamar�s story of staring at a celebrity in the pediatrician�s office reminded me of a time when she was about three years old (we were living in a loft at Broadway and 11th) and I was frequently taking the AA train from the 86th street stop back downtown at the same time each week, in the middle of the day. At that time I had seen Andre Gregory standing on the platform waiting for the same train. I had been to all of his productions (Gregory founded The Manhattan Project in 1968. It was an experimental group which staged, among other works, Samuel Beckett's "Endgame", Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull", Wallace Shawn's "Our Late Night" and an offbeat take on "Alice in Wonderland", which later toured internationally on and off for five years), and I loved his work.
So, being painfully shy at that time, I couldn�t help myself, I just stared at him on the platform until the train came and then when we both went into the same car, sitting across from him, again, being far too shy to say anything but too mesmerized by his beautiful face and enormous talent, I just stared at him, again.
This happened several weeks in a row. Finally, he got up from his seat and went to another car and I never saw him again. I suppose he thought I might follow him. I did in my mind. And I think of him often. And tell people the line in My Dinner with Andre that so eloquently speaks to me about living in Manhattan (and I�m probably misquoting a little because, although I have the manuscript for the movie�Aaron gave it to me once for my birthday because I talk about it so much�I cannot find the book right now�it must be (almost) spring, I�ve been sorting, rearranging and cleaning my house and have taken down bookshelves, moved books, cleaned the dust away and can�t find Andre�s dinner yet, but will give you the gist, anyway): �Have you ever heard a New Yorker say they want to leave the city, but they never do? New York is a concentration camp of the mind. It�s impossible to leave.�
But I did. And I�m not so shy now and would love to see him again.
Posted by leya at March 17, 2005 07:06 PM