death of the empty space....

A LETTER TO MISHA BERSON, THE SEATTLE TIMES DRAMA REVIEWER

Dear Misha,
I note among your recent pieces the absence of a memoralization of Richard Gilman, the foe of an illusionist theater. Perhaps you saw the one on the NY Times Obituary pages; a good one. Dick would have said more than "edgy" for what the once-upon "Empty Space" did during its first encampment. "Kaspar" merely edgy"? Meself thinks the "empty space" might have imploded about 15 years or so ago, when I first beheld its bloatedness in Fremont. Nothing short of a North Korean missile cum warhead will ever put Seattle back into the original in Hamburg in 1945. How many 100 Ks can you pour into an outfit that so long ago lost its way? And by way of the stint of a circus director from Kentucky? Not that Peter Brook has not lost his way too, by way of a visit to the money bags of Shah Pahlevi, but at least you can go to the Buffe du Nord and be mesmerized by some extraordinary actors in that grand ruin with memories of the amphi-theater spilling into its rink. From the Greek venues to the Roman lions den to the "empty space" of the Buffe du Nord... Meanwhile, since first look at what had become of the "empty space" 15 years ago I have made acquaintance with most of the members of its founding cast, and though they all have their points, as which pointer doesn't, they are all characterologically and therefore also artistically severely deficient. Thus theater in Seattle. Also you seem to leave out Downey, in many ways a miserable person, yet one of the few hereabouts... but then really is a food critic at heart.

i tried contacting the last artistic director when she appared on the scene, since she expressed interest in linking up with the original E.S., and I suggested their finally doing Handke's PUBLIC INSULT, since the E.S. had never got around to it... the director had fallen ill...the director has been ill for a long time... and will never recover in seattle...