RAUSCH ENBERG
103
INTERVIEWER:
So then you find a direct formal equation between your
theater and your life?
RAUSCHENBERG:
I hope so, between working and living, because those
are our media.
INTERVIEWER :
You would believe, then, that if we became accustomed
to this chancier kind of theater, we would become accustomed, then,
to the chancier nature of our own life.
RAUSCHENBERG :
I think we are most accustomed to it in life. Why should
art be the exception to this? You asked if I had a moral objection. I
do, because I think we do have this capacity I'm talking about. You
find that an extremely squeamish person can perform fantastic deeds
because it is an emergency.
If
the laws have a positive function, if
they could have, it might be just that - to force someone to behave
in a way he has not behaved before, using the facilities he was
actually born with. Growing up in a world where multiple distractions
are the only constant, he would be able to cope with new situations.
But, what I found happening to people in the Navy was that once
they were out of service and out of these extraordinary situations, they
reverted to the same kind of thinking as before. I think it is an
exceptional person who utilizes that experience. That's because in
most cases the service is not a chosen environment; it is somebody
else's life that they're functioning in, instead of recognizing the fact
that it is still just them and the things they are surrounded by.
INTERVIEWER:
SO you would object to anyone who finds the Navy an
unnatural life.
RAUSCHENBERG:
It
is a continuation of extraordinary situations. We
begin by not having any say over who our parents are ; our parents
have no control over the particular peculiar mixture of the genes.
INTERVIEWER:
Looking back over your involvement with theater, do you
see any kind of development, aside from the obvious development that
you have now become the author of your own theater pieces, rather
than a contributor to somebody else's? Also, do you see any develop–
ment in your company of more or less regular performers?
RAUSCHENBERG:
Well, that last is mostly a social thing of people with
a common interest, and we have tended to make ourselves available
as material to each other. It is in no way an organized company, and
it changes from time to time - people move in and out. However,
where a play could be cast with different actors and you would still
get the same play, if I was not in constant touch with these people, I
could not do those pieces. The whole concept would have to be
changed, if I had new performers - if I let Doris Day take Mary
