Peter Rose/Lin Osterhage
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home > performance history > The L.A. Dialogues - intro > dialogue 2 |
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The L.A. Dialogues (1-3) 1988 - 89 "Working alone together
tonight" "Intimate Strangers" "Nature World: A Fertile
Dialogue" |
Downtown Los Angeles, 1988 |
"Intimate Strangers"Music: Billie Holliday "Love Songs" Peter sits on stage, Lin enters stage right Lin: Hi! I signed up to participate in tonight's performance. Peter: I must be your scene partner. Lin: Oh? What do you do? Stand-up comedy? Peter: I'm an actor, model and performance artist! Is this some kind of dialogue? Lin: It could be. Let's see how it goes. I'm glad you made it. P: I'm tired though. The bus connections are real iffy after rush hour. Do you ever get tired? L: Sure. P: Tired of being up here on stage and putting out all this energy? L: No. P: How can you afford it? The energy, time and money? L: I'm mature enough to know that when I really want to do something for myself (as a free woman) I have to pay for it! P: You pay to perform? L: That's why I'm so happy working a full-time job. P: It doesn't bother you? L: No, I do what I want: If I want to go for a walk on some grass I just pick up some instant cash, hop in my car, drive the freeway until I see some grass, pull over, park my car and buy a ticket for the grass designated area. Then, I just enjoy it. The trees and the grass. P: What does that have to do with working in the theatre and being on stage tonight? L: I do a lot of talking... and some thinking. I appreciate the opportunity to get up here and have a discussion with you. No matter what it costs me. P: I'm flattered. L: The last thing on earth I would expect is to get paid for it. In fact, I bought a ticket myself tonight to show my support. P: I'm impressed. You have a winning attitude. L: A healthy attitude is worth its weight in artist's fees. P: I can't afford your healthy attitude. Too many not-for-profit, play for free, art for arts sake arrangements. Being the ultimate professional good sport and all that. I've played more benefits... L: I'll bet you made a contribution P: Yeh, a contribution to artists and producers who see me as a means of generating an expense account for their rent, psychotherapy, workshops, dry cleaning bills and lovers. L: Dry cleaning is expensive. P: Usually I rehearse and perform for free. Developing a reputation as a consummate show stopper. And I can't afford the price of a 5 X 7 black and white print of my third curtain call. Or dinner after tonight's show. Figure that out. Why am I here? Heaven forbid I want to make a videotape. I'll file for bankruptcy first. L: Greatness is elusive. P: So is solvency. L: I can see you must be wealthy in other ways. P: I hope so, thank-you. L: You sound like you had to be coerced into performing. Why? You're an artist. P: There are many things I'd rather be doing: hiking or swimming and my stipend of free beers backstage is no solace. It's an insult. L: I like beer. P: Whatever happened to champagne and late dinners in dark well-lit bars with 8 X 10 glossy photographs of famous artists and stars on the wall? L: What's the matter with you? Are you hungry? P: I'd rather be doing other things. L: Like what? Looking at L.A. bus schedules superimposed and presented as a slide show? Computing how many hours a day you work just to pay your rent. Rereading "100 Years of Solitude?" P: C'mon. This is Southern California. We can jetski, wet-bike, parasail and freebase. Something else besides helping someone make a little pre-Labor Day pocket money. Personally, I enjoy trees and birds. This performance is inconsequential by comparison. L: Well, fine! Just fine. I schedule myself to death trying to find time to talk to you between the series of natural and unnatural events in my daily life and you say, "It's inconsequential." P: All I'm saying is that my desire to be somewhere else other than on this stage, preferably a secluded wood area by a lake-where I can take a moon-lit midnight canoe trip, is a sign of artistic growth and it's positive. L: A "Positive Growth Sign"? P: You have no idea what I'm talking about. L: You misunderstand everything I say. P: You don't know what you're saying. L: You don't know what you're talking about. P: I know what you mean. L: Perfect communication. P: Yes. We have communication and a theatrical relationship people can only be jealous of. L: Uh-huh. P: In fact, I'm jealous of it myself. If I weren't up here on stage with you now, I'd be enjoying it that much more. It's a healthy jealousy. L: "Healthy Jealousy?" P: Yes. I'm jealous of something I have other than what I don't have. There are enough things I don't have. I woke up and saw what I do have is truly okay. I don't worry about what I don't have, period. L: That sounds un-American to me. You should worry about what you don't have. You call this "positive growth?" P: And golf. I'd love to be playing golf. A positive growth sign is realizing I can put the frustrating situations of daily life at a distance in nature. L: I can't argue with that. P: Where I don't feel controlled by landlords, producers, journalists, mothers, bosses, casting agents... and I'm away from other people's chaos. At peace with my own chaos. L: One man's chaos is enough for me. Life is no bed of roses. P: It's so confusing. Caught up in another person's tornado of self-importance. I used to love it, thrive on it. I believed it was "creative energy" and anarchic impulses I was plugged into- L: You get caught up like an insect in a spider's web. P: The controlling device is so tiresome. Someone creates a whirlwind of immediacy around you. The language is theirs, the emotional environment is theirs but you can be sure their confusion is all yours. L: So often this person loves you. P: Or worse yet, you love them! No more of that. I'm more aware. I'm a lot more relaxed. I love lush green fairways and huge sycamore trees. "Par 3" all the way. I've worked at it. L: Par 3 Life? I'm used to paying the green fees, going 19 holes, carrying the clubs and calling it fun. P: Fun? L: Yes, I've grown accustomed to playing with and falling in love with chaotic, unlovable people... accustomed to that ecstatic state of anxiety. Recently I figured it out. P: Really? L: Now I'm complacently involved in unfulfilling relationships and inspired by the belief that I can still find myself... and love it. P: What would happen if you ever had a great time with a lovable person who loved you? L: It takes too much honesty with myself to love somebody who loves me. P: Are we talking about "feelings?" L: We are talking about feelings. I never talk about feelings. P: At least not before taking my lithium with a spring water chaser! L: Exactly. Or a shot vodka. P: Where have expressing feelings ever gotten you? L: Heartache, unemployment and one nervous breakdown. P: It's a good thing the literature say you can't have a nervous breakdown on lithium. L: Are you saying you found a way to be honest and not lose your mind? P: It's a trade off. Unemployed and sane or on the job and losing it bit by bit day after day. L: And if you express yourself on the job? P: You lose 'em both. On the spot. Unemployed and out of control. L: What a heartache. I'd rather lose my job than my control. P: If I'm out of work I can still play golf. But if I lose my mind much more than my putting game suffers. L: It's not worth it. I have the job and the sanity and I plan to keep them both. I practice self-control, even self-censorship. P: Is that your "Positive Growth Sign?" L: Absolutely. P: If you censor yourself daily doesn't that influence your creative process? L: I just take it one day at a time! P: How do you feel about censoring yourself? L: Fine! Just fine. I've worked it through. Now I keep my clothes on when I'm on stage. I don't set fire to anything in the theatre although I do like a little campfire now and then. I've matured. Censorship is for other people. P: Like who? L: Married people, actors and their agents, artist groups with friends and foundations who support them... people who have something to lose. P: It's hard not to be smug and arrogant. I have nothing to lose. But thank God my youthful zest and naivete are still intact. L: Seems so. P: Do you want to do something else? Let's go swimming, do some laps or leap off the high diving board. L: Have great fun with a lovable person? P: I'll buy the tickets and carry the towels. L: I'm ready to have it all and enjoy it too. P: Oh, hold it. L: Hold it? P: I have an appointment. L: Tonight? P: Yes. I've got a commercial gig, acting, modelling for a poster for a movie that might get made. It's called "Intimate Strangers." L: "Intimate Strangers?" As a title it sounds pretty dull but in reality it sounds much better. P: Yeh. The pay is excellent. We'll get free 8 X 10 colored glossy photographs and dinner is part of the production budget. I've got to go now or we'll never make it. L: We can take my new car. P: Great. If they do make the movie maybe we can both get parts. L: I could get the "Intimate" part. P: I could be the "Stranger." L: Or, I'll be the "Stranger." P: And I'll be the "Intimate" one. (Full Embrace) L & P: And we can get paid for being alone together! BLACKOUT Music Up and Out The End
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