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I look like I'm drunk all the time.
You know, I have slurred speech,
stumbling around the streets.
I'm sure people are looking at me going,
"It's like 10 o'clock in the morning, this guy's lost it,"
and that's just, this disease.
For an actor, the question is, "What's next?"
It's always what's next.
And I can't do that anymore. Physically, I can't.
It's the end of your life.
It's the end of your career.
If this is the last play I ever do, I'll miss acting.
I never thought I'd quit.
Half hour. Half hour.
Is everybody medicated up?
Yeah.
Oh, boy, big crowd.
Chew this day up and enjoy it, you know what I mean?
Okay.
- There's so much to do today,
so many moments to get through,
and it kind of totally disarms us when we're watching
because we expect, oh, look at these dour circumstances,
and there's nothing, you know,
like I said in rehearsal one day,
you look you're having a lot more fun than we are,
you know what I mean?
Molly, it's a triangle.
So this point is over.
- Let me go on just a bit ahead of you, okay?
Okay.
- Like, as if what you're doing
is just kinda catching up stuff.
Off we go.
- Yeah. Can you take us to 32nd, please?
And Lex, thank you.
It's pretty special to be a working actor in New York.
There's nothing like,
walking through the streets of Manhattan
about 4 o'clock in the morning.
This was the first time,
first Woody Allen film I did.
And knowing that you're gonna work with Woody Allen all day.
You know, it's like the biggest city in the world,
and you're working.
There's an advantage
to being an actor in New York.
You're doing different parts all the time,
so you're learning different things all the time.
I love the action, and I love that I can still do it.
I did an Arthur Miller play on Broadway,
and when it was curtain call, and Arthur Miller walked out,
and the place, the theater erupted.
They immediately rose to their feet and charged the stage.
I've never had a theatrical experience like that.
The audience screamed.
I think they thought he was dead.
And I take work very seriously.
I keep working at it.
You're just pushing.
You're just pushing the rock up the mountain.
It's not until you get to the top
that you can say, "I've arrived."
There's gonna come a time
when I won't be able to do it anymore,
but that time hasn't come yet.
The reason I chose to move to New York
in the first place was to do theater.
And I'm a theater hound.
I just love doing it. I love live audiences.
I love the fact that it's like jazz.
Morning.
I'm here to see Dianne Wiest.
- You gotta go up to 72.
72?
Besides,
there's that haunted look where Olga's so sad...
That's beautiful, Chris, Masha's line.
- Hmm.
- Sweet dreams.
You should-Dear, dear.
- Dear.
Or just you really should try to-
- My brother, dear.
You should really live a healthier life.
Yeah.
- Try to live a healthier life.
- You don't live your life. I have one rule.
Never worry about the future.
I don't think about dying or death.
I think because dying and death,
features prominently in the play.
- I like that. Don't you?
Are you unhappy with that?
- No. I like it.
- I do too.
How are you, baby?
Hey, buddy.
How did we meet?
We did, "A Month In The Country" with Helen Mirren
and F. Murray Abraham and Ron Rifkin.
And we had shared a dressing room.
I saw him in his underwear.
- So, how did I look in my underwear in those days?
- No worse than usual.
- I started acting about 6th, 7th grade
playing Winthrop Paroo,
and I realized I was with high school girls,
and they would all think, "You're so cute,"
and they would hug me, and I'd be about breast level,
and I go,
and I was like, "I'm an actor."
I'm gonna be an actor for life.
My first job was Troilus in "Troilus and Cressida"
at Lincoln Center for Joe Papp.
About which Clive Barnes,
who was the reviewer for the New York Times,
said the most boring three hours in New York City
can currently be found
at Lincoln Center.
They are called "Troilus and Cressida."
- I almost never come to this.
In fact, it's usually the other way around.
There's lots of people
who would love to have a conversation with me.
Who ask me if they can walk behind me.
Don't get any idea that I'm completely alone
because I'm not. - Walk behind me.
- In fact,
you're the one that looks like
you could use a little company.
I don't know where you get off
thinking you have anything to give me anyway.
I got everything I need,
and what I don't have, I know where to get it
anytime I want.
In the middle of the night...
Luckily enough, I survived as an actor
for like 20, 30 years.
I don't know how.
- Explore alternative lifestyles.
- No, I don't think you've been a very good influence
on Linda, Mr. Weinrib.
- Weinrib, right.
So, Gildersleeve is a name that I use for business purposes.
- I got an investment in Linda.
- No question. I honor that.
But by now, she's probably repaid you 10-fold or 20-fold.
- Don't be so fuckin' sure 'cause you don't know
what the fuckin' numbers are.
- It's okay. It's a point well taken.
And then something changed.
I was losing my balance on stage.
Where you stand up in this one part, the whole cast,
and I like would lose my balance,
and I'd kinda go, what the hell is that?
And I had a tremor of some kind.
My hand would go like this.
It was uncontrollable.
It got harder and harder to move.
I had one scene where I couldn't remember five lines.
I just couldn't remember five lines.
I said, "Well, this is weird."
So, we had a meeting with the doctor,
and my doctor said, you got Parkinson's.
The image I give to people
is if you take a stone or a pebble
and you throw it into a pool of water,
there's a ripple that goes out from it.
Well, with me, it's like my body, you take a stone
and throw it into my pool of water,
and it just goes, bloomp, like it's in a bed of sand.
There's no ripple.
I used to be able to skip a dose. It wouldn't affect me.
Now, if I don't have my medication
within four hours from the last time, I begin to slow down.
And...
What time is it?
It's time to take some medication.
- Me too. I'm time for medication.
It's time it ended in the shelter too,
and yet, I hesitate, I hesitate to end.
What do they do while they're waiting for the end?
What do they do?
They perform!
I was reading "Endgame" one night.
Samuel Beckett's "Endgame."
It's a great piece of writing.
I just felt like
this guy is like talking about my life here,
about Parkinson's.
Hamm is blind and can't walk.
He's confined to a wheelchair.
Clov can see, but it's very difficult for him to move,
and he can't sit down.
The room, they're locked in this room.
And it's a prison,
but it's the prison that they live in.
Running in loops.
Saying the same thing over and over again.
- Two actors with diminishing physical abilities
playing two characters with diminishing physical abilities,
trying to get through the last stages of their lives.
So, it has great resonance.
It's the perfect play.
- Yeah.
It just dovetails
into our particular strengths and weaknesses right now.
The idea for us is to rehearsal for 4 or 5 weeks,
and put up..
Samuel Beckett's "Endgame."
- Put up the play.
- We'll do it.
- Yeah.
It's not an easy play, but it's a great play.
So, it's worth us attempting to do it.
- Something is happening. What is happening?
- Something is taking its course.
- What is the whole arc, the umbrella of the play?
What about what you guys wanna say?
Audiences pick up on all these things.
I mean, audiences come out to look at two people
who are working under this condition,
and how does this condition envelop the play?
We wanna see if they're gonna be, you know, okay,
or we wanna see if they're gonna stumble a bit or falter,
and you know what it's like? - Yeah. You don't wanna feel-
- It's like schadenfreude or whatever.
- Don't wanna feel that.
- It's like, "Ooh, they're in trouble."
What do you wanna say about the illness?
What do you wanna say about the problems?
Or, we say, you know what?
You don't need to see that because, guess what?
We're gonna be the way we are,
and it's gonna just fall into place
as a result of Beckett's-
- That's what I would choose.
- Yeah, that's what I would choose too.
- Yeah.
- I think that the illness should be
just a part of our lives.
Right.
- And that we're doing this play.
And we're trying to-
- Want some? - What is it?
- Sweet stuff.
- We're trying to do it as well as we can.
Maybe...
We wanna do the play to the best of our ability.
Right.
I think the challenges for playing Clov for me
will be to get the physicality.
- Chris, I think has a little more problem in movement.
I have a little more problem in speech.
I get this drop-jawed thing.
I mean, he may get to the production
and find himself completely locked up.
You know, the night we perform,
I may be completely jaw tight, mush mouth.
- This play calls for inventiveness,
and some kind of alertness.
- The challenges of that
is trying to remember the script
- because it repeats. - Yeah.
- With subtle variations.
You think of your body as being your instrument as an actor.
Instead of a piano for a pianist, it's your body.
Beckett wrote "Endgame" in '57.
His mother had died a few years earlier,
in the early '50s, of Parkinson's.
Beckett wrote this play sort of almost right on the head
in terms of what we know about the disease.
Well, Beckett certainly understood
some of these debilitating effects of Parkinson's.
It creates a prison.
It may be a verbal prison, or it may be a prison
created by a lack of mobility, you see.
The effects of their physical disabilities is spiraling.
Hamm says, "What's happening?" To Clov.
"What's happening? What's happening?"
Like, something is going on.
And Beckett says with anguish,
and Clov says, "Things are just taking their course."
Their natural course.
Yeah, their natural course.
Which I find with Parkinson's, all the time you're going,
what's happening? What's happening with my body?
In the beginning, symptoms weren't showing so much,
but under my skin, it's like vibrating 24 hours a day.
It's like a live wire.
It's like a roller coaster.
All of a sudden, you're shaking. You can't move.
15 minutes later, you can talk and you can walk
and you can move and..
I was a very physical actor.
So, I found that extremely, like I became extremely limited
as far as being able to physically do things on stage,
which really cut into my work.
When I was diagnosed about eight years ago,
I was on a medication immediately
and it messed up my ability to learn lines
and took away from the fluidity of my craft.
The first show that I did after I was diagnosed,
I had a piece of exposition about this long,
about a page long.
It laid out all the particulars of the plot
that were important for the audience to know.
Good choice.
- And I got through about two sentences of it.
There's only one other actress on stage with me,
and I was talking to her, and I went totally sky high.
And I looked at her with terror in my eyes,
as if to say, help me, please.
I can't remember what to say.
And she looked at me with hopelessness in her eyes,
as if to say-
- You're on your own.
I don't have any lines here.
You're on your own, brother.
- So, I said, "If I were to say something to you right now,
what do you think it might be?"
She paused,
and then she said her approximation of my next line,
and I said, "Right."
Then what?
The name of this show is?
"Radiolab."
Hey. How are you? How are you?
Remember me?
Of course I do.
All right. We should go through this door. So...
So you both leaned into your weaknesses?
Yes. It's the only way to do it.
And I can't like go through the rest of my life
being afraid of this fucking disease.
They contacted the Beckett Estate
and got permission to put on one live performance
in New York.
- Hi, sweetie. - Hey, Chris.
I have this image of you
falling asleep on the train being in the Far Rockaways.
Usually when people rehearse a play,
they rehearse 7 or 8 hours a day.
I find that my energy acting in this play
is about three hours.
I'm scared, but we've got a couple of weeks.
- So, the fact that we only work for 3 or 4 hours,
and you know, that's the concentration they have
is like, oh, man.
Can you hear me?
- Yes.
- Our hearing hasn't failed.
Our what?
Our hearing!
- Oh.
- How we going out?
You guys are busy, so go ahead.
I'm kinda screwy too, but...
It's nearly impossible to find 4 to 5 weeks
where we can actually get together and rehearse.
Nagg and Nell and Hamm and Clov, and Joe, our director.
There's so many places.
- Okay.
That's the great thing
about working with experienced actors.
The usual schedule that things take,
you know, that usually applies, don't really...
We don't need that, you know?
We can throw all that out.
Joe, he said on the phone,
"Oh, you know, Dan, it may never get performed."
- That's the fun part,
a somewhat non-result oriented sandbox.
- Joe!
- I think it's important
that we shoot for finishing this by June.
Yeah.
But I think we've got it.
- I hope.
- I realized there's a lot less to worry about
than I used to think there was.
- I'm not sure what it will be yet,
but that's what rehearsing will teach us.
- We talk about it. We do the lines.
We think about getting up and doing it.
- Just getting together and looking at the script.
- All you need to perform drama
is four boards and a passion.
- Joe is encouraging us to take all the time we need.
Yeah.
- Thinking about this and saying it like that and...
- I think I'll be able to do it.
- I'm trying to remember
if it's the first time we've worked together.
Jeez, and that's weird.
- Can't remember.
- They're not only two really wonderful actors.
They're two of the nicest guy, you'll meet.
I mentioned their names last night.
You know, people were lighting up all over the place,
you know?
Dan's following that girl.
♪ Brother, you can't go to jail for what you're thinking ♪
♪ Or for that something look in your eye ♪
♪ That's why we're standing on a corner ♪
♪ Watching all the girls ♪
♪ Watching all the girls go by ♪
Hi, girls.
- Hi, girls.
Go by.
- They're all going by. - Go by.
- Oh!
Tags up.
Oh, goodness.
- The light's changing. Better hurry and cross the street.
The way, how much of the story is drawing him in
to get him to give you that response.
Hamm's the boss.
You wanna just review what's the punctuations
in there I'll be-
- Yeah. - In the shelter?
Alone against.
- There I'll be, in the old shelter,
alone against the silence and the stillness.
If I can hold my peace and sit quiet,
it will be all over with, sound and emotion.
All over and done with.
Yeah? - Yeah.
Is there any part you wanna run?
I like the stuff I found yesterday on...
The rat?
- He'll be gone.
The, he'll go too...
He couldn't come back. He's been gone too far.
Yes. Too far.
I do too. - I'd like to retain that.
Yeah.
As an actor,
there is doubt of what you can do, every time.
My acting teacher at NYU was Olympia Dukakis,
and she used to say, "You should feel free here
to fail as miserably as you want."
That doesn't exist out, once you get out of school.
You know, you can't fail.
Chris and I are both definitely feeling
the urge to get it right, you know?
I don't wanna fuckin'...
I don't wanna just do it like,
"Oh, well, that was good for Parky guys,"
but I want people to come and go,
"Oh, fuck. I never saw a play like this.
I never thought of it like this."
Well, I wanted to play this part for like 20 years,
but it's a good part to try and hit.
Can there be misery
loftier than mine?
I have complications with his part, making him so big.
I've been sorta working on him like, not pissed off,
but mean.
How are your eyes?
Bad.
- How are your legs? - Bad.
- But you can move?
- Yeah. - Then move!
- Let's read without the stage directions, okay?
- Okay. - You know...
- Play? - Fool around with that.
- Play with it, yeah.
- Yeah, because there's no, you know...
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Christ's sake.
What I learned about this is as many questions as you ask,
there's sort of no right answer.
I mean, you don't know if the right answer is entertainment,
or pain.
Yeah.
- You know what I mean? - Yeah. Yeah.
- You don't know, and it's best kept that way.
That's Beckett.
Of the coming to, of the being at,
of the going from Knott's habitat,
of the long way, of the short stay,
of the going back home the way he had come,
of the empty heart, of the empty hands,
of the dim mind wayfaring through barren lands.
- When we first encountered Beckett, when I was in college,
at that time everybody was talking all about existentialism.
People often misinterpret Beckett
and make it very heavy handed,
because they wanna massage
that sort of like, "Oh, isn't life hard?
Isn't the world falling apart?"
Well, you know, the post-nuclear apocalyptic interpretations
and all that.
Beckett's idea of the human condition
is, am I cold or am I hot?
Am I tired or am I alive and awake?
Am I talking? Am I silent?
It's so basic.
That's why people often get crazed about Beckett
going, "You know, I know it's supposed to be good.
I know it's supposed to be funny,"
and then somehow it never does
because everyone succumbs to its greatness.
- Morning. - Hey, brother.
How you been?
- Hangin' in, you know how it is.
- All right.
Hey, boys.
I'll have some Gatorade.
Shit!
I got it.
I'm sorry, brother.
- That's all right. Don't worry about it, man.
- Fuck.
- I got you.
- I'm sorry. - Just leave it.
Thanks.
I'm sorry.
- It's all right.
The whole place is tight. That's what happens.
- Yeah, I know.
- Got no space no more.
- I know, brother.
- Okay more, this is going to be 13, 1,75.
$27.74.
I find that I'm thrown off balance very easily,
very easily.
I just don't like it.
I'm very timid compared to what I used to be.
I mean, I used to feel like I can walk down the street.
I can say shit to anybody.
Now, I'm worried about bumping into other people.
I've had a couple altercations on the street
because I bumped into people.
And I don't wanna do that anymore.
I don't wanna fist fight anymore.
I'd like to, actually.
I don't think I should.
I find that I burst out.
You hold this shit in, then it comes out like,
"I don't wanna do that!"
To somebody you love, or some stranger.
Dan was working in a traveling Shakespeare company,
and I joined.
I fell in love at first sight.
I think one of the things that drew me to Dan
was this kind of man's man guy.
He's always been quite alpha.
He, is gregarious, you know?
He was gorgeous.
He was an incredibly physical actor,
and of course, that's a complete change.
It's difficult for him not to have his body
at his beck and call.
He, for most of his life, has been an extrovert
who draws energy out of group situations.
What's happening right now, is his self-image
is not matching up to what he can physically do.
How do you feel?
Do you feel normal?
I feel a little strange.
Over the last week,
I've gone through the whole night without getting up.
- Good.
How's your thinking?
I think it's okay.
- You do? Okay.
No trouble with forgetfulness?
Figuring things out?
- Trying to figure out the answer to that question,
I'm having a little problem.
Chris' posture has gotten worse.
- He tends to lean to the right.
You don't fall, right?
- I don't fall. - You have not fallen? Good.
- The last six months, I've physically deteriorated.
It's harder for me to get through the day.
So, it's a little less easy to be optimistic
than it used to be.
- This is the pull test.
I'm gonna pull you back from the shoulders.
- Okay. - Okay.
You know what to do? - Sure.
- Take a little step back.
Okay. This is gonna be a very light pull.
So, here's a practice. One, two, three, and just...
Good. Perfect.
So, here's a bigger pull. One, two, three.
Okay. Good.
With your left hand, can you go like this?
Just tap. Big and wide.
The dopamine in the brain
is what communicates to the muscles, move,
and in my brain,
the cells that carry the dopamine are dying.
Why they die off is not clear.
That is the root mystery of Parkinson's disease.
Could be that the garbage disposal system
in the cells isn't working properly.
They fill up with trash, so they die.
Take your left foot.
Can you plant the heel and tap like this?
You know, we always have to ask you this,
but you never answer, but...
I never do? Do what?
- Do you think his trajectory continues to go great
for 5 years, 10 years, 2 years?
- You can't dwell on how much more time,
you know, do I have at this level of function
because it's totally unpredictable.
- His range is narrowing.
His palate used to be rainbow colored,
and now it's kind of come down to shades of gray.
Chris was in a movie with Kirk Douglas,
and a friend of mine was trying to match me up.
They said, "This great guy, actor, very funny, red hair."
I said, "Nah, not so interested.
I'm having so much fun being single,
but I'd love another friend."
My plan didn't really work out.
But then when the movie came out, it was a small party,
and then we met at the doorway.
The doorbell was broken,
so we were just both standing there.
I said, "Oh, you must be a friend of Skip's."
- What's up?
- We found somebody we'd like to get to run
for that selectman's seat.
I don't need to tell you, it's a big honor.
- That's what they call it when you work hard
but you don't get paid.
- And then we, you know, dated a few times,
and then I said, look.
You know, maybe, I could fit you in like once a week,
and then we started seeing each other every day,
and then moved in together.
The sort of painful part for me,
I've got three kids.
They remember me when I didn't have it,
but it's getting on to the time
when they'll have more years with me with it
than without it.
That's good. - Wait, what are we making?
Pan roasted chicken with rosemary garlic?
- Salt, pepper, and wine.
- Salt, pepper,
and where would the wine be?
They have to live with a father
who could be a grandfather,
and, they've been absolutely terrific.
Okay, I'm gonna need some help here.
Oops! - Oh.
- I need to get some of these out.
- Here.
It's really full.
Pour it into that?
- Yeah, bud.
- That is so good.
It's amazing.
It's really good.
- Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right mind,
then it passes it over and I'm as lucid as before.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right senses,
then it passes off and I'm as intelligent as ever.
- That was your line?
These are all...
- These are all... Hmm.
Pure gold.
These are all lines
you really gotta listen to.
What's he doing?
He's crying, then he's living.
What Dad just said-
- What is Beckett known for? Observe?
- You're on Earth. There's no cure for that.
That was a line worthy of fame.
My kids have been unbelievably supportive.
But in terms of my family,
my wife, for the first six years of my being diagnosed,
was very angry.
What's sort of ironic
is she is the kind of positive, generous,
supportive of the two of us.
Nice dinner. Thank you.
It was good. Thanks Beth.
You gonna go for a walk?
I think so. I'm exhausted.
- You guys go ahead.
You go for a walk with Ron and Joanna.
- I think that Chris and Dan's resilience is incredible,
and the fact that they're still carving out
this beautiful, creative life,
but it comes at a cost.
He's not the guy I married.
- Wave to Mom. Wave.
His first swim by himself!
Wow.
- The biggest boy. Now, watch this.
- No, no.
- No, no, he says.
That means yes, yes.
Really? Ta-da.
- Ta-da.
I think that he definitely
has to put on a game face
in most simple tasks in life.
- This 109- - Oh no.
- So, that regular price.
And sir, when you're ready,
I'll actually have Louise check you out.
- Okay.
Yeah, I just realized that we're not open yet,
but if you give them a call and say that.
I think on Saturday morning, I won't be here,
but should be in the gym.
Otherwise just come in and pick it up Friday.
The Parkinson's I think,
kinda pulls him back to apathetic.
And he's not able to switch gears well,
and he's not able to complete tasks well,
and he's exhausted,
like when you're talking to him around dinner
and he falls asleep.
If he's asleep while I'm talking to him about my feelings,
it doesn't really matter.
Now you have to be the nurse to your sick spouse.
And I feel upset with myself
whenever I get impatient with him,
or say, "Come on, come on," you know?
I can't help it though.
And I feel sorry that I'm not more patient.
I feel sorry every day that I'm not like Mother Teresa.
With Chris and I,
we both fall into what we call power nap.
I mean, we're just like in the middle of the day just...
Go out.
I do it often.
What about that pee?
- I'm having it.
Ah, that's the spirit.
I'm a little worried that I start to play off asleep
on the stage.
And I'll be gone.
I'll be out.
He's up.
- Uppa!
- Da, da, da, da. - Up periscope.
- He's down again.
Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.
- He's up. Look at this guy.
Unbelievable.
You just take your medication?
- Just now.
But it hasn't kicked in yet.
He's all juiced up.
- I'm trying to get it kicked in.
You gotta move.
You gotta move and groove.
Move and groove, baby.
You gotta move your lips...
- Yes, is this Dr. Di Rocco's office?
I'll take the Thursday at four. I'll be there.
Okay. Talk to you in a soon.
Hi, Dan. How are you?
At Dr. DiRocco's office,
they make me fill out these forms.
How's the shaking? How's the balance? Have you fallen?
About what pills I'm taking.
Every time, the same one.
And I think they wanna see your handwriting too
because my handwriting's getting worse.
My handwriting's getting very tiny,
like it's supposed to get with Parkinson's,
and I say, "Can I just Xerox one from three months before?"
But, on a general scale of how I feel day to day,
it's like a roller coaster.
The thing is with Parkinson,
I have no freaking idea
what complications I'm gonna be hit with.
- Good. No change.
- I'm glad! I'm the same person.
- That's my friend.
- The only sorta new thing that dropped in
was some hallucinations.
Rats coming down on spider strings.
But you were asleep?
- In bed, and attacking Ruthie.
That's the first time I've had that.
- Technically, these are not hallucinations.
Okay.
So, these are-
- That's real? - It's real.
Good.
That was a reality.
- I'm glad.
- Those are dreams.
So, in Parkinson, you got dreams that are so vivid.
Yeah.
- That they become reality.
- Okay. - Usually,
we dream in silence when we dream
and we don't move, we don't talk.
- Right.
- When you have Parkinson, you talk, you move,
you act out your dreams.
It's a common, it's part of the little gifts that Parkinson-
Yeah, one of the many.
- When I was diagnosed, the doctor said,
basically, there's not gonna be any cure.
Maybe in 10, 15 years we'll have something.
I mean, like the way I was asking him,
"Will I be able to be normal again?
Will I be able to speak normally?
Will it come out the way I want it to?"
And he said, "Not soon enough."
- Ah!
Danny, his process in "Endgame" has been a little different.
He's been running lines and running lines and running lines,
and working until the wee hours almost on a daily basis.
I think he goes through the play probably twice every day.
It's taking a lot of time.
I mean, it is his main focus.
It's definitely been his main focus for, I'd say, a year.
- I'll tell you the combination of the cupboard
if you promise to finish me.
- But I couldn't finish you.
- Then you won't finish me.
- I'm leaving you. I have things to do.
- In your kitchen?
Sorry.
- Huh?
Do you remember when you came here?
- Oh, right.
Do you remember?
What was just before this? What was it?
I'll tell you the combination of the cupboard
if you-
- The last thing I've done,
I had like three speeches to start off with.
There's nobody on stage to give me lines, and I went dead,
and I just started looking at the audience.
And I found myself, for the first time, this was spooky,
not going like, "Oh, what's my line? What's my line?
Think of my line. Think of your line!"
Going over my lines like a mile a minute in my head.
Instead, I sat there, and I just went,
"Oh, look, there's Jim.
Oh, he's got a black shirt on. He didn't wear a tie.
He shoulda worn a tie to the play.
Oh, well. He's underdressed.
There's Mary Louise. Oh, she's a goofball.
Oh, God. I better think of this line."
And that was scary, to not even worry about it.
I'm not gonna be acting that much anymore.
I mean, I just can't.
I just can't do it.
I can't control my body or my voice.
And I'm losing my voice and I'm losing my body,
control of my body.
And that's what you use as an actor.
So, I don't see me doing much more.
So, I look at this as kind of like,
a goodbye to theater.
Which is sad,
because I thought I'd be doing it my whole life.
It's very weird.
I've lost that sense of identity.
I look at the wall.
The wall!
And what do you see on your wall?
Mene, mene?
Naked bodies?
I see my light dying.
You want a chair?
No?
- You know, when people tell me Chris is doing great,
I feel like, "Oh, yeah?
You should see him asleep at the computer,
you know, at 5 in the afternoon.
Or you should help him on with his shirt
at 6 in the morning.
You think he's doing so great?
He's not doing that great.
You know, I feel that there's the tyranny of,
who's the actor who has Parkinson's?
Michael J. Fox.
Michael J. Fox has put so much pressure on me
to be happy all the time with a spouse who has Parkinson's,
and you know, we don't have the endless supply
of sunshine, money, pharmaceuticals to keep us all happy.
That's back that there.
- This? - Uh-huh.
If that's the-Got it.
It's pretty good.
I try not to imagine, a future.
I used to imagine a future,
but I just kind of think, let's be where we are today.
I have a feeling it's gonna get difficult,
but I don't know that.
I just don't know.
I don't know.
- I'm just not here.
You know, I mean, I've been inhabited by another person,
and I don't know who that person is, you know?
I mean, I'm still trying to learn who he is.
This gaped mouth, this guy I see in the window.
You know, it's not fair.
I mean...
On the minimum ladder, or an actual ladder
because the problem,
you know, when he's on an eight-foot ladder, it's great
because there's so many
Ladder.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- It's awkward. I mean, physically, it's awkward.
So, the 9th of July is the loading time.
Robert, we'll talk in a few minutes about props
and what the designs Robert's been thinking about.
Yeah.
I think we should decide first on the floor,
and then decide what the windows solution is.
Chris, one of the things that we're talking about
is hanging the windows without a wall.
Oh, are they all painted black in the back?
Mm-hmm.
They're covered with canvas and painted black.
Oh, they're covered with canvas?
- Yeah. - Oh.
He wants the corner blocks to show.
- I'm just wondering if the whole day's kind of sunk
into talking about tech.
- No, we're not. 10 minutes.
And I told him, I said, "We gotta rehearse."
- If the windows were down here along,
or on the same line as the window.
Yes. Yeah.
Whereas us, we don't have that same...
We thought we'd have like two weeks to run,
every day, for two weeks.
That's not happening.
Because Chris and I,
you know, we're very rarely on the same medication.
So, when I'm feeling good, he's feeling bad,
or we're both feeling bad.
I want a bacon burger and a Coke and a water.
"Me to play."
"Old Stauncher."
"Can there be misery..."
We ran yesterday, and that was okay,
but it was very, very rough.
And the first 10 pages totally sucked.
From the beginning, I'm saying, I need to run the show
because I have the most lines.
I need to run the whole thing.
I can't like, cut loose, unless I know I know the lines.
I know the lines, then I can play.
But if I don't know the fucking lines, I can't play.
- There's a lot of anxiety about lines.
Running lines is actually getting to be a little compulsive.
But again, it's not me that has to stand up there
and be able to, you know, play with the words.
He was offered a job as a gardener.
What is so funny about that?
A job as gardener.
- Is that what tickles you?
It must be that.
- Ah. Ah.
"Me to play."
11:59 A.M.
Unless he emailed me from his phone. Wait.
I don't know. I don't know.
Ah. Christopher?
Chris. So, what happened?
What do you mean?
- Well, we were called at 12.
I thought it was 1.
- No. In fact, you were the one that changed it yesterday.
Oh, you thought it was 1?
- Yeah. - Okay.
- I had 1 written down.
- Yeah. All right. We changed it to 12 yesterday.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
- Katie, take out the lights and let's give it a go.
- Line. - Clov.
Go to the chair, Chris.
- Line. - Clov.
- Yes?
- Nature has forgotten us.
- There's no more nature.
- No more nature?
You exaggerate.
In the vicinity.
- Time enough.
Line.
Give me my pain.
- Give me my painkillers.
It's too soon.
She has no pulse.
What was she blathering about?
She told me to go away into the desert.
Damn busybody. Is that all?
You lost?
- Line.
What are you insinuating?
- What are you insinuating,
that the place is still inhabited?
No.
No, not a soul, except for himself and the child,
assuming he existed.
Line.
Good. I inquired about...
- Good.
I inquired about Kov.
I inquired about the situation at Kov, beyond the gulf.
Line.
Bring me under...
- So, I'm the problem.
Great.
Was it a concentration thing, do you think,
or was it a cognitive thing, or a medication thing?
Or just, you went up and then you started thinking?
- There's just so much fucking words.
- Yeah, there are. You know them.
You know the mass majority of, you know them.
You know that section.
You just, you went up.
- Fuck.
Don't worry, man.
Not to worry.
Don't feel bad at all.
You're a monster.
You've done a great thing.
It's just the beginning. Don't feel bad.
I'm fucking it up.
You're not fucking it up.
It's like you're taking batting practice, right?
And they're pitching, and just keep swinging.
- I can't seem to enjoy myself out there.
We're not doing this. We're done.
- Don't fret. Come on.
He's gonna do it.
- Sometimes you just have to be upset.
- Yeah, I guess so.
I think what Beckett's trying to say
is that we gotta get to this kinda stuff.
This is a play about overcoming, not a play about caving.
You know, we gotta go on, you know what I mean?
We go on. He says it a million times, we go on.
That's kind of the interesting,
you know, aspect that's really good.
It allows us to really feel all this shit,
and then move on.
Clov?
Yes?
Do you not think this has gone on long enough?
Yes.
What?
This. This thing.
I've always thought so.
You not?
Then it's a day like any other day.
As long as it lasts.
Samuel Beckett in "Endgame"
is pretty much telling the same,
"I can't go on, I'll go on."
But the food's gone. The rations are gone.
It all looks, it looks grim for our boys,
but there's always tomorrow.
There's always another day. So, you never know.
I think the whole trick
is to get you off on the right foot
because I know what's gonna happen.
You're gonna get about a dozen laughs at the beginning,
and that's gonna set you up.
'Cause I notice it, it really affects you guys,
- you know what I mean? - Yeah.
- It really makes you feel happier.
- Feel a little good. - And you start to enjoy it.
- Both hams.
There always tends to be strange up and downs
just before audiences come in.
I don't know what it is about forgetting the lines.
I don't know why I'm so scared of it.
I guess 'cause I don't want the audience
to feel uncomfortable.
But it's probably more about me.
It's probably more about me being afraid
of being caught with my pants down.
My fear was that I would be a black hole.
My energy would suck the play into a nothingness.
- Ruthie was asking me, she said, "Isn't it fun?"
And I said, "Well, yeah.
I said, but you know,
the guy is talking about the end of his life."
I said, "There's shit I gotta say
that I have to mean and be a part,
that is not fun to touch,"
especially, you know, with Parkinson's and all that shit,
and feeling like I'm gonna die.
- Half hour. Has everybody medicated up?
Have a good time. I think that it's gonna just be great.
- In Endgame, Beckett says, "There'll come a time
when you'll say, "I'm tired. I'll sit down,"
then you'll go and sit down,
and then you'll say, "I'm hungry.
I'll get up and get something to eat," but you won't get up.
And you'll say, "I shouldn't have sat down,
but since I have, I'll sit down a little longer,
then I'll get up and get something to eat."
But you won't get up and get something to eat.
You'll look at the wall a while.
You'll say, "I'll close my eyes,
perhaps have a little sleep, then I'll feel better,"
and you'll close them, and when you open them again,
there'll be no wall anymore.
Infinite emptiness will be all around you.
All the resurrected dead of all the ages wouldn't fill it,
and there you'll be,
like a little bit of grit in the middle of a steppe."
It's perfect.
Now, that's the shit I read, and I go,
"Yeah, yeah, you got it, man."
You're talking a language.
You know, that's what it's like.
Just checking on both of you.
I figured, yeah, I'll check on them.
If it gets too much, we'll go with
Okay. Great.
You guys ready?
- Ladies and gentlemen, the house is open!
There's all kinds of odd invasions of the mind
just before audiences come in.
It's so weird how it happens.
I should've known after acting for 40 years.
I used to get very concerned about it,
but now I realize,
that's where the real communication happens.
Audiences change the whole equation.
- "Me to play."
- How do you feel?
- I don't complain.
- Do you feel normal?
- I tell you, I don't complain.
- I feel a little strange.
Clov. - Yes?
- Have you not had enough?
Yes.
Of what?
- This is not much fun.
- There's your dog for you.
- He hit me.
- You drive me mad. I'm mad!
- If you must hit me, hit me with the ax, not the dog.
With the gaff or with the ax.
- Nothing is funnier than unhappiness,
I grant you that, but...
- What about having a good guffaw together, the two of us?
- Oh, I couldn't guffaw again today.
- Old stauncher.
You remain.
Thanks for this.
- Thank you.
You did such a great job.
Obliged.
- Beyond my wildest imagination.
I'm just so moved by their response.
Brilliant.
- Brilliant. Brilliant. - Brilliant.
- I'm sorry for catching you with your trousers down.
But that's a very
Beckett moment.
It was the clearest I've ever known the play to be.
It made complete sense.
When I commit to a project,
one of the things that I'm sort of curious about
is who will I meet in the person of me?
And I was pretty proud of
who I found on this one.
One of the reasons I wanted to do "Endgame"
was because I thought that would be a sweet show
to end my career on.
If this is the last play I ever do, I'll be happy with that.
I don't think it is.