In my last post – no, last-but-one – I said I wanted to care less and fail better. That was an allusion to the famous quote from Samuel Beckett, which goes: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Of course we all want to succeed, and we all need to eat, and there are different kinds of success. But, reading one of my favourite book blogs, The Sheila Variations, I just encountered a story that made me happy.
Sheila writes:
“I was involved in a production of Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy in Chicago. It was a wonderful production, but it did not generate an audience.
We had read somewhere that William Hurt was looking for a theatre company to be involved in. He missed the stage. We weren’t just a random group of actors happy to have jobs – we were an ensemble, a company – so we sent a note to his agency, inviting him to come see Golden Boy.
Well – he did come – with his assistant – and on the night he showed up to see it, we had NO audience. Not ONE OTHER PERSON showed up. It was so mortifying. But we did the entire 3-act play solely for William Hurt and his assistant – as though there were a full house. It was one of the weirdest theatrical experiences I have ever had. On any other night, we would have CANCELED if only 2 people showed up … but this was William Hurt! Flown in from Los Angeles!
We were all very embarrassed. We came out for our curtain call, mortified at making him come all that way to see this obvious failure. And he was sitting there, clapping, (an odd lonely sound – 2 people clapping in a big empty theatre) – and he had tears running down his face.
Afterwards, we all sat around in the lobby of the theatre with William Hurt, and talked about theatre, the state of the theatre, and acting – until 3 or 4 in the morning.
He needed a ride back to his hotel. Michael, one of the actors in the show, offered him a ride with the rest of us, in his pick-up truck.
So I sat in the back of a rickety pick-up truck with William Hurt, as we drove through the quiet dark streets of Chicago, my hair blowing like crazy, William Hurt was just beaming – and laughing in exhilaration – He looked so happy.
He hugged all of us good-bye, holding on to each one of us so tight – He said that we had made him believe in the possibility of good theatre again in this country.
It is a night I will never forget: laughing and screaming “Whoo-hoo!!” into the wind with William Hurt, crouched in the back of a battered pick-up truck.”
3 Comments
January 5, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Lovely story, absolutely lovely. Hit every last note I needed to hear at the start of this try-and-likely-fail year because damn it I’m trying anyway!
January 6, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Where did he write that? Say that? Beckett, I mean.
January 6, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Okay just one more comment:
This is my new favorite story.