The Brooklyn Rail

I was thrilled and inspired whenever I was in Richard’s presence. He was a very fluid and original thinker—grumpy yet playful. I worked with him on some shows as a performer and he always gave me obstacles and challenged me in a way that always threw me off my thinking. I felt liberated. I was in free fall because he would always pull the rug out from under you. He also gave me so many fun things to do in the two plays I did with him (Miss Universal Happiness and Idiot Savant). After a show that I felt went quite well, he would be disappointed and depressed. When I thought a show didn’t go well, he was happy and thought we were in a groove. Before rehearsal sometimes, he’d give these impromptu talks that came out of a very gloomy mood and then approached an almost revolutionary zeal when he would talk about something he read that he loved or wanted to see happen in the space. Phrases like “stories hide the truth” or directions like “move like the stage is covered with broken glass” stay with me. He was one of my favorite dancers. When he would suggest a gesture or dance by demonstrating it, there was a freedom and grace in his movement that you couldn’t imagine if you had only seen him sitting, watching, and thinking. When I went to see his shows—particularly at St. Mark’s—I was in heaven. There were so many pleasures, titillations, riddles, and somehow, I was totally comfortable with not understanding a thing. I guess my plate was full by sensory onslaught. Certain enigmatic phrases stuck with me for days, like a show tune you couldn’t get out of your head. As dour (yet kind) as he could be, he always seemed to be in dark delight, chasing something that was genuinely curious to him. He had very little interest in food and he told me more than once he would be happy to eat the same thing every day of his life.