IN THE FIX
133
Does any of us want something more than that? The "flash" may
be
a new girl, a new thought, a new job, a new compliment; what
is the difference between these and the connection the people we
watch are waiting for? And you will wonder:
Am
I different from
these junkies? Do I aim at more than a few sensations, and
if
I
think I do, isn't this because I have shored up my pride and health
against
ruin
with a number of platitudes? Can you answer these
questions?
If
you can, you'll be able to get up and leave the play at
its most exciting moment, which,
by
the way, is not terribly excit–
ing. But if you cannot answer these questions (and how many
can?) then you will have to stay to the very end, which is long in
coming, and scarcely distinguishable from the beginning.
The Con–
nection
is a moral trap; but nowadays people like to get caught.
Why not?
What adds to the play's power is that the characters are so
like other people, though in such a different situation from most
people. The junkies of
The Connection
are no "invalids of happi–
ness." They are not people who have paid a great price for a great
joy;
if
they were
J
they would be on a higher level than their audi–
ence; they would have a right to be on the stage. They don't have
that right, in fact, except that Jack Gelber was cunning enough to
put them there. There ensconced, they dominate, mainly
by
being so similar to the people watching them, which means also to
you.
How many plays ask a real question as this one does? The
answer is evident, and makes of
The Connection
something out–
standing. I must add, too, that it is brilliantly directed and admir–
ably played. It lacks incident, but why should there be any in such
a work? I must add, too, that there are some Pirandellian details-–
I mean the playwright, producer and cameramen who intrude on
the junkies to harass and photograph them-which are not in keep–
iDg
with the general spirit of the work, and are, if the author will
forgive me, plain dumb. Certainly a better way to involve the audi–
ence with happenings on the stage would have been for Cowboy to
lIIIlounce that anyone seated in the theatre had a right to a shot
of
''horse.'' Actors could have been stationed in the audience who
