Since the 1981 film, My Dinner with Andre, I have been a big fan of Wallace Shawn’s work. In 2000, a year after I moved to New York City, Shawn and his directing partner, Andre Gregory, produced The Designated Mourner in the city and I somehow got an opening night ticket. Held in a derelict former men’s club in the Wall Street district and limited to 30 audience members each night, the play was one of the most remarkable theatrical experiences of my life. Nothing since has topped it.
Shawn and Gregory, I learned that night, know how to break the walls (and rules) so common in theatrical productions. The production moved about multiple floors in the old building—then under construction—and the audience was seated on old Salvation Army chairs. I won’t go into details here, but the play is set in an unnamed country where repressive forces encroach upon—and then eventually do away with—the intelligentsia. Perfect Shawn material!
A few years later, I saw Shawn perform in The Fever, another amazing work that challenged how I view everyday common objects. In fact, I have not been able to drink a cup of coffee again without thinking of that play. Let’s just say that Shawn challenges conventional ideas about theater, power, sex, class, and, most unsparingly, liberal complacency.
This week, the actor-playwright released his first book of non-fiction essays. I’ve just started it, but so far I’m blown away by Shawn’s provocative insights. Not only is this man a great writer, but he’s one of the few real public intellectuals left in our dumbed down culture. The book is simply called Essays. However, the ideas he expresses are not simple at all.
---Wallace Shawn signs Essays for readers at the Barnes & Noble store at Lincoln Triangle on Sept. 1, 2009. Photo by Frank Beacham
