The Brooklyn Rail

I spent so many hours with Richard, mainly in rehearsal and performance over three shows—three years really, hundreds of hours. Since I was an actor, a lot of the time he spent with me was engaged in a kind of beneficent, jolly, psychological warfare, trying to short circuit my conventional actor instincts. Sometimes he threw up his hands. “You know, I sometimes dream of creating a truly new beautiful art form, free from the deadly traditional banality of old forms of theater. But then I find that I have cast Tony Torn in my show, so that dream is just not possible.” But I actually loved our teasing, mock contentious relationship, and he kept asking me back, so I guess he liked it too.

My first time working with Richard was in The Universe (1995) opposite James Urbaniak and Mary McBride. My character was dressed in a Louis XIV wig, acting as a foil to James’s character. For many months in rehearsal it felt like my character was sort of like a superego to James, a voice from a higher consciousness, but, at some point, my character was intellectually downgraded. I was suddenly a middlebrow philistine with a tough guy voice modeled on Lionel Stander. At the time, I felt that my new status represented Richard’s evolving opinion of my level of cognitive sophistication, which was typical of the way Richard could get under your skin.

I was excited to start work on the next show, Paradise Hotel (a.k.a. Hotel Fuck) (1998) reuniting with my Reza Abdoh colleagues Juliana Francis and Tom Pearl. My character Tony Turbo was intended to be a pathetic character desperate for sexual contact, forever failing to get laid. Remembering my tough palooka voice and outrageous getup from The Universe, I asked Richard what sort of wild character he wanted from me this time. “Oh no Tony,” said Richard, “I just want you to be yourself. This role is how I see you. This role IS you.”

I was horrified, and to make things worse, I somehow internalized this directive and started to see myself in the same way. My romantic life completely dried up for the next two years. Richard’s directions sometimes had the force of hypnotic suggestion, wreaking havoc with one’s subconscious. To make things worse, although the entire cast was supposed to appear naked at the end of the show, by the time we got through rehearsals I was the only one required to take my clothes off. It was humiliating and I balked at doing the scene nude. “That’s okay,” said Richard, “you can just wear David Greenspan’s penis from Benita Canova.” Remembering the tiny black sack filled with sawdust that David wore under his dress for that show, I capitulated and chose nudity.

Soon I found myself suffering through days of technical rehearsals lighting my nude monologue, standing on stage for hours as Richard worked with special footlights installed to light my scrotum more efficiently. Kate Manheim sensed my unease and offered moral support. “Sometimes” she said, “I felt uncomfortable too being nude on stage, but then I realized I could wear long socks to cover up my knees and everything was fine!”

When Richard asked me to return for Now That Communism Is Dead, My Life Feels Empty! (2001), I was resistant, given how psychologically harrowing the last show had been. I’d recently started working with Richard Maxwell on a new piece called Caveman (2001) and I was eager to continue. When I told Foreman I was not available, he wouldn’t accept it. He told me that he had written the role specifically for me and only I could play it. To be pursued thus was an unnerving yet flattering change from his usual low key, take it or leave it approach to performers. I also think being competitive with Maxwell was a factor in this.

My back up against the wall, I tried to put him off by asking for a significant raise. Much to my shock (and to the delight of my co-star Jay Smith) he agreed to bump up our salaries. I never got to work with Maxwell again, which I still regret, but Communism was the highpoint of my working relationship with Richard. I finally found myself at the center of one of his pocket universes rather than feeling like a sideshow attraction. I had also figured out how to embody the intensity of Richard’s psyche on stage without mixing it too deeply with my own. It was a breakthrough for me, not only in my acting, but in my life.

After that I took a break from working with Richard, but I hoped that I would eventually come back into his universe. But before I knew it, he had retired from doing stage work. We stayed friends, however, which was deeply gratifying to me. A favorite memory of Richard came years later. I was at dinner with Charles Bernstein, and he told me that Richard had broken his hip and was in a rehab facility on the Upper East Side. He encouraged me to visit him, so I made my way up there.

When I arrived at his bedside he was asleep. It was a curiously disarming new feeling for me to be sitting there, watching him sleep. When he woke up he was quite astonished to see me. We talked for about half an hour about his latest obsessions, which were reading Patrick Modiano novels and watching Eyes Wide Shut over and over. This last detail took me aback, because despite my total reverence for Stanley Kubrick, I’ve always hated Eyes Wide Shut. At the same time, I thought, well, that explains Old-Fashioned Prostitutes, which frustrated me for similar reasons.

Then Richard’s eyes lit up. “You know, I’d like to stage a play with the patients in this facility. That would really be fascinating! And just think, it would make their days a lot more interesting, too.” You were right there, Richard. So very right.