Liberation (43 page)

Speaking of Jack Larson, Jim talked to him this morning on the phone in New York and Jack says that the Byron opera got a bad notice in
The New York Times
, written by an enemy of Virgil. It said that the opera was too bland and that the libretto lacked wit. Jim commented bitterly that they didn't like it because it isn't “heavy with German-Jewish angst.” He said he had realized himself that the opera wasn't a hit. Virgil is said to be philosophical, Jack is upset. Jim thinks the opera has now no longer a chance of being performed at the Met or elsewhere in New York.

Hunt Stromberg called a few days ago and said that “Frankenstein” is now declared a feature film—after Wasserman finally got around to reading it. We at once cabled Boorman, asking him was he free to direct it. Boorman hasn't replied yet.

On the 16th, at Jerry Lawrence's, there was a reading of Tennessee's
Two-Character Play
.
¹⁶³
It was at least an hour too long, and Tennessee was drunk and bawled out Jerry for using the phone and Mark Andrews for yawning during the performance. And then he tried to strangle Oliver Evans and to throw him over the balcony. He came to see our rehearsal of act 1 and went out in the middle to pee and get a soft drink; then to see act 2 on another day and didn't arrive until it was nearly over. We are both fond of him but oh dear, he is tiresome.

 

April 30.
The play opened on the 26th and now we have had four of our six public performances; the last two are today. It has gone very well—considering that Larry and Sam lose us a great many laughs and serious lines because of their poor diction, and considering that Hindu religion and homosexuality are still sticky subjects for many of the audience. The Hinduism bores some; the homosexuality makes many uncomfortable, though they are visibly reassured by Gordon Hoban's healthy appearance and grin and big teeth and masculine army-surplus clothes. (At the dress rehearsal, he played the first of his scenes naked to the waist, in pajama bottoms, but turned out surprisingly to have a bulky, rather unattractive body; so now he's in a T-shirt and jeans and looks charming.) Sam gets more and more wailing-wall Jewish in his scenes of spiritual anguish; what his soul needs is a stiff upper lip. Larry Luckinbill is marvellously right for Patrick, if only he could speak better. Susan gets better and better and the audiences like her a lot, but her voice is still horrible.

The theater has been packed every night, because there are so many regular subscribers, and this in itself helps the play a lot; it creates an atmosphere of success.

Don and I are already at work on rewrites, because we know that if we don't do them now we never will.

 

May 2.
Only two days since it ended. It seems strange and sad, not to be going down every day to rehearsals (though it was a drag), not to be able to come in through the stage door, to be greeted by the doorman (who remembered me from the days of
Black Girl
), to stroll around backstage or sit on the steps during a performance, feeling you almost owned the theater. We had champagne with the cast after the evening show on Sunday. (We'd given each one of them a signed copy of one of my books, with one or two photographs of drawings of me by Don, pasted into them; an egomaniacal sort of present, but the only one we could think of.) The future didn't look bright for most of them; most were going back onto unemployment pay, for as long as it would last. Only Larry Luckinbill had an aura of prosperity. He was returning to New York with his wife and child and its nurse, with the prospect of various parts and the performance of something he has written. His coming out here had [been a] gesture in the grandest manner, an affirmation of his belief in our play, for it had cost him (he said) $3,500! Gordon Hoban seemed suddenly much older. He is the eldest of a family of eight; the only one of them who is an actor. And what are his chances? He thinks he may go to New York soon and try his luck there. The Clyde Ventura production of
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
has been cancelled, because Albee won't permit them to perform it with a male actor in the older woman's part.

 

May 5.
The reviews in the
Hollywood Reporter
, the
Los Angeles Times
and the
Herald Examiner
are all condescending toward the play, saying that it needs a lot of work. The
Examiner
says the play “obscures itself in a murky drizzle of verbiage,” but does call it an “otherwise important work.” Larry and Sam and Florida are praised, but poor Gordon is described as “soggily out-of-sorts in the role of Tom.” Dan Sullivan in the
Times
, after putting the play down for being “just a bit too pale for the theater” and its letter-reading technique for being “static and strained,” adds, “even so this was one of the most civilized evenings New Theater for Now has given us, the sort of play about which one defiantly says: ‘Well, I liked it.'” Jim feels that this won't ruin the play's chances of being put on again for a longer run at the Taper; but the worst of it is, we're in competition with the play which has followed us,
In a Fine Castle
by Derek Walcott—and that's so bad that Gordon Davidson is sure to prefer it, especially as it's being directed by Ed Parone.

Jim Bridges and Jack Larson are both of them eager to feud with Gavin, because I incautiously told Jim how Mark Andrews had admitted to us, without the least embarrassment, that he had talked to Sullivan, who was sitting next to him during the performance, and made it clear that he didn't like it. Mark calls this “being honest.” Personally, I feel sure that Sullivan would have given us a lukewarm review under any circumstances.

Now I have a cold, which is probably my reaction to the strain of rehearsals and hopes. Weight just 150, nude. Don is sleeping out in the studio, so as not to catch cold too. Jim Bridges has one, and Jack has been in bed with one ever since his return from New York. Virgil Thomson arrives here today or tomorrow. Apparently they no longer regard the Byron opera as a flop, but I don't know what its prospects are.

Jim Gates moved into the Hollywood monastery and officially started his life as a monk, on the day our play opened!

The day before yesterday, when we saw Swami, he told us that he had been unable to sleep the other night so he had made japam for a while—and discovered later that he had been doing it for two and a half hours! (He says he never uses his beads now, because he can't sit up properly with his legs crossed.)

 

May 23.
Now we're back on “Frankenstein” again, cutting it so it can be budgeted—after which Hunt Stromberg will condescend to return from Texas, and a director will be found and casting will begin. What we fear is that, with all this time lost, we shall end by losing not only Boorman (who still holds out some dim hopes), Jim Bridges (who may well have to take on another directing job), and Jon Voight (who may well get a part in another picture). And who knows, we may even end up with Boris Sagal!

No news of any future for our play. A copy has gone to the Royal Shakespeare Company. And Gordon Davidson is supposed to be considering if he'll do it again here. But at least we do have a rewritten version which we are very pleased with—so much so that we hate to think it wasn't the one that was performed. We finished the rewritten version on the 18th, Don's birthday, so that seems a good omen for it. And indeed Don said that he had enjoyed this birthday of work much more than most of his birthdays of celebration. In the evening we went to St. Germain for supper, inviting Billy Al Bengston, Penny Little, Joe Goode, Mary Agnes Donoghue and Mike Van Horn. The super-Frog food made a great impression upon all, as the bill did upon us; it was $135. But it seemingly poisoned both Don and Mary Agnes; anyhow they were both vilely sick for several days, vomiting and shitting water. Don, poor darling angel, even shit in the bed several times. Don had had sweetbreads and had given some of his to Mary Agnes to taste. However, I had sweetbreads too and didn't feel a thing.

On the 15th, I talked to John Rechy's class at Occidental College; such a sleepy old-world oasis, I'd never visited it before in all these years, though Aldous and Gerald used to lecture there often. One of the students was a cute English boy from Manchester, so of course I told him that was practically my hometown too; and when the talk was over, he mumbled bashfully to John Rechy, “He made me feel very proud.” (To balance this bouquet, I must record a brickbat, thrown by someone named Richard Toscan, reviewing our play on KPFK; he referred to me as a “has-been novelist,” sneered at me for contributing to New Theater for Now at the age of sixty-eight, and said I ought to write a gay series for T.V., as that was all I was good for.)

Next evening, the 16th, I was given an award by the Hollywood Authors' Club, for “A lifetime of distinguished contribution to literature”; it is a cast of a statuette by Henry Lion, called “The Book,” and shows a nude woman apparently overcome with disgust after reading what looks more like a filmscript open in front of her—or maybe it has just sent her to sleep. The award was engineered by faithful little Fred Shroyer, bless him. But it came only at the end of a four-hour evening, spent mostly in celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the club and the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of its founder, Rupert Hughes, that nasty old horror who said that “we send a gangster to the electric chair but we do not treat these pacifists as traitors” ( July 5, 1940).
¹⁶⁴
He was described as “Christlike” and “almost a saint.” The speakers also bragged about the old days of the Authors' Club, when only men were admitted and the conversation was “ribald and raunchy.” The one bright spot in the evening was when a cute seventeen-year-old violinist appeared, his name is Endre Balogh. But he only played stunt pieces, very fast, with buzzy noises and saw strokes.

Saw Mrs. Maltin at last, on May 13. Felt awfully sorry for her, but I had to ask her for all of our tax papers. We were very polite. I also had to tell her that a man from the District Attorney's office had called and asked about Arnold, who has apparently been reported for fraud of some kind. This didn't seem to worry her unduly. She is faithful unto death; her huge ass seems somehow to express this. She said quite seriously of Arnold that he was the most sensitive man she has ever met. She obviously accepts his view of himself as a victim of society.

On May 19, Truman Capote called, from Long Island. He just wanted to talk. He was very bright and friendly. But he told me that he had had two operations for cancer in the rectum; he had thought it was piles for a long time. The pain had been terrible, and then, after the operations, he had a nervous breakdown and had to go to a clinic in Switzerland for three months. I had just the slightest impression that this was a signal for help. Maybe he is sending out a lot of them. It is peculiarly shocking to see this terrible thing happen to a whiz kid of success. I wanted to take him in my arms and somehow reassure him. And there was absolutely nothing to say—at least, not over the phone, not to Truman. I am glad that he has Jack Dunphy with him.

 

June 3.
Mary Lazar, whom we saw at a party on the 28th, given by Jennifer and Norton Simon, made light of Truman's cancer to Don, saying it was nothing at all serious. (Is there such a thing as an unserious cancer? The Lazars are in disfavor slightly, anyhow, because we invited them to the dress rehearsal of our play and they excused themselves at the last moment through a secretary.)

The Simon party was given for Lauren Bacall; it was also a first-anniversary celebration of their wedding. Their marriage seems to be going well and I began to like Norton; he does seem to be sensible politically, and being sensible is all one can expect of Republicans. Bacall was terrific—like a campy alligator, very like Beatrix Lehmann at her funniest, but not so bitter. Senator McGovern
¹⁶⁵
also showed up—thus causing the house to be immediately surrounded by secret service men. He was probably exhausted. He thrilled none of us but did his best to be pleasant. He's all we've got to vote for—that was the attitude of the Democrats present. I'm sure we can't win, anyway.

The “Frankenstein” script is now cut down from 199 and ½ pages to 139 and ½, which is exactly what Hunt required. I think we did a very neat job. Now there is no excuse left for Hunt—he must leave Texas and come back here and do something about getting a director. We have decided to start work again on “The Mummy” the day after tomorrow, but at slow speed.

Anecdotes and miscellaneous information:

John Gielgud told us this story about Mae West. She was asked, “Do you ever smoke after you've had sex?” She answered, “I never looked.”

Tennessee (who's here again) told us that his sweet but simple-minded friend Victor went with him to Italy but hated it. The first morning, Victor went out on the street among the Italians and came back at once, exclaiming in dismay, “I can't understand what they're saying!”

Both Virginia Pfeiffer and Gavin have been bitten by black widow spiders. Neither one of them felt the bite. But Virginia's leg swelled up terribly and she was in bed for four weeks. Gavin's symptoms were much less violent. His doctor gave him cortisone and vitamin C.

Swami told us, the day before yesterday, that several people ask him for a Brahman mantram when they are initiated, but that they always want to exchange it later for a mantram containing the name of a chosen ideal—the Impersonal God proves unsatisfactory for meditation. Three of the monks have Christ mantras.

 

June 16.
An almost incredible absence of news. Nothing from Universal, or from Hunt, or from Ed Parone in London, or from anybody in New York. Meanwhile, we keep plodding on with “The Mummy”—now provisionally called “The Lady from the Land of the Dead,” a title I think I like very much, though Don has doubts. It does sound a bit like an operetta.