Liberation (42 page)

On the other hand, I personally am a devotee of Swami first and a Vedantist second. I flatter myself that
my
devotion is, in the last analysis, not to Swami himself as Abanindra Nath Ghosh but as “the vessel through which Le Sacre passed,” the living proof that spiritual enlightenment is possible. I flatter myself that I can see Swami as “the vessel” and also as my adorable but quite human and fallible little Bengali friend, and keep the two separate in my own mind. I can bow down to the God which is sometimes manifest in him and yet feel perfectly at ease with him, a minute later, on an ordinary social basis. My religion is what I glimpse of Swami's experience of religion. But I still firmly claim that it isn't a personality cult.

Nevertheless, it is very possible that I have encouraged others to practise a cult of Swami. It is all very easy for me, after thirty-some years, to be able to distinguish between The Guru and Abanindra Nath Ghosh, but, when I talk about Swami to others, I am nearly always talking about The Guru. Therefore I am apt to say, for example, that I believe (and I do believe it) that it is a tremendous privilege to set eyes on Swami even once and that a single meeting with him might have incalculable effects upon an individual in later life. And that's apparently cult talk; it's nearly certain to be misunderstood as such.

Ananda made a reference to “the Venice Group,” with obvious hostility—and that too I can understand; from her point of view, such people are most unsuitable members of a congregation and scare away the respectable. I tend to be sentimental about “Venice” types, provided that they are cute and young and male. And I am particularly impressed by their instinctive understanding of
darshan
. Why
shouldn't
they want to sit and gaze at Swami, I feel, especially since they know they won't get many more opportunities of doing it? I don't know if Ananda blames me for bringing Jim Gates and Peter Schneider into the society. I doubt if she objects to Jim but she may well have taken against Peter. He
does
, more and more, seem to be playacting. I say “seem” because I do believe that he sincerely wants to be initiated—though that may be partly out of his Jewish competitiveness, to catch up with Jim; it's his methods of keeping himself in Swami's eye which appear like clowning. He is always lurking in the shadows, after dark, when I come out of Swami's room. Last time, when I saw who it was, I involuntarily said “Peter Quint!”
¹⁵⁶
Also, lately, he has written Swami another of his letters—the most outrageous, so far:

 

You have smeared me with sandal paste

And splashed me with water

And laid me here on a silver plate with other flowers,

Unfamiliar and strange.

 

You didn't just uproot me, keeping me in some of my native soil so I could be planted again.

No; you broke my stem, so I'm separated from the earth,

And even if my broken stem were planted again

I would not grow, but droop and rot;

My original fragrance (!?!) and the sandal paste's, too,

Would mingle with the world's winds, leaving me

Raging ridiculously, thinking it must have been a wishful dream to ever have been on a silver plate.

 

But, why won't you offer me?

Have you only now seen my blemishes,

Eaten-away bad spots, Or am I just not pretty enough?

Or have you finished your worship now,

Leaving a few unlucky unused flowers, having

Picked too many?

(I'm not surprised if you're ashamed to put me at His feet, and I know I'm closer to Him now than before you picked me.)

Please put me at His feet, before I wither and blacken myself with my jealous restlessness, and become

Too ugly at last to even stay on the waiting plate.

 

As a psychological exhibit, I find this enormously interesting. Even if it was written primarily as dialogue for the role Peter is playing, two things in it seem to reveal more about him than he intended—the question “am I just not pretty enough?” and the phrase “jealous restlessness.”

That reminds me of another demonstration of the personality cult which I took part in a few weeks ago, I forget which day. I had gone to Vedanta Place during the daytime when Swami was about to take one of his invalid walks; a few turns round the temple and then back to his room. So we all set out, Swami ahead, me a few paces behind, then Krishna, then about ten devotees who had been waiting around for this moment. After we'd started, Peter sidled up and got into step with me, and as we circulated he asked me if I thought he should concentrate on taking his degree at college or rather study subjects which interested him, even if they weren't part of the required credits. . . . Thus he established himself as a specially favored cultist, practically leading the procession. And the only person who remained isolated throughout the walk was Swami himself—an onlooker would have supposed that he was just too sacred to be talked to!

 

March 20.
At 11 p.m. on the 16th, Ed Parone called to tell me that the Mark Taper has decided to do our
Meeting by the River
play. Jim is to direct it. And—wouldn't you know—this overlaps the period of rehearsal and the opening of Jack's Byron opera in New York! Jack got into a terrific flap about this, the other evening, and Jim told us he raved all that night and said he was leaving Jim and going off somewhere on his own, because he was being rejected by Jim and slighted by Virgil Thomson (who won't let him publish his version of the scenario, and won't allow him to have a queer scene with Lady Caroline Lamb). So Jim, who rather loves all this fuss, has sworn to dash back and forth between here and New York and hold Jack's hand and be at the opera opening, even if it means missing our rehearsals!

For a while, it looked as if we'd get Jon Voight to be in the play. Now he is backing down. Maybe that's just as well. He's what Jim calls “a talking actor,” meaning that he has to discuss every move.

Am feeling hounded, right now. Letters, manuscripts, people who have written theses and want to interview me. (One of them, David Geherin, did a whole tape of conversation with me and then somehow goofed and erased half an hour of it—so I had to redo it over the phone!
¹⁵⁷
) Then Hunt keeps plaguing us with “The Mummy.” The only thing which doesn't budge is “Frankenstein.” No glimpse of a director and those two farts, Wasserman and Sheinberg, are still in New York. Boorman is in Ireland, writing his own film,
¹⁵⁸
and that seems to be that.

 

March 25.
Hunt Stromberg called me yesterday, saying that he will never employ Boorman now because Boorman has lied to him. He has discovered that Boorman's commitment is and always has been firm, and that he can't possibly get out of it to do “Frankenstein,” even if asked by Universal. We don't know whom to believe [. . .]. But [the] fact remains that Boorman is almost certainly out of the picture. Now Hunt talks about Polanski! He also fusses us to get something done on “The Mummy.” He is going back to Texas today. If it weren't that we need money and would be silly to break with Hunt, I would say that we don't want to do “The Mummy.” The whole subject bores me.

We are having a good deal of fun, auditioning people for our play. We now have a really sexy and amusing Tom (Gordon Hoban), two possible mothers, a good Rafferty ( Jason Wingreen), Laurence Luckinbill for Patrick—except that he's [urging] us to take his wife, Robin Strasser, for Penelope, [though] we think we have a better one, Susan Brown. ( Jim Bridges, who has gone off to Harvard to look over locations for a film he may be directing, will probably be seeing the Luckinbills on his way home.) The big problem is Oliver. Jon Voight mulls and ponders and keeps putting us off, but we're pretty sure he won't do it. The two other actors we have seen are wrong and utterly wrong, respectively.

Amiya left for England yesterday. I had quite a long talk with her, the day before—or rather, I assisted at a tape-recorded interview she was having with herself, recalling her memories of the society in the early days. She is such a blowsy drunken old bag and yet the thing she got from Swami is still apparent, nearly all of the time, and often she makes remarks of great perceptiveness. For example, she said that Swami doesn't love us, he lets us find the love that is in him, if we need it. (I've expressed this badly—can't remember how Amiya phrased it; but I think it is very true. And it explains why one cannot feel jealous in Swami's presence. Jealousy arises when a person sends his love out toward other people on a personal level; because, if he does that, he is bound to favor someone. Did Swami do this in the past? Yes, perhaps. I am thinking of Sarada.)

Jimmy Barnett (now called Sat) is going to help Jim as a technical director, with the music, costumes, etc. I want to keep this a secret from Swami and the others as long as possible, because of all the fuss and excitement there'll be, as soon as the news about the play leaks out.

 

April 2.
He is risen, as I wrote to Dodie and Alec today, telling them about the forthcoming production of
Meeting
. And indeed this Easter does seem unusually cheerful, thanks to my happy life with Don, the nice prospect of rehearsals starting on Tuesday (though we'll get sick of them very soon, I realize) and the breakthrough, mostly thanks to Don, on “The Mummy.” We can now almost glimpse a complete continuity, to be produced as soon as Universal pays us some money.

Hunt is in Texas. I greeted his arrival there by reading him another communication from Boorman, over the phone, in which Boorman repeats that he is ready to make himself free and do “Frankenstein” if ever or whenever he is made an offer. This sent Hunt into a flap. He asked me to read the letter to his agents. So I did. I also asked the agents to call Hunt back. I don't know if they have. We still can't figure out who is lying—Hunt or the agents or Boorman. Probably all of them, a little.

Last night, we had supper with Gavin and Mark. Gavin has definitely decided to leave California, probably to settle in Hawaii. His house is already up for sale, $85,000. His reasons: everything is so expensive here, and there are too many people, and he likes the idea of living on an island. If he and Mark get a picture to do, then they can come back and live in a motel. Gavin said approvingly that we were the only people who haven't been horrified by his decision. Well, we didn't express our horror, but we are horrified, rather. We both remember the glimpse we got of island loneliness, on our trip through in 1957. And I remember how isolated Jim Charlton seemed. It is very hard for me to imagine Gavin and Mark together there. But Mark has lived there before, for a number of years; and Gavin, as Don says, is very resourceful. He will be able to keep himself occupied.

 

April 7.
Our four days of rehearsal have gone by quickly and already the play is coming together. I must say, it seems most awfully good. Even Don is greatly impressed by it. Jim Bridges directs in an easygoing but assured way. Sam Waterston has real power as Oliver and Larry Luckinbill is very funny. He shows signs of bitchery however and Don thinks he'll make trouble before we're through. Sam is a very nice boy and a really dedicated actor; his only danger is that he'll work himself too hard, he is playing in
Volpone
every night! Gordon Hoban is also nice and sexy and sweet, but a bit stupid. He can't grasp the moments of camp. Florida Friebus is really excellent as the mother—not great as Gladys Cooper would have been. And Susan Brown, though not at all Penelope, gets enough of the part to make everything work, except, I fear, in her final speech to Oliver. All in all, we got a cast far and away beyond what we might have expected, and we feel that the play will get as good a presentation as it could have, anywhere in America. Certain British nuances will be lacking, but there will be an American freedom of emotion which we might not be able to get in England. Only Gordon as Tom has a couple of hangups, he won't say “darling” at all, and it bothers the hell out of him to say “faggot”! But when he declares his love for Patrick he is true and moving—you feel something old-American, Whitmanesque.

Am reading right through Thomas Hardy's poems.

 

April 22.
Jim Bridges got back from New York yesterday morning and we had a rehearsal on stage in the Mark Taper. There was bad feeling brewing from the beginning, probably because Jim went off to New York and left them, in the midst of rehearsals. Anyhow, no sooner had we started the run through than Jeremy Railton (who is the sloppiest and most inefficient art director)
¹⁵⁹
came on the gallery at the back of the set with Donald Harris, the light designer, and a carpenter and proceeded to talk and take measurements. Larry Luckinbill objected. Jim ought to have thrown them off the set at once, but he didn't; so Larry's mood got nastier. And then he and Sam Waterston were playing their scene up on the gallery and they couldn't be heard and Jim told them so, and also called on me to confirm it. Whereupon Larry got really nasty and declared that his whole performance was ruined if he had to shout. (Actors!) There was quite a fuss. Jim seemed weak and upset by it, which alarmed us; we had been thinking of him as a tower of strength—but no doubt this was partly due to his exhaustion after the trip. I was careful not to mix in—lest I should get annoyed and tell them What Every Author Knows: that the lines come first and that the most exquisite acting is useless if you can't hear them.

Four days before opening, and I do feel that, by and large, we are in good shape. Larry is very good—as right for the part, physically and psychologically, as any American actor could be; Sam ditto. (But Sam is a much nicer and more serious person—which is as it should be.) Gordon Hoban is nearly perfect in every way, and he no longer seems stupid. After Julie had played Sally Bowles, nearly all the other actresses who took the part seemed like whores. In the same way, the actors (if any) who follow Gordon will seem like hustlers. In the scene where he unbuttons his shirt, offering himself to Patrick, he is truly beautiful and noble. (Admittedly, I have a slight crush on him; so does Jim.) Florida Friebus is all right, though irritating and too strident at moments; Don and I both particularly dislike [the] way she trots across the stage with the photographs of Oliver as a swami. She's a bit of a bitch too, and she blows up on her lines. Poor Susan Brown is awful; she has a whining voice, and a disgusting middle-class sweetness. We fully expect, however, that the audience will like her. Jason Wingreen is perfect as Rafferty; he never varies, knows all his lines and can speak more clearly than anybody else. Logan Ramsey
¹⁶⁰
isn't a swami, but he is a very good actor and is fat and has authority. Sirri Murad isn't a swami or an actor and you can't understand a word he says, because he is Turkish; but he looks very distinguished and is charming and courteous and friendly. The two friends of Tom, John Ritter
¹⁶¹
and Jack Bender,
¹⁶²
are very sweet boys, and I think they both understand and appreciate the play better than any other member of the cast (with the possible exception of Sam); no doubt they have talent, too, but it isn't called for in their tiny parts. They were both in Jack Larson's
Cherry, Larry, Sandy, Doris, Jean, Paul
, at USC, a few years ago.