that I knew something was up with The V.I.P.s — the film just seemed a little better than the trash it should be, and lo and behold, it was written by Terence Rattigan. He is one of my favourite writers -- but not well respected these days. He is perhaps most famous for The Browning Version, which has a gay subtext, as all of his plays do. (Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea was apparently about his abusive relationship with a young British actor named Kenneth Morgan, who committed suicide not long after Rattigan broke up with him.) Rattigan is the master of the understatement — the kind of poetry that happens when people say not exactly what they mean, while in the throes of emotion. There is abuse in The V.I.P.s, and there is understatement, but even though Margaret Rutherford got an Academy Award for the film (and she is delightful as always) it’s Maggie Smith who should have won. She is mesmerising in her scenes with the chesty, tight-pantsed Rod Taylor. It’s a cliched role — the purse-lipped, dowdy secretary, madly in love with her handsome boss. In the best scene she’s trying to get some money out of Richard Burton to save Rod, and Burton casually asks her if she is in in love with her boss. She denies it, and says she is only doing this for Rod's 'corporation,' and Burton glacially delivers the one line in the film truly worthy of Rattigan at his best: “It’s a wonderful company. They make wonderful tractors.” I don’t know what else to say about this rather silly film. You know what’s coming when you first meet Orson Welles and someone yells out out ”Overweight!” in his general direction; he turns politely and says -- “Oh, you mean the luggage — yes!” The stars are being stars, and Liz and Richard were apparently in the first months of their affair. Burton is much more attractive than I remember him (well this is 1963) and Liz is — well what can one say? I won’t say she is a bad actress, but it’s more like, after you’ve seen her earth-shattering decolletage, you can’t help but think quietly to yourself that it is surprising that she can also act. In the final very dramatic scenes with Richard Burton it is unfortunate that she is being eaten by her hat, which resembles a felt trash-bucket. The bizarre thing is she does look beautiful in it, and in everything else. And again, it’s more a case of — how in heaven’s name does she manage that? I had a very good time with my therapist today, even though the session was, for most of it, quite content-less. When you have been going to a therapist as long as I have — well, I started when I had my first anxiety attack at age 18. That was enough for me; sheer terror, I was immobile with fear, and though Adam's Rib helped, and my mother tried also, the only thing was for me to sit opposite a rather seedy looking man with greasy hair who tried to talk me out of my homosexuality. You’ll be pleased to know that he quite succeeded in his quest, for a time. You’d think that would have put me off therapists — but it didn’t. I had another kind of breakdown in the late 80s (all the fame went to my head I guess) and I went to a gay shrink (never go to a gay shrink, if you are gay) who turned out to be a playwright. This was traumatic for me, as everyone in my life was kind of a playwright at that time, I didn’t need one sitting at the end of the fainting couch, pen in hand. Then I had another gay therapist who was in love with an actor I knew; he began to use the sessions to find out more about the object of his obsession. It all became too much; I went off therapists for awhile (what got me through, honestly was listening to Michael Jackson’s 'Man in the Mirror' over and over again. I don’t know what that says about me, or more importantly. what it says about Michael Jackson). Then in 1996 I decided to leave Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and I needed someone to help, and she was the best therapist of my life — Dr. Madigan — a kind of therapist to the stars -- some of the actors I knew went to her -- she really was very good. Then nothing. Until at one point until my forever lover (presently nagging me about getting a new refrigerator) demanded I get a therapist, because he couldn’t handle how screwed up I was. I loved him so I got the present therapist, who is South African and reminds me of Cathleen Nesbitt (remember Cary Grant’s mother in An Affair to Remember?). She in fact is Cathleen Nesbitt, or perhaps a reincarnation of her, which reassures me. Anyway, today I realised I was just treating her like a friend and telling her all the wonderful things in my life (i.e. nothing, but it made be feel better to make things up) and then I realised that the session was becoming unproductive, and I said so. And then she said ‘but it doesn’t have to be productive’ which is the kind of revelation that rocks my world, let me tell you. If I’m not writing a play or a novel or a book about Shakespeare -- or arranging a play reading, or reviewing some stupid old movie, if I am not in my own mind moving ahead then I am falling down the dark dank hole of no return. There are two kinds of people in this stupid pandemic, those who embrace indolence (what could be better than jerking off, then watching Netflix and then jerking off again, only this time, stoned?) and then there are people like me, who if they cannot imagine that they are productive every goddamn second of their stupid life get all antsy and suicidal. My therapist made me realise that there is nothing I can do about anything. The lock down is, as I observed many times, like being sentenced to life in prison -- especially in Ontario, where Doug Ford can’t raise himself off his fat ass long enough to figure out if any of us has a future . If I was sent to prison it would be necessary for me to become The Birdman of Alcatraz -- if not I would feel fundamentally deficient, when I might really just want to lie back and look at the ceiling. Although I think I would still jerk off occasionally, which is — beyond being a quite necessary ‘little death'— productive in its own sticky way.
