"The script was less than 15 pages, but the play lasted for more than half an hour because of many extended pauses. The same upbeat rock song, Dave Clark Five’s 'Anyway You Want It,' played twice all the way through, with the actors onstage incongruously silent. The Village Voice wrote wonderingly that the play 'achieves its most alive moments in complete stasis.'"
From
"Robert Heide, Daring Playwright and Warhol Collaborator, Dies at 91/He helped create the Off Off Broadway theater scene, wrote and acted in Andy Warhol’s films, and turned his fascination with collectible Americana into books" (NYT).
That production of "The Bed" took place in 1965.
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40 comments:
Don't know him, but it is sad to see so many of the adventurous people of that era dying. Is there any equivalent group now?
"discussing their feeling of aimlessness."
I'm not familiar with the play, but was this approach already cliched by 1965, or was it by the following times it was trotted out in 1966-2025?
ART IS SHIT
What a waste of everyone's time.
Yes Kai, they are still with us, but nowadays we see these guys for the nutcakes they actually are, not daring and adventurous sorts but just nebulous, unhinged, and mostly crazy. Sartre, Beckett, or Camus they aint.
"’The Bed' consisted of two handsome young men…”
I am available to do a little community theater on the weekends. Not young anymore though.
I recall the craze (pun intended) for obnoxiously decorated cookie jars ignited by Andy Warhol's collection that came to national attention after his death, thanks to The Village Voice. Idiots spent small fortunes buying up that absurd crockery only to discover the fad to be yet another Warhol will-o'-the-wisp.
91? Edie Sedgwick remains forever 28. 91 is better, I guess.
In 1965, theater of the absurd was all the rage. It had been around at least since the end of the war (longer if you take Dada into account), but for most audiences it was still something new, unsettling, and daring.
The play comes alive when no one is talking. High praise indeed.
Back when folks put up with nonsense as long as it wasn't 'mainstream'.
I've going through the SNL archives. And I can honestly say that many of shows post 2000 are at their funniest when no one is talking.
Poor Warhol. Shot by criminally insane feminist, and then died because his private nurse was criminally incompetent. Shocking how many people went into surgery in the 60s and 70s and died from inadequate medical care.
I remember in the 80’s as a student at SMU thinking going to some plays like this, both on campus at Meadows Art and off campus in some of the grunge theaters in Deep Ellum and the Design District. Pretty sure the Meadows troupe did “The Bed” as the description fits something I went to. I recall now, as I did then, how much they reminded me of the nonsense Art that Ayn Rand mocked in Atlas Shrugged (or maybe The Fountainhead). Atlas was reading for another class so was kind of fresh. My interest in doing anything in the Arts was very short lived (but resulted in some attractive connections in first year drawing!)
60 years after the sexual revolution, and sex is more taboo than ever. It's still what people use to be edgy.
Lazarus the sleepwalker writes, "It had been around at least since the end of the war (longer if you take Dada into account), but for most audiences it was still something new, unsettling, and daring."
Or threadbare, tedious, and insipid.
Warhol lived almost 20 years after his shooting. He died of a gallbladder infection which he at least partially brought on himself through his avoidance of hospitals. His nurse delayed about an hour to report his deteriorating conditions, but at that point she was kind of like the guy that doesn't catch the last fly ball at the end of the game - who let the game get to that point? CC, JSM
The internet informs me that the tighty-whitie was first sold on January 19, 1935 so this is not exactly cutting edge stuff we're talking about in 1965.
What if it was two guys sitting in a fishing boat, not catching any fish?
Exactly what Quaestor said...as is often the case.
- Krumhorn
O Hassayamper, My Hassayamper, I fear that you may have drawn the wrong conclusion about those '60s artistic experiments. Art is not Shit. Shit is Art.
Sounds like something a no talent idiot who thinks they are way smarter than they are would create for other idiots who think they are way smarter that they are. Or perhaps the playwright realized you didn't need talent to take advantage of idiots who think they are way more talented and sophisticated than they are.
Here is a link to a broadway production of Our Town
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc1o9cGQ9_Q
And here is Death of a Salesman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc1o9cGQ9_Q
Heide wrote 25 plays and they are collected in one volume of 422 pages, which includes some other notes and material. So they were all about the same length as The Bed. Surely some of you angry young men can appreciate his brevity, at least!
He was also a collector of Mickey Mouse wristwatches and he and his husband published a book about those for other collectors. All on Amazon for you fans.
"The Village Voice wrote wonderingly that the play 'achieves its most alive moments in complete stasis.'"
It's amazing how sometimes inertia can be more significant than action. That's a big thing that Hollywood has lost touch with. Most films today are action, action, action and more action. "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
How will the theater survive the death of such a genius? Oh, well.....
Whatever the merits, the spirit of those days was fun. A lot of great stuff was going on; AA just gave us the Janet Fish obit. She was minor compared to much else that came out of downtown, way downtown, then. But some just wanted the fun. Fun -- does anybody remember fun?
https://westviewnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/HEIDE-BOOK-JAN18.jpg
Ahh yes another Althouse post designed to generate "I haven't been to the movies in 20 years." responses by the incurious horde.
Seems like a self-limiting genre. There’s only so many ways to do nothing, so after the first few plays devoted to it any new ones would run into copyright infringement.
Most of the audience was waiting for the boxers to come off. A few years later, and they probably would have.
All bad art is sincere
sex is more taboo than ever. It's still what people use to be edgy.
They keep trying other things - remember the "free bleeding" thing where the marathon runner on her period was just letting it flow? - but I guess the edge has to include something people like but feel guilty about liking or something. (And I would imagine part of your point was that the sexual revolution was supposed to eliminate people's feeling guilty about sex.)
A fun exploration of this, and a kind of art in its own hilarious way, is the My Dad Wrote A Porno podcast. Rocky Flintstone, the pseudonymous author and the dad of the title, traverses the universe of sex and fetish quite widely - while avoiding gay male sex, anal play, and any fetish involving golden showers or coprophagia, apparently the only areas of sexual abandon that he just can't quite imagine his heroine Belinda enjoying. (I think probably he has struggled in vain to find a way to write about them that doesn't just disgust him, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's avoided them because of the in-built limitations of his main character.) It's LOL-in-public material, in any case.
(I can't wait to see if this comment makes it through the filter!)
What made this story bloggable for me was the Dave Clark Five angle.
Seems like John Cage’s 4’ 33” would have been a better choice. And also a better song.
Jamie said...
" remember the "free bleeding" thing where the marathon runner on her period was just letting it flow?"
No, but I do remember Grete Waitz running and winning the NYC Marathon with diarrhea oozing down her leg.
----- What made this story bloggable for me was the Dave Clark Five angle.
Blaring sax. DC5. That will comment on stasis, won't it?
Fun!
Or maybe an invitation to his in crowd. Wink wink. What the hell. Even Lynn Meadow staged something of his at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Well, here's to learning something today. Possibly ephemera...... : )
"Ahh yes another Althouse post designed to generate 'I haven't been to the movies in 20 years.' responses by the incurious horde."
The horde has been streaming far longer than it's been fashionable.
Ahh yes another Althouse post designed to generate "I haven't been to the movies in 20 years." responses by the incurious horde.
Twenty eight. But who's counting ....
As an addendum, my wife and I usually attend at least two to three plays a year. So, it's not like I'm 'incurious' and don't enjoy the arts.
But Hollywood can suck my dick.
I have spent very little time east of the Mississippi River. I have never been to New York. It is stuff like this that does whatever the opposite is of piquing my interest.
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