Taming

Andre Gregory :

“….And then one day, in the early fall...

I was out in The Country,

walking in a field...

and I suddenly heard 

A Voice say, "Little Prince".

Of course, The Little Prince

was a book that I always thought of

as disgusting, childish treacle.

But still, I thought, 

“Well, you know, if 

A Voice comes to me in a field --

-- this was the first voice 

I had ever heard --

-- Maybe I should go 

and read The Book.

Now, that same morning 

I'd got a letter from a young woman

who'd been in my group in Poland.

And in her letter she'd written,

"You have dominated me." --

--You know, she spoke very awkward English.

-- so, she'd gone 

to The Dictionary,

and she'd crossed out 

The Word "dominated"...

and she'd said, 

"No. The correct word 

is "Tamed".

And then, 

when I went to Town

and Bought The Book 

and started to read it, 

I saw that "taming" was 

The Most Important Word 

in The Whole Book.

By the end of the book, 

I was in tears, 

I was so moved 

by The Story.

And then I went and tried to write

An Answer to her letter 'cause 

she'd written Me a very long letter.

But I just couldn't find the right words, 

so finally I took my hand...

I put it on a piece of paper,

I outlined it with a pen...

and I wrote in the centre, something

like, "Your Heart is in My Hand."

....something like that.

Then I went over to 

my brother's house 

to swim 'cause he lives nearby 

in The Country and 

he has a pool.

And he wasn't home. 

I went into His Library...

and he had bought at an auction

the collected issues of Minotaure.

You know, the surrealist magazine? 

Oh, it's a great, great surrealist 

magazine of the '20s and '30s.

And I never, you know,

I consider myself 

a bit of a surrealist.

I had never, ever seen 

a copy of Minotaure.

And here they all were,

bound, year after year.

So, at random,

I picked one out, 

I opened it up...

and there was a 

full-page reproduction 

of the letter ‘A’ from 

Tenniel's Alice in Wonderland.

And I thought that, 'Well, you know,

it's been A Day of Coincidences...

but that's not unusual that 

The Surrealists would have 

been interested in Alice...

And I did A Play of Alice,

So at random, I opened to another page... 

and there were four handprints.

One was André Breton,

another was André Derain...

The Third was André - I've got it 

written down somewhere.

It's not Malraux. 

It's, like, someone...

Another of The Surrealists.

All A's, and the fourth

was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

who wrote The Little Prince.

And they'd shown these handprints

to some kind of expert,

without saying whose 

hands they belonged to.

And under Exupéry's, it said that 

He was An Artist,

with very powerful eyes,

who was A Tamer 

of Wild Animals.

I thought, "This is 

incredible, you know."

And I looked back to see

when the issue came out :

It came out on the newsstands

May 12th, 1934...

and I was born during the day

of May 11,1934.

So, well, that's what started me on,

Saint-Exupéry and 

The Little Prince.

Now, of course today...

today I think there's a very fascistic 

thing under The Little Prince.

You know, I...

Well, no, I think 

there's a kind of...

I think a kind of S.S.-totalitarian

sentimentality in there somewhere.

You know, there's something, 

you know, that… that love of...

Well, that masculine love

of a certain kind 

of oily muscle.

You know what I mean?

I mean, I can't quite 

put my finger on it.

But I can just imagine

some beautiful S.S.-Man 

loving The Little Prince.

Now, I don't know why, but there's

something wrong with it. It stinks.

Wally Shawn :

Well, didn't George tell Me that You were gonna 

Do A Play that was based on The Little Prince?

Hmm. Well, what happened, Wally was 

that fall I was in New York and 

I met this young Japanese Buddhist priest 

named Kozan and I thought He was Puck 

from the Midsummer Night's Dream --

You know, he had this 

beautiful, delicate smile.

I thought He was 

The Little Prince.

So, naturally, I decided to 

go off to The Sahara Desert

to work on The Little Prince

with two actors and 

this Japanese monk.

Wally Shawn :

You did?

Well, I mean, I was still in 

a very peculiar state 

at that time, Wally.