LIONEL
AIEL
would respond, and we would have been fascinated by the
p0ssi–
bility of being in the fix too.
Heroin, I understand, does not induce beautiful dreams
as
opium and hasheesh do; this is not a drug for aesthetes; Baude–
laire would not have favored it. Heroin is the drug of hi-jacken
and band players; a Faustian drug, then, one which adds risk
to
risk, danger to danger, exhilaration to action. Certainly this
par.
ticular drug seems consonant with the character of the times; it
is
not eccentric to take it while taking hasheesh or opium would
be.
Curiously enough, if we are normal people, not too odd,
we
have already opted for heroin even
if
we never take it. For if
we
were to become addicts, this would be our drug. Our lives
turn
toward it, and away from the more "aesthetic" drugs. So
stiD
another question is asked by the play: Why don't we too
take
heroin? We are, in fact, connected with it.
Not that there
is
any propaganda in this work in favor of
ad·
diction, for there is none of that. And thank God, there is no moral
cant either; no moralizing
a
la Broadway. Nobody is shown on
the
stage in a state of torment because he would like to give up
taking
heroin. The torment of these people, and ours, too, insofar as
we
identify ourselves with them, is that for the space of more than
two
hours there is absolutely nothing else to take but heroin. Only
that
As
the effect of heroin relates to action rather than to con·
templation, so the play's focus is on moral, rather than on aesthetic
values. Certainly there is little beauty on The Living Theatre stage;
no pleasure at all to the eye, little in the language spoken. There
is
the thrilling music at times, to be sure, but even this is disturoing.
It too suggests the drug which is to be or has been taken. Why
go
to see such a play? Why expose oneself to the nagging question:
what's better than "horse"? Speak up.
I think it is the moral difficulty one feels in answering
that
gives this play its fascination. But to be fascinated is to admit
to
being without goal or purpose, to
be
unable to justify one's
un–
drugged and apparently directed actions. Fascination or pride,
we prefer fascination.
So the play judges its spectators, and the latter's judgment
cl
