 Welcome everybody back here to the Segal Talks at the Martini Segal Leader Center at the Graduate Center CUNY at the City University of New York in Manhattan and it's another day on planet Earth, another week, another week touring Locktown, another week where we try to make sense out of the world what we do, what we have been doing, what we should be doing, what we should not be doing and yeah it's perhaps a different landscape David Burns famous song so it's like stop making sense but perhaps this Jenny Bass the great rock musician and also host of talks with musicians she says maybe we have to start making sense again and one of the ways to find meaning to understand better where we are or where we come from is of course to listen to artists, to theatre artists but to really listen and this is a time where we can really listen and it's also a time to think and we have been forced to slow down so nature's way of saying this is serious take a break and we as we said yesterday connected on a car that is a full break is up in the air we don't know what we land on the four wheels will it be a catastrophic crash but something will be different we are still in the middle of it in the trenches and that is why it is important we have to listen to artists and we also have to listen to the leaders in our field in theatre and artists have been on the right side of history in the struggle for freedom and the complex history in the struggle for freedom in liberties they have been on the right side of history and I think they are again and they anticipate often what will happen and are much more in the presence perhaps we are and with us we have one of the grandmasters of American theatre it would be chess he would be a grandmaster in the world and it is the great and Bogart who for decades has worked in our field in our vineyard of theatre and performance she has dedicated her life to this art form and she has been highly influential her work has been thought provoking beautiful she found what we are looking for new forms our motto little bit is that what Brecht said new times need new forms of theatre and she is someone who invented new forms and as Brecht said maybe he did the theatre for the children of the technological age now we have the children of the digital age coming up audiences but also theatre and performance makers and also teachers at Columbia University so she is even closer perhaps than many many many others you know to what is really going on and really thank you for taking the time to join us I'm in London but before I tell you I'll tell you that story but I have to and I think I'm probably at the right moment in the progress of the sequel talks that you started how many weeks ago this is week nine yeah week nine I think it's about time for somebody to say Frank Frank Frank are you okay you are you are on the front lines you are doing a service to the field that is extraordinary I think these talks have taken on sort of snowball effect I think they've become important to a lot of people and I just want to know are you okay well and thanks thanks for asking and yes you know of course it's a serious engagement and perhaps a little bit bigger than I thought when we started it and when Hal won said okay you really want to do this and yes and so but I think it is a contribution we can make the history of the Segal Theatre to be have a global network to think globally I always think of Marvin Carlson's book The Little History of Theatre that goes around the globe all countries all continents it's a beautiful small publication that teaches you something and in that tradition we do the work and we think of our healthcare workers how hard they work we still I think I have it a very good but it's a way to contribute and I'm also really interested to hear from it and I do know that it's important also for artists from other countries you know that they feel there is some kind of a connection especially to the U.S. that is such a big island such a tunnel vision so it's our little contribution and we also really feel something is really wrong something is going so wrong and we as people from this theatre from the performance we have to be part of the change and we have to come up with new things we will be different after this but I really don't know really you do it five days a week right yes yes and do you spend a lot of time preparing I do I try to you know of course the males exchanges but also to look up and think of it so it's a try to do just as you know I said to you earlier I'm nervous this is the great and Bogart who is here with us and and so we want to hear from you and I hope it will be meaningful to you also but I just want to say and I think I'm speaking on behalf of a lot of people is thank you for doing this and I hope it really means a lot to me yeah it means a lot to me I'm getting all for clamped I'm just very moved in this time you know it's hard to find action to take and you either have to develop what Eugenia Barba called which is the quality of space just before an action which is more important than the action itself but determines the quality of the action but you are in a moment of action and that's to be commended but to answer your question and not make it too much about you because I can see that makes you slightly uncomfortable but that's okay but I hope you could feel the thanks because I think it's from a lot of people I am in London I came here on the 11th of March for a week with a small suitcase and I came to see my wife, we straddle between New York and London she's British and at a certain point after living a couple years together in New York we decided she missed London and I love London's we said okay well try to figure out how to straddle both cities but I came here for a week, and I've been here ever since because I don't want to get on an airplane and I'm really happy to be with my wife and our puppy, we have a puppy, a golden retriever puppy named Mabel who might end up bounding down here at some point but what was happening before I arrived here for a week expecting to come back was that I had directed Tristan and Isolde in Rijeka in Croatia on the Mediterranean and just as we opened there started to be stirrings in Italy about shutting down Italy and there was stirrings about how to go on with an opera in its four performances and then I came back to New York to reunite with my students at Columbia and then flew immediately two days later to Minneapolis to rehearse and open our production of the Bacchai city company at the Guthrie now of course we opened and it was supposed to have a six week run and what happened the run was shut down the theater was shut down and it's been devastating to the Guthrie I mean I think the large theaters are suffering more than the small theaters I think small theaters like city company you know we're used to we're used to being elastic and changing the number of people working in the office or what office you say at working from your home anyway so and then suddenly Columbia shut down and so everything was shut down so I've been spending sometimes up to seven hours a day on zoom for three big parts of my life one is city company which I'll come back to a moment tell you how we're functioning during this time because we're a company that will be in a year and a half 30 years old believe it or not I never thought that would happen also in terms of Columbia dealing with the directing program and teaching online but also on zoom also dealing with the department and the university and the medical field and how to move forward and how to plan for next year and all of the contradictions between wanting to save the economy of Columbia and the country and also wanting to keep people safe so that's been huge and then the other thing is I'm on the executive board of SDC the stage directors and choreographers Union, which is suddenly faced with 1500 plus directors suddenly having no work for the foreseeable future and I seem to be on 100 committees either co-chairing or on them and we meet all the time trying to figure out how to move forward how to be helpful to the constituency trying to predict what's going to happen which no one can do because nobody can predict anything actually we turn out to be as human beings very faulty with prediction. So, this is this is where I am sitting in this little basement room in London, connecting, and I would say, you know, and I am sure somebody else in your series has said this, but, you know, I think social distancing is really a misnomer. Physical distancing is physical distancing is true you and I are physically distanced. We are distanced from those who are listening to us. Socially, we have never been hotter. There is so much social interaction going on so much people reaching out. And certainly one thing I found and I'm, it's sometimes quite depressing, but people show their true colors in a moment like this. I mean, you Frank, in terms of what you've done. I always thought really well of you and respected you but my respect for you has just gone through the roof because of how you act it's in these moments of crisis and in these moments of. I love the French word it's like a gap it's where everything stops. Here we are. It's how you are how you act how you behave now matters you know a lot of people think I'm going to go to sleep now. And then when things are better I'll do my best job, but actually, this is it. This is the moment when not only action but preparation for action, you know I mentioned a few minutes ago. I was very impressed by something that the Italian director who lives in Denmark, Eugenio Barbara asked the question which is, what is it that all actors around the world have in common, even if they don't speak the same language. Or, once you move it's a it's a, it's a cultural gestures you have but what is it you share in common and his answer, and I think it's a Danish word is sats SATS, and that is the quality of energy in the moment before you move, or before you act and sats happens. I know nothing about archery but I think about an archer. It's the, it's the moment before the release of the arrow that determines the success of the arrow it's not whether you're aiming right it's the quality of energy in that moment before so a lot of this are in a state of sats in this moment and we share that across around and the quality and how we cultivate that sats will determine how we act when we can. And, and that's something that has been occupying my thoughts a lot the other is, and I'm going to say some things that might not be popular but right after the shutdown occurred. And, and this and a lot of people got desperate and started doing what I would call self expression online. You know the coronavirus dances and the endless readings and like let's keep putting it out putting it out. And it was really bothering me and I found it really solipsistic for a while it seemed like display and I couldn't look at it and it was bugging me until finally my friend Tina Landau said on zoom at one point she said. You can't put that down that's actually a form of mourning, that's how people are mourning their situation I said you know what you're right, but I still kept thinking about this notion of what's going on, whether it's display, or something else. And I started thinking about prisoner of war, prisoners of war in Vietnam or in the Second World War, who were put into cells, and they were not allowed to talk to each other. And they developed a very elaborate and secret method of tapping, either tapping on a pipe or tapping on the wall. And what was important in the tapping was not only the content the information that was going from prisoner to prisoner, but also the sense of keeping spirits together. And so I thought there's a very different thing that's going on, which is about tapping, and we're on zoom now and one of the reasons I hold what you're doing in such high esteem is I feel it's a form of tapping. I'm saying, tap, tap, tap, are you out there? Tap, tap, tap, what do you have to say, and you listen back and something's happening. And I think it's a very different form of putting yourself online. It's either I just am desperate and I've got to put out stuff, or I've got to show what I think. But the other thing which does interest me more, although I think Tina Landau was right when she said it's a form of mourning, that's what people are doing when they're dancing and singing whatever online. Okay, but the issue of how we learn to speak to one another. And I think when we come out of this, it's not going to be easy. And there will be a lot of changes. Frank, where did you grow up in Germany? In West Germany, but close to the border of the East. Yeah, I mean, I've been thinking about also, how do you pronounce that word, Samizat, the say it was what Vaklav Havel would write books and it would be self published and secretly sent around from people to people. Yeah, they were illegally published magazines, yeah. I think we are going to be dealing with something similar not necessarily politically but circumstantially that the way we relate to each other is got to change and the, the way we make theater will probably have to change at least for a while. And so it behooves us to go back to what is fundamental in what we do. Get rid of all of the noise around it and try to figure out and I think one of the fundamental things about theater is that notion of tapping. Do you hear me, I hear you. You know, one of the most beautiful things I ever read in my entire life was in an interview with Alfred Brendle, the great Beethoven pianist who said that he would be in concert. And he would get he'd be playing a Beethoven sonata and he would get to the moment before the final chord and in concert, he lifts his hands and silently asks the audience, how long they'll let him wait until he plays the final chord. And when I read that I literally screamed I said that's it that's the entire reason I'm in the theater is for that permission where that communication that goes on between the stage and the audience or however that's configured. So, this is another, another essential quality of the theater and so I have no idea where I'm going in this conversation trying to do you I don't even remember what you know this is all very, very, very significant please do go on. Yeah. Yeah. So, so consequently, this is the time, as far as I'm concerned to develop a very strong shots, which I think is a little bit like having the accelerator on and the break on at the same time. And so when we let the break off we've got, we've got our engines going and it takes a certain discipline. It takes a certain reserve. It takes a certain containment, it's like taking a polyc painting and put a frame around it so we have polyc feelings, but we have to actually put a frame around it, not repress and get sick from our anxiety, but actually have have that full panoply, what's the word, panoply of color and paint and take care of it and preserve it and wait and waiting as an art as is listening, listening as an art and waiting as an art and these are things that we can cultivate for now. Yeah, this is this is this is a very good reminder you know the moment before you do something and this is no long a moment we do experience how do you how are you as a person as and how do you experience the time. Well, you know, there's something I think there was a book written about it called micro habits. I'm a person of micro habits. I realized that it's helped me a lot in terms of this period of time. And sometimes I think it takes me half a day just to go through my little micro habits. I mean I wake up in the morning. I drink my coffee I write. Then I do Tai Chi I meditate. I study whatever languages right now I'm studying two languages one in the morning one at night which is really confusing because they're too close to each other. So I study Spanish in the morning and Italian at night and it's completely confusing because they're so similar but it's sort of fun to do. And then we take our puppy for a walk in Kensington Gardens, and then I get on zoom for about seven hours and spend a lot of time, either with my students or with SDC and now I'll get to the part about city company which I think might be interesting. Yes. Which is what we're doing in this period. So when the Bacchae closed down in in Minneapolis it was supposed to have another four weeks or five week run which was great for the actors, as they call it a sit down. And then right after that the company was supposed to go to Singapore to the festival to make a new play with a company there of the three sisters and then after that we have Saratoga which every month we do a four week intensive training. And all of that gone, certainly after salaries everything gone, and due to the brilliant machinations of our staff led by Executive Director Michelle Preston, who very quietly went about finding ways for us to survive financially and it was very clear that what was most important were the actors the people who were involved that we had to take care of those people who had suddenly lost work weeks which means they lose health insurance so through her brilliance Michelle Preston and her staff. We have the actors around salary through June for now through June which is great and then we've been working through May and into June. Now what we're doing I think is interesting and might be relevant to some people who are listening which is a couple of years ago, maybe it was more than a couple of years ago I had a conversation with Moises Kaufman, and he said that he found it ridiculous that ensemble theater companies raised money for projects. And he thought, you know, if you were a painter, you don't raise money for a painting you raise money for a studio where a lot of different paintings are being made. And in the process of going to various foundations and funding agencies and saying, I think the way you think about funding ensemble companies should change and I jumped on board immediately. It made so much sense to me. And so we at City Company changed the way we approached funding and certain, and certain foundations went along with it they got it. Fund a studio rather than a project. NISCA went on board NEA went on board various foundations went on board. So what we had was something we called workspace. And workspace is, if you think of like planes on the tarmac, each plane is a project at various times one takes off so we would be working on various projects the actors are on salary. And we work on various projects and at certain times of the year, the project takes off takes off off the tarmac. So this is what we've been doing for a few years and we went right back to it when the COVID crisis happened. We have something we we went back into workspace mode but now we're workspace on zoom. And so every day as a matter of fact, they're doing it right now, because I came here to speak with you and it started at noon in New York. And we are doing a number of things that I think you might find interesting one thing that we're doing is that for going on 30 years the company has trained together they do Suzuki training and viewpoints training together. And it's something that, you know, from the very beginning the actors asked each other, what is it that makes us a city company actors, and they decided, it's the training is the fact that we train together. And, and so that's always been a basic core value, and also a way that the company has kept solvent over the years that they is that all of the company members all of the actors teach they teach the training. And that is so that if they're not paid for being rehearsing or performing they're also being paid for teaching and we have a conservatory we've had for I think three or four years. We've had ongoing seasonal training. And so, suddenly, we're confronted with problems on zoom. We don't necessarily want to make zoom product. That's not interesting because we're theater people who are interested in that moment when Alfred Kendall decide talks about that quality between the audience and the actors. How do we use zoom during this this time or whatever platform we end up using to continue training. And so what we decided is that each of the actors each day it's five days a week would lead the training as they would in the studio usually in in our own studio. But that we would try to figure out how to do it on zoom and this is the actors are really far away. Oh, come on up here. Come on up here. Come say hello. Oh, oh, oh, look, look at the cable. Come on. Say hello over here that's Frank over there. It's great to have a puppy in this time. It's amazing. Yeah, it's important. It connects us to nature life. She's always present every moment. Oh, over here over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Yeah, I think it was always a my hold of a tongue of said you have to watch cats and dogs. Every movement is perfect. Right. Nothing superficial. Nothing they don't have to do, you know, nothing for show. It's just to do. That's the basis of the the Kleist essay towards a marionette theater that marionette aren't self conscious. And animals aren't self conscious either and that's the problem every actor has. Anyway, anyway, that was maybe she's now leaving. That was enough. So, each actor in city company leads a half an hour training. And it's at moments awkward, because here we are in all these different windows and people are in their damn living rooms. And they feel ridiculous and embarrassed. And at one point, you know, Kelly Marr would say, I'm stomping on my carpet. I feel so dumb. And so it's felt very, very awkward. And so they do Suzuki training and a little bit of viewpoint training but each actor has to innovate how to do it with each other on zoom. And they come up with insane ideas. But the point is, is that they're trying. And there are every once in a while there's a sliver where you say, Oh, I feel that tapping on the window or I feel that sense of what Alfred Brendel's talking about. And there are many little hints. And I think that's what we're going to have to go through a little bit to is the awkwardness when we can leave our homes and we start venturing out into places where other people might be dangerous might make you sick. You know, what does that mean. So anyway, we do that training for a half an hour every day. And then we've been working on old repertoire but then the last two weeks we've been reading. Very seriously, and very deep reading together. It's kind of table work of Thornton Wilder skin of our teeth, which we have never done before, and is the most extraordinary play in this moment. And of course we all have the appetite to do it now is to do a big production of it, however one can, because it the content of it is essentially the content we're living through now and it is prescient and strange and you know, and a lot of people accused Thornton Wilder stealing from James Joyce's Finnegan Wake there's things lifted from it. And as even even Joseph Campbell, of all people accused Thornton Wilder of lifting chunks of Finnegan's Wake and Thornton Wilder said, Yeah, and I hope that somebody lifts from me, you know, 50 years from now. He was deeply influenced, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he reacted to it as you said, you know. Yeah, and it became part of it. I always love who is that rock and roll singer. I'll think of his name in a minute who said that whatever he hears, he thinks he owns. And I love that. I mean, you can get litigation forever on that but he feels that whatever he hears he owns is is fascinating. Anyway, so we're trying. And so sitting company will through the month of June, be on salary having health insurance and after that we don't, we haven't figured that out yet but we're working on it. So how do you deal with it having all that responsibility for your company your students, being part of the council of the directors. I'm really grateful for it. And you might feel that a little bit too Frank, in terms of what you're doing. I remember right after 911. I was asked to give a speech at the APAP. It was a great ceremony so I was very, very flattered that after 911 they would ask me to give the big opening plenary speech. And what I realized in preparing for it is that I was jealous of all the people who had to figure out how to put things back together again after 911. People who had to get the newspapers out and people who had to get the stock market backed up and running well that was part of the problem but we won't go into that. People who had who had jobs to do. Now it's a little different here because now people who have jobs to do are probably the most endangered people. The ones who are going to work every day are endangered but but I'm grateful for the responsibility for the students. I'm grateful to be part of the family of STC stage directors and choreographers union. And I'm grateful to be part of a company that's survived all these years going on 30 I have no idea how we did that we didn't start out that remarkable in America remarkable. I know we started out thinking oh 10 years max, but something happened it was a good chemistry. So being together now it doesn't feel so much as responsibility it feels like a necessity. As does the other work it feels the students need attention you know and that's another one of the. You know I was mentioning before that what we need to find out with what are the essential ingredients of the theater, get rid of all the other stuff around it. And one of the things the essential ingredients is attention and the quality of attention that you pay attention to what people who had things to say and they died and never finished their question their their their sentences and our job in the theater is to remember those people to put them back together again attention to Thornton Wilder who's not there you know attention to the issues and I remember driving in the car once in a snowstorm and I heard I was listening to a sermon because it was the only station I could get and it was and the the the priest whatever you call him the minister said describe the etymology of the word Episcopalian I grew up Episcopalian so I listened and it's Episcope, which means to look over Episcope. And I thought well that's what we do in the theater too it's a kind of Episcope is we are attending to issues we put our attention on something and as quantum physics taught us the act of attending to something changes it, or the observer created so that's another fundamental part of what it is that we do. So, paying attention is a big deal and that's also a kind of responsibility so when you ask me about feeling responsible yes, but it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, I'm grateful to be to be responsible to others. It's a I can only imagine you know how, how, how that must feel that and what you do with that also really it really really has consequences. It does but yeah. What was that film there were two films actually. One was called up in smoke. Who was the filmmaker who found a cigar store, or a little convenience store on a corner in Queens, maybe. And he decided it was such an interesting little store that he would shoot a film there. I'm not sure. I don't think it was Jeremiah she was somebody else. And then the actors had so much fun doing it they decided to use the rest of the stock to make another film which was then called blue or smoke or something. But, and I remember saying it was a while back, but the idea of saying that store is interesting. And suddenly, that's in a sense our job is to be curious and then to respond to something to be a barometer to the world to see what creates resonance in us. And we have to pay attention to that so now we're in a, in a, in an arena that we really don't know about we don't have control over. We are recognizing our own basic state of uncertainty which is actually more true than any sense of certainty. And so what we do have is we have the barometer of our body and our interest. And we have to pay attention to what's happening and then go there. When we get what the French call a prison decor, you know, goosebumps. We have to pay attention to what's giving us goosebumps and we'll, we'll make discoveries that way we cannot predict the right actions you know when I think of my company, trying to do training on zoom. And it is embarrassing at moments and humiliating, but that trying is like being in a dark tunnel and trying to find a little bit of light. And that's where we are we're, we're again tapping on the walls to one another and listening for a response. In the tunnel and looking for for a light. Yeah, that's a, that's a beautiful image. And she said the reason she was doing theater, I don't know the reason why she started. How is it with you? Is it reinforcing this moment? Why you when you started, but you wanted to see her. What did, what did Olympia Dukakis say? I'm very interested. I just adore her. Yeah, if I understood right, she said the reasons why I started theater are no longer the reasons why she does theater now something has changed. It doesn't. So, how is that for you in this moment? Are you, are you, are you doing the theater for the same reasons? Are they different? Have you learned something or is this is something moving changing? Well, I think I originally got into theater because I was so angry. I was angry at my family. And I was angry at the world. I thought things were very unfair for women. And in the theater, I found a place of grace where and perhaps I could say a place that as a director I could control, although the older I get I realize I don't control anything. And I learned through doing the theater that what our job is is to build ideal communities that we believe in. And I'm a, I to this day, believe in nothing that I say is original and this is certainly not original the notion of revolutions in small rooms. And that I don't think that, say, a chorus line would have happened if Joe Chacon and the open theater hadn't done their work. And I'm sure Michael Bennett went and saw it and said, Oh, and so in these small rooms of the open theater where they created a new kind of drama that had to do with the people in the room was brand new. I think that a chorus line came into the world and then spread out into the world so we create certain social systems in the, in the room or then. But also if you, and this is, I'm going to get around to answering your question because my the answer is going to be it's the same. But what I understood is, meaning my reason for doing the theater is the same now as it was. But if you look at what the difference between the theater and all other art forms is the theater is the only art form whose subject is always how are we getting along. And how can we get along better. So every play that has any value is about a social system that screwed up. You know, a guy kills his father sleeps as his mother and thieves is a mess. And you watch these characters try to find harmony from a state of dissonance. And that makes a great play that's called the tragedy that's fantastic. But death of a salesman is the same thing a family is screwed up the state of imbalance and you try to find a group of people and individuals trying to find balance in a state of imbalance and a state and in a in a compromise situation. So that each play asks the question, how are we as a community and how can we be better so it is about social systems dances and visual arts is an architecture isn't the theater is about how are we getting along. But what became clear to me is that it's not only how the characters in a player getting along, but it's also how the actors are getting along. I mean if you've ever seen a play, you probably know, I mean if you can look at the stage and know how the rehearsal process was by how the actors are together. And the audience feels that, and if you can create a social system that proposes a different way that a society might exist in that small room you're starting to change the culture around you. That's why it's a revolution small rooms. So it's not only how are the audience the actors getting along. It's how are the is the audience getting along. I'm going to quote David mammoth because I hate to quote David mammoth but he said the audience learns from one another how to watch a play. But it's not only how is the audience getting along and how are the actors getting along. It's how are the actors in the audience getting along together. That's one of the major questions. So what I learned is that when an audience goes to see a theater, a play, they're actually seeing two plays simultaneously. One that they're receiving in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is about Oh, if they left the theater they say somebody said what was it about so it's a guy by about a guy who killed his father and slept with his mother and thieves as a mess. That's one play. The other play that they've taken in in a more ancient part of the brain is how these actors were getting along. They function together the actors together are proposing a way that human beings might be together. You know when I originally heard about the when when the Stanislavsky's Moscow art theater came to the United States in 1922 23. And all these young people went to the theater and they were so blown away by what they were seeing. I used to think oh it was that they were blown away by this technique of acting that Stanislavsky had started with this company. And I realized later when I read deeper and saw that oh were they begged some of the actors in the company to stay and teach them how to do it like both of Slavsky you know various people in the company. And it became their misunderstanding of Stanislavsky became the religion upon which our theater in the States is founded. It's a problem we won't go there right now. But what I realized is that what they were inspired by was not a way of acting or technique of acting they had never seen people be together that way before. Because until the Moscow Art Theater came, you know, for money because it was after the Russian Revolution and they were trapped they were broke, but they came to the States. And until the Moscow Art Theater came what you were looking at through either melodrama or vaudeville or fake English Shakespeare was this the kind of lead singer in the backup band that was very very hierarchical. And these young people who were in their 20s now whose names were people like Lee Strasberg or Harold Klurman or Stella Adler or you know, John Crawford, not Joan Crawford, Cheryl Crawford. These young people were had actually never seen people be that way together. And that was what was inspiring. And so you look at what was going on with Stanislavsky in those moments he actually brought older pieces of work to the states that he had done in like before the Revolution, Chekhov and Gorky. But he had been influenced by the latest breakthroughs in science in art in psychology he was influenced by Pavlov and later Freud. He was influenced by Heisenberg influenced by the notion of an observer created reality reality the uncertainty principle he was influenced by Picasso and Brock the whole birth of Cubism. And so what you do in the theaters you say, look at all these breakthroughs that have happened how do you apply that to us living together. How do you take Cubism, and use those breakthroughs those understandings in art or in science in the uncertainty principle, or with Freud, or with Einstein with special relativity or with Eisenstein in montage theory I told these people, and you translate it into the question that we're dealing with is how do we get along. How can we get along better. So here's approaches to acting and how an ensemble worked was a response to all of those amazing breakthroughs. One of the reasons that I think say the viewpoints which I did not invent Mary overly invented I get accused quite often of having invented it. I think one of the reasons it's been so popular in the states and in the world is because when people think that either as audience or in it, they are experiencing a different kind of way of getting along. And I remember years ago I was doing a workshop in, in North Carolina with with graduate students and actors and professional and at the time I was very interested in neuroscience and I wanted to make a play about neuroscience I was interested in studying it, and a friend of mine who was there in Chapel Hill said oh I know a neuroscientist would you like to meet him. And I said what's his name and and and she said his name is our grant steen I said oh my God I'm reading his book it's about physics, neuroscience and how people like me can understand it. I went for dinner and I was very impressed to be with this. Dr steen. And at the end of it, I asked him if he wanted to come see a viewpoint session. We were doing a sort of final. I was doing a 10 day workshop with students and with actors and we were going to do a final open showing and he said sure I don't go to the theater much but I'd love to go so he came, and we had a talk back at the end of it and he rose his hand immediately. And I said, yes, Dr steen he said, what I just saw in an open viewpoints improvisation is how we've learned the brain works. I said what do you mean. He said well the way information is is is communicated, you know, there's no central force in the brain, the way the synaptic activity works the way information is passed. And I understood in that that's why it's become such a popular phenomenon, because people are looking at it and saying, Oh, I get about how to be together. These are the, the breakthroughs in the internet in string theory, you know, in all of the art that we're experiencing, the theater says, Oh, well then how do we translate that into how we get along and how we might get along better. So to answer your questions a very long way of answering your question. I'm still dedicated to making theater that actually has presence that has force that is something you have to deal with. And with it, it is a proposal of ways of being in the world together. Ideally, we work on it say city company in a room in a studio and that that that the work in that studio of creating an ideal social system will actually bleed out into the rest of the world and have an effect so you work hard in your studio, not just because you're only interested in in the studio interested in making something that has enough resonance that it might actually spread out in into the world. So to answer your question. It's the same. How do we get along and how can we get along better. And when I said I was angry as a young person I was angry about, you know, being a girl there was just no career path in the theater for a young director. I was angry at my parents I was angry, you know, I sometimes joke that the first half of my career is based on anger against my parents and the second half of my career is based against anger against the critics you know anger is really wonderful it's amazing if you don't let it kill you. It's a it's a great source of energy. So, great motivation. Yeah, it's the same. Yeah, it's so what a beautiful statement to say theater is looking at how the brain works and what happens on stage. By doing by moving, you're thinking you know you're in art that's why theater is art form and not entertainment I think Olympia the caucus perhaps also referred to that she had the great whole theater in Montclair, which she run for a long time and she had to give it up it was not possible in that smaller town. So even you know for you one more congratulation of keeping a company together and the Moscow Art Theater one of the reasons maybe also was nobody had seen an ensemble that trained 10 years together as an ensemble. Yeah, and then they did something they build on some of the idea also what you what you, yeah, what you champion so and let's say you're your answer or one of your insers or formal inventions or going back to great traditions like the ensemble was to build that ensemble be together. Is that something you would say is the thing to do now what's in that time on after corner what do you think would work from your vast experience you have directed so much created so much you have seen so much you have taught generation so what do you think works what should people be doing. Well, you know, I've always hated. There's two terms that I hate in the theater. One is I hate the term experimental theater I just think it's the worst term ever. Because what's not experimental, because it tends to classify a certain kind of genre into a very small container and, and I don't like to I don't think the word is very pretty. I don't like it. And the other phrase I hate and the Australians use it a lot is physical theater like physical I do physical theater I'm like, what theater isn't physical. But I would go back to the word experiment and I would say, I do know that as we come out we have to experiment again. I hope we don't call it experimental theater. I think we have to experiment with space and time. We have to experiment with how we can be together in a good way how we can be a model society, you know, and, and it behooves us to study the past. What was the book you mentioned the small book of the small theater history of the world. Yeah, I think it's called a short history of theater. Yeah, I have to look that without it behooves us to say what is every audience actor relationship that has existed in the history of the world. You know, do you say it started in a circle, and then somebody stepped out of the circle, you know, or do you do you look at that different theater architecture around the world or, or. So it's an experimentation that's founded in, in study in research in remembering in trying things out as much as I'm watching the actors in in city company right now, trying their best. And I think we'll make a lot of mistakes, but if we go back and just try to do what we were doing before. I think a lot of your guests have been very eloquent about why we shouldn't do that because the world is falling apart and for reasons we need to re examine so I think in the theater we just have to re look at how we work, you know, I remember Bob Einstein said something. The brilliant Robert Bruce Dean founder of Yale rep and RT said a long time ago he said for the theater you need three things. You need passion, you need technique, and you need something to say. And when he said that I said that's so right it's like I think of a milking stool, you know that if one of those is missing the whole thing falls down if you don't have something to say doesn't matter about your technique doesn't matter about your passion. So I guess no there there as Gertrude Stein said about Oakland California. It's, it's not going to work. And I think what we are going to have to look at is technique, because we don't have the techniques to handle the world we're about to walk into. So we're going to have to invent them. And I always remember a story you know I'm a big fan of Martha Graham and her mythology. But I remember. When she left Ruth St. Dennis and as a young woman she studied with Ruth St. Dennis and Ted Sean in Santa Barbara came to New York to start on her own. She got some dancers and then she wrote to Ruth St. Dennis and Ted Sean and said, Great I've worked with you I want to use your techniques to teach in New York so I can make a living. And they wrote back and said for a price. She didn't have the money. So she had to make up what became the Martha Graham technique. And the dancers had to wait for her to come up with it. And they didn't know that she was Martha Graham. You know, they'd say things like she'd say to them don't count they go wait if we count we can get to get it. No, don't count. You know so that kind of experimentation if you think of Martha Graham as a young woman alone or not alone with her, her women dancers waiting for her to come up with something. She said that famous I sing go beautiful sentence. I don't look for movements movements come to me. Yeah. So you have to receive them have to be open to them. So we have to go out wide open determine just angry enough to keep us going. And I would use that word experiment with hesitation because I don't like the word so much but I think we are going to have to experiment a lot which is kind of exciting. We're going to have to innovate. And then this is a be open to failure right that it might not guarantee guaranteed it's going to it's going to happen. You know, I don't remember which of Martha Graham's work it was was very early one. And people hadn't seen her concerts and and she got she she wanted the women to enter on stage. I think from stage left in a line. That's all just slowly come in and align. And the dancers kept saying Martha if we counted we could step together. And she kept saying don't count, don't count. We counted. I remember reading this in Agnes de Mills gorgeous book about, which is the one to read about Martha Graham's life. And, and so opening Night King small theater concert. And everybody who was in the room said they will never forget that line of women walking on in silence together, like what it was. It was ancient it was. It was revelatory because of the difficulties they went through in the rehearsal they didn't count. What does it mean if you're not counting together how do you, how do you relate you know it's again going back to tapping on the wall are you there are you stepping. Where are you. It goes back again to sauce you have to develop this quality of the moment before an action which determines the success of an action. So to your question I'd say experiments. And to really experiment the way we I mean we are also you are the universities where in physics experiment goes wrong is valuable right because you know that doesn't work. Yeah, it's important. Yeah, I just heard yesterday actually some of my students who are MFA directors going into their third year. They told me about a confab of MFA directors who all got together on the zoom to talk and wonderful idea, whoever set it up from the different graduate schools talk about how they're doing. When the direction came up how are your different departments dealing with this new situation, and a lot of the programs they said we're turning to film, they were going to offer the directors film training, which I think is great. But what I'm going to do with Columbia with Brian Kula, who's my fellow directing teacher is not turned to film is we're going to experiment we're going to think of this as a lab time, a time to discover to look at what the obstacles are and the restrictions and through those restrictions create our own some is odd however you say that word, publish our own material that that might show some discoveries and go through that discomfort I don't think we will turn to film. I hope we learn from the technologies we're certainly learning a lot through the platforms that include zoom about how to use technology so I'm not saying the a lot I did all I'm saying theater. And also the film and television artists they have, they know what to do for a screen you know that's been there for decades or a century, and we are in a different in a different realm and so what what exercises do you do if you but what do you do as students on zoom what are you. Well, I've decided that this coming fall, which will probably be a great deal on zoom for the incoming directors, the first years who are coming in. Usually they have to make work right away and make to fully stage short pieces a week one for Brian and one for me. I've discovered have have decided to make the first semester, highly rigorous academic. And, and I'm, you know, I'm my own graduate trading was I got an MA from NYU in what's now called performance studies back then it was called theater history and criticism or something. Like, that was the most important studies that I did as a director because I, because of the, the kind of teaching that was happening there then with Richard check my nose on your program and and Ted Hoffman, you know, Michael Kirby at the time. It was all about the anthropology and sociology of theater at that foundation was the best director trading I could get so we're going to in the fall semester really, really lean in hard on history I'm going to teach for the first time in my life a class called history of directing, which is a challenge. And then in the second semester assuming that we'll be able to make things they'll make things all semester so that we usually Brian and I take, you know the two years of classes and do a lot of academic work, sort of salted peppered into the their their making but since due to the situation. You know, the directors joked and I thought it was very funny when with this first happened they said what are we going to do with puppets that's going to puppets on tables on zoom is that what we're going to do. And I don't think that's necessarily the way to go so I think we're going to really get into deep sort of performance studies for for the first semester until we are safe to be closer to each other. How interesting and if this is the moment before they launched their career before the arrow goes out in the world. It's a different attention and there will be. That's a real change. It's definitely a change. And yeah, it's definitely a change. But I think I think it's the right decision, because you have to look at the tools you have the circumstances you're in and try to try to light lights inside of young directors. You know you can always tell when it's resonating with them because they get a little misty eyed, you know, they get excited. You have to do it through zoom for now. And that's, that's again experimental. That basically runs against all what we believe in and how we have trained but yet it's a it's a new modern media and the French philosophy, you know, when it traditional 1000 year old form comes together with a new technology, something happens and we'll see. I don't dare say that that's I'd like to read around that. Yeah, I once had a beautiful talk of this was kind of an archaeology he called of modernity and the lines that go back instead of thinking it in a linear way he said it's these all circles and as you said what is avant garde. Probably someone in the Greek chorus, one person step one step ahead out of it and said something and people were that's incredible, you know, someone said something, not about on his own and then a second person stepped out and said something. And people said that's amazing and then the two talk to each other. So, yeah, but they are they are connected. The idea was you could hear it know that the acoustics and you could hear what they said you know it and a technical architectural invention, you know. But even before that, which I find amazing is that they there they were in doing these rituals on their own and the dithy wrap there was nobody watching who said suddenly, Oh, let's people let people into watch us. There's another one, you know, because the original in Greek, those Greek dithy rams were done without an audience. What suddenly led. Oh, we'll do it on this hillside so they could sit there and watch us. Wow. I think it is in a way it is a time and the essence, you know, or black Athens as Richard taught us and referred to it, which was closer to Africa than we all think. But what does it mean for say what would it mean for New York City is to celebrate life to understand who we are. You once said that beautiful quote from Sanskrit, you know, there is about where do we come from, you know, are we now where we going and you have to entertain the drunk, if I remember right, you know. Oh, it was yeah yeah exactly. It's it's one you what theater has to do three things one, you have to answer the question how does the universe work. Two, it has to answer the question how to live. And three, it has to entertain the drunk, all at the same time. It's so great I'm so glad you remembered. Yeah, it's another milking milking milking milking slope but do you feel that this time even so if I understand right you're really really are working so hard as always but do you feel inside your change are you looking at the world differently. Yeah. And, you know, I did a couple of days ago I did the West Coast. Director's lab zoom session at the end of it they said the, what have you learned, or what advice would you give, and what came out of my mouth was slow the fuck down. Randy Treyvitz who had asked me the question said, oh, I'm printing that that t shirt right now. And that's what I've learned is to slow the fuck down. Slow the fuck down you know we've been going faster and faster and faster over the last number of decades you know I remember trying to deal with like what what do we do as theater directors during MTV member MTV it's like do we go faster than MTV. The internet is twice as fast as that. What are, it's become to a point of speed, where in the theater, changing the time signature has become the most radical thing you could possibly do to change the time signature of living. And so I thought I was doing that I thought I was pretty slow inside but in terms of your question. What have I learned is to slow the fuck down slow down slow down. I hope I don't forget that you know I hope I hope that's a change that has resonance and effect over time. And this is the worst thing to say because I don't really mean it. Sometimes I think we need to be in this longer, because if we get out of it too fast, we just go back to our old habits. I don't mean that because I'm thinking of the cost of on so many lives right now but I do think that I'm scared that we will forget so fast the lessons of this time. Is there something what you wish we say in New York City our city but what should change that would make it better right away is there something or do you what you dream about that possible. It's already changed. And you know, a couple of years ago I was talking to some undergrad new school students and there was a young man undergrad. I was talking about politics and he said, Oh, you know, you should use the term intentional civics. I said, What. He said, Yeah, I've been thinking about this thing called intentional civics it turns out he made it up I've looked for this term. And it means that the quality of the intentional civics is paying attention to the space in between people, not the people themselves in other words, rather than dealing with psychology is you deal with the quality space between people who take care of that space. Now in our current moment, the space between us has become very, very alive and very dangerous and, and we have the, the option of either doing what that horrible woman in Central Park did yesterday where she called on a African American man and said there's an African American trying to threaten me, which I would call not civic civic attention I'd call it I'd call it civic abuse. But intentional civics is to to say that my job as a human being is to take care of the space between me and other people. It's something that certainly the viewpoints is about and it's one reason I've loved working with that is that what we need to do as we go back out is not to be abusive to one another, but take responsibility, not for each other to take care of the space or fears or what have you but take care of that space. And if we can. I mean you're talking to a girl who was at Woodstock for three days so I'm a little, an old hippie in that way but but there was something really extraordinary happening in those at that time. And if we can heighten our attention to civic to the civics, the intentional civics of our of our space I think we might discover many new things. And that I'm talking about New York City. We're already there. We already have the space between us has become more alive. We're moving in a different way. How do we develop that. Can we develop it with a intentional civics that we intentionally take care of the people around us the space around us. Can we move together more gracefully. Yeah, that's, that's something that's, that is possible and think about right it doesn't meet any big millions of dollars and it's an awareness as you say, what the teachers. Change your change your mind a little bit. Change how you think about being in the world. Think more horizontally, rather than vertically. In the horizontal is the social system. We tend to think vertically you know we come from in the United States anyway it's a it's a it's a culture based on violence and cowboys you know and it's very vertical. But there's another thing that happens horizontally which I hope we will accentuate. Perhaps in this time really people also in a way do realize the fast velocity that stands in the way of us also leading better lives being better human beings and enjoying. Yeah. Our time our community our cities that something we are actually missing and right Frank, it's really about savoring isn't it like that's if we're moving at a certain pace we don't savor. I remember if you ever have been injured or something like I remember when there's like different Tempe on the streets of New York. I found when I've been injured or I can't work walk so fast there's a whole nother realm of people who are going slow. There's a time when you're going fast, and you just get into a different space and suddenly there's blurs of people going by and there's a whole nother world that's living underneath that time. But I think you're absolutely right I think celebrate you use that word and I would save her case. I would think, you know, in the Virginia Wolf sense, moments of being enjoy being together. Yeah. What do you think about writing will there be a new writing coming out is what's writing. Are you interested in the moment or what are you. What are you looking at. There's a there's a really really wonderful book which actually Rachel Chaffkin told me about and then she mentioned it and I got it which is the over story by Richard Powers I don't really read fiction much, but it's doing something very interesting, which is it's as you read it you realize it's about trees it's not about humans. And it's again it's a way of changing the dramaturgy of our of the way we receive the world there's another book called Dostoevsky read Hegel and bursts into tears. It's by a Hungarian, and it's about essentially how the enlightenment screwed us that we became so involved in thinking that we could conquer everything. I'm talking about the enlightenment of the 18th century, and that we're getting to a point where actually we were not in charge. There's a new book by somebody named Lewis Hyde who wrote the gift, which is called the primer primer for forgetting. It's a, it's a gorgeous book. It's done with just for fun, which is Parisian lives by Deirdre Bear, who's wrote it wrote about writing about back writing the biographies of Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir. And these are I guess these are most of what I described is slightly different kind of dramaturgy is like taking, you know, who are those photographers who who suddenly started taking pictures from a greater distance than usual. So you start seeing the architecture of the world to must shoot like that German school. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I think there's writers who are doing that. Certainly. And if I could get off zoom enough I have a book I'm writing a book myself, which is due to the publishers by the end of the summer. And it's called the art of resonance. What is that about. Tell us a bit. Well, you know, I used to think that the most important thing in the theater was the theater I would say, if the theater were a verb it would be to remember to put things back together get to remember. And a friend of mine who's a city company member and also co artistic director Leon Ingalls Ruth said to me that his, his mother has Alzheimer's. He said, what about people who can't remember. I thought that's interesting what is it that we do in the theater and I started coming to the word resonance that we create resonance. Like there's times when I'll read a book and then I forget what it was. But I realized and I think how could I read a book and forget what it is. What's the point of reading it but I realized that while I was reading something happened to me something started to resonate to resound. And so the notion of creating resonance is at the core of what we do it's like a tuning fork you know on the stage, we set up something and in the audience it resonates. So that the, or even you know just just two weeks ago I was doing some writing and I always give Rena my wife the first read, and she read it and she was like she gave me some critique. And I was like I was so angry because she wasn't excited by everything I thought she hated it. So I tried to write it some more and I realized that it simply didn't resonate with her she didn't. She didn't read it and have something that that that made it go farther. And I realized it wasn't she being too critical of my work, it was just she didn't resonate with it. And I realized if we don't create resonance the world there's no point. So by going back to the beginning of our talk I had so much trouble with self display on the internet when the COVID crisis started like that's not about creating resonance. It's creating resonances where there's something happens and then it causes something else to reverberate which causes something else, so that you start a resonance you can't control where it's going to go with the world. So I'm trying to write a book of essays around that subject. So it's called The Art of Residence. But when you were that young angry. I don't want to hold you too long for your time but when you were the young angry young woman. What did you see and see what what was the moment what what what you saw always I'm going to do sooner what was that that resonated so strongly. There were two, two big things that happened with three actually. One was, you know, my, my family's in the Navy, every on all sides it's always been Navy for many many generations as a matter of fact, my great great great great grandfather was captain of the minute men. You know, during the really. Yeah, it's that military. My grandfather my mother's father was in charge of the Pacific Fleet during the Second World Wars name was Admiral Spruance and he was very quiet man but, and he's known for winning the battle of Midway, you know, he was strategist. And he used to go to sleep in the middle of battles, and people would come to his door and say Admiral Admiral this submarine is sunk. What should we do and he'd say why'd you wake me up. They say but Admiral the submarine was sunk by the Japanese and he'd say well you know what to do we've gone over it. He was a great strategist. His gift was strategy was not it was unlike MacArthur would restage battles to show how great he was. My grandfather would say, there's no room for photographers on the flag flagship he was anti PR. And he's related to him because it's like you don't stop a play in the middle of the play and say, director what should we do it's not working to say my idea we worked it out it's strategy so for me. The directing is strategy and creating a world in which other people can make that strategy work. Can answer your question so we moved every year or two longest place I ever lived as a kid was in Japan for two and a half years. And when I was six years old. Ancient resonance have the fear that came up when I saw some of the huge puppets and and and costumes on outdoor festivals in the streets of Tokyo terrified me. It was just a terror that you know all theater is based in terror, and it awoke in me a fear and a desire to get closer at the same time. And moving from school to school it was always dumped into these big stupid schools, and I always find a little place where they were doing plays I never wanted to act in them but I was you know running around backstage and helping out. And then Rhode Island, when I was 15 I saw my first professional production, and it was directed by Adrian Hall. And I was one of the school kids was Adrian hall went to the NEA and asked for a million dollars 1967 when I first saw the plate million dollars was like 150 billion to bring every school kid in Rhode Island to see theater I'd never seen professional theater. It was the Scottish play, and I sat there as a kid in the theater. It was directed by Adrian hall it was designed by Eugene Lee, I didn't know all these things at the time I was just 15. I didn't understand a word, because it was Shakespeare. The witches were coming out of the ceiling. The actors were 360 degrees around. And Adrian and his company didn't try to dump it down at all they didn't take that million dollars from the NEA do kids walk. They did complex, complicated, scary, terrifying theater and I sat in that theater with like the 1000 other kids, and I said, That's it. That's what I want to do whatever that is. And it was my first lesson as the director, because I didn't understand anything I'd never heard Shakespeare before I didn't know what they were talking about. The lesson was and I didn't meet a green hall until 20 years later when I became the second artistic director, Trinity rep which is where it happened in Rhode Island that's another story. But what I learned from him as a 15 year old is don't talk down to your audiences, because I realized that theater isn't about understanding I didn't understand anything but it was about taking my 15 year old sensibilities and bringing it to a thing I didn't understand. And that space between me and it, which is unfamiliar is the reason that I stayed in the theater or wanted to be a director and that's, that's, you know, I pointed in that that can shiny and said if you can't can't say it point to it I pointed at the stage and said, my whole being said that's it. That's what I'm going to do. That was the formidable. And there was no going back. And I've never done anything since I'm such a loser only direct. Oh, you went very, very deep as a, as I said as a hedgehog but also as a fox to cover a lot of feel or as a rabbit he said you know you have to combine both things. This is what what makes it what makes it makes it different. Yeah, this is an incredible time and also you would spending time with your wife together for such a long time. And the puppy. And the puppy and you're you're in London your way from New York. Listen, thank you really really for for for sharing and for. Thank you and I will reiterate what I said in the beginning. I'm thanking you for doing this series. I think it's very important. That that really really means the world to me I also know that you mean that and that's even more, more significant as a closing and you've talked a little bit but what in the essence for your Columbia students for young artists everywhere also maybe for our listeners. And what do you feel how, how is that time where we really do not know how it will end or maybe we'll open up and it will close again nobody knows. But what do you feel is there is a significant thing we should take with us, you know what what was your Well, you know it's, I remember and you spoke with Richard form and recently I remember he came to speak to my students and he said two things that shocked me coming from him. One is, he said and you know how intelligent and heady he is. He said the only thing you have going for you in rehearsal is your intuition, there's nothing else, no amount of reading, and I thought, boy, if Richard form and is saying that it's got to be true. And the other thing he said when a director asked for advice, he said something that I cannot ever top and I feel it's the answer to your question but I will attribute it to Richard form and he said courage. So, and I think courage and intuition would be the ingredients that we need to cultivate. Well, this is something we really should listen carefully that could be to have the courage to use our intuition to think about the space between us. And then we go out to create things that resonate in the sense of what you said that something happens you know when you read a book and we're already reading a word, you have to do some work right this is tree but you have to imagine it and you have to make a decision, what does that mean which tree is it and I think this this work that it's about us that we have to participate and that we have to be active and that they have, as you pointed out we have to think of the bigger picture it's no longer good enough to to to be of yours so they will be will be really really interesting and one of your students I'm actually Kelly Tata I think today again she will do the the mad forest I think it's a I'm going to watch it tonight yeah three o'clock New York Times I get to see it in London. Yeah, so it's one of the theater for new audience not beautiful new audience yeah sorry beautiful the new audience I'm the big difference. And, and, you know, so she's trying I think the rehearsals were interrupted. Yeah. And as a good student of yours she did not stop. As you said, and she tried to adopt it here for zoom. I can't wait to see it and I've had emails from people who didn't know to use my students saying oh my God you have to see this. I was in tears. I'm so excited. Yeah, so let's see there's something since our out there things as we are changing maybe already have changed and it will also reinforce you know what we have had also site something new will grow I said that earlier I think the that that great German poet Kathleen White Maya very much who said if if there is danger that what saves us also grows. Yeah, in the time we might not see it but it's growing and I hope this is something in theater of you know and you and everybody and working on it you know as you point out how significant that is that to observe and changing while observing this audience member we need great audiences to we do have them and said we actually are part of that world and our participation is of significance actually ultimately all about us are you listeners at home now and people in the audience people on this stage and that the we are connected in a mysterious way. I'm also so glad you brought up hold a lean which is something her to learn should be more known in the state so keep talking about hold a lean. Okay, and I will and I thank you for bringing up Christ you know that's also in his marionette theater that's an important contribution. Well there's another book that he wrote that we should all read in this period, which is very important it's called or it's not a book it's maybe an essay called on the formulation of thought through speaking. Which is, I think, profound. He talks to a sister right who said who he claimed she doesn't understand but something becomes clear why he explains to him. Well it was a bit misogynist he said you talk to dogs or women you'll figure it out. But look beyond that there's something beyond that. Yeah, that's what he was was trying to say and I think he might not have very much and was most fond is next to Charlotte perhaps some of closest terms are really, really thank you tomorrow we have a Patricia who's from Australia playwright. Also, you know, as an experience like yours. She has done many, many great works for the Australian theater and try to put to find language and stage in place to reflect on the Australian society. And, and I found from Hong Kong is with us on Thursday Carol, Martin suggested him to come on to really talk about life art making it there but during the virus but also now with this new laws that are being proposed or imposed better to set by China let what will what's what's the situation for artists there. We had also artists you know when they won the Ukraine was a the coronavirus this is a holiday for us it's like Christmas we the war is stopping you know so we enjoying this you know and the devastating accounts we heard from Brazil and the complication in Poland, and in Egypt, Lebanon so it's a really it's a worldwide crisis and the theater is deeply deeply infected as everybody else but artists are more vulnerable. They do need encouragement as you also said and they are such a significant part and we perhaps also don't see that in the fast pace we all move that artists really really do need support they support us so what you do is great with your union and we are students and we look up to companies so we look up to you you are woman really. Thank you for sharing that that moment in time thanks to how around for hosting us as I maybe didn't fully know what we got into as well as for how run didn't fully believe it but it would happen it's a lot of work for them so thank you so much for joining us and I hope you will join us tomorrow we hope the audience that will be with us, you know, to hear from Eugene Barba also Tadashi Suzuki and many many others, we're waiting to hear from so we'll go on and try to make our contribution and keep on knocking I love that idea of the little knocks and the communication so thank you thank you and for everything and all the good energy and forces and that you know that that time also you know will keep the bow working there is the Japanese haiku also that says a bow of an arrow that's always under tension will not shoot, you know, it will get weak. It needs to rest so perhaps there's also said it's a little bit of time so thank you again and thanks to our audience really thank you for taking the time out of your busy day we all know how much we all have so it means a lot for us. You know that you do listen and that you carry the words with you it's ultimately also about you the listeners not really about us so it is important to have audiences importance to process the thinking like in literature perhaps as the French but also was taught us it's not really about the writer. It is what you think how you interpret it how you make connections how you put this together the same as with theater work. And others it's how you see it how you connect it how you make new combinations of signs and interpreted it in the imagination and the symbolic but also in the real way and this is the work of the audience it's fun and it's great. Theater artists work so hard so it's a fantastic thing to be able just to come and see and think about it so and thank you for being in the little bunker there in London. The underground as he said, who knows who was sitting there with an old house you know what what time happened before you go start surrounding you. So, thank you again, and I hope you all stay safe and stay tuned to us. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye and thank you.